UPDATE

Ive revised and updated all my forum blogs.

Forum Week 4

Why say something in 10 mintues when i can say it in 5? This was the question of my CC task. Because its more economic and interesting. If you can tell people as much interesting information in a short ammount of time, without totally bombarding them with information, you keep their interest and dont waste their time. This is one of my philopsophies. Things only need to be as long as they need to be. This is one quarm i have with avant-garde music. I wouldn't be so disinterested in it if it wasn't always so long. I understand that in many of these piece, time is a factor of the artistic outcome. Phillip Glass's minimal organ works is a good example of this. Playing with ostinato and the listener hearing different patterns in this over time. But i find that a lot of this music is for the artist, not the listener, which is why these pieces are so long. Maybe i just dont get it, but lengthening these peices arnt making them more appealing.

CC performance

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Forum Week 6

Mash-ups are a genre that have taken my attention in the past. I see them as a clever musical exercise, not something that produces some great artistic outcome. The mash-ups shown in class i wasn't very impressed with, and the only ones that sounded good were mash-ups done by other artists. What i did like however was the common thread that one song shared with the next, perhaps a common word in the chorus of one song would be the name the next song, but apart from this i found most of it was clumsy and unprofessional. For somebody that has access to the whole BBC library, the least she could do is mix them as seamlessly as possible. It could be argued that this wasn't her goal, not to mix them seamlessly, but i ask why? When i listen to mash-ups, i tend to listen to artists like "The Kleptones."

http://www.kleptones.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptones

CC2 Week 6 MIDI Keys Final

It all comes together, this week took the longest by far. But ultimately rewarding, a program of my own. Ive included help files and documentation inside the .rar file. so there shouldn't be too much confusion. Ive also included an easily read .pat file. It isn't an exact replica of the final product, but it 'spells' out whats happening and where objects are connected.

One issue occurs on start up, there is a rendering error with the GUI image, but this is simply overcome by just locking and unlocking the max patch.

The GUI was a bit of fun to make, it gave me an insight into how hard it is to design software GUI.

The .rar file is in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Midi Keys". Adelaide University. 10/4/08

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Week 6 Violin Recording

This week i managed to get my friend Myriam in to record her violin. I found this instrument quite easy to record, mainly to do with the massive mic selection that i had to choose from. These being 2 U87s, 2 NT5s, SM58, AKG, NT3, and the Sennheiser Shotgun mic. The NT3 and the U87s captured the best sounds and i heavily relied on them in the mixes, the AKG also had a lot of promise as well. I did little Eq on the mixes, only a little on the already high top end on the NT3 to add more presence to the mix. The U87 that was positioned in the room about 5 or 6 meters away gave a fantastic result, it wasn't too muddy and could be a decent amount of the mix. The files are just playing around with different mic combos. Check them out in the box Widget.

References:

Grice, David. Lecture "String Recording". Adelaide University. 8/4/08

Robjohns, Hugh. Sound on Sound magazine. "Strings Attached". April 1999

White, Paul. Creative Recording 2. "Stringed Insruments." AA2 Readings.

Forum Week 5

I can see how Pierre Henry is a very important figure in electronic music, but ultimately, i don't get it, I must really be missing something. I understand that alot of the techniques delevoped by Henry and Schaeffer pioneered many of the contemporary electronic conventions of music we use today, but their music just doesn't appeal, it has no 'rhythm' that i can fall into, possibly they wanted me to feel frustrated by this music. Don't get me wrong, they make some pretty wicked sounds, but as much as i try to see it as music, i struggle to believe this. This is Sound Art, not music, music to me has common idoms to follow and recognizeable patterns. Perhaps in the future as electronic music is more embraced by the public, perhaps these idioms and patterns will swing towards Henry and Schaeffer musical goals, but i really dont see this happening.

Their music is however being used is one of the most popular cartoon series at the moment, "Futurama." His song "Psyche' Rock" is Futurama's theme song. So perhaps their music will become part of the common music Idioms

CC2 Week 5

I initially struggled with this patch, but once i had figured out the basic concepts, what objects to use and how to connect them, it was smooth sailing. It was just a simple breaking down the problem to the lowest denominator. The 5 tap delay is defiantly too long winded and could be cut down, but I'm unsure how to do this and this was the best method that i could think of. The filter was a simple argument function and gating system, the gates are fantastic by the way, especially since u can use the 0 off 1 on function. And finally the shortcuts was a discovery, learning what each of the used keystrokes numbers were and assigning them to a switch or bang. The Shortcuts are 'f' for the black key filter, 'd' for the delay, 'b' for switching the pitch bend on and off and 'p' for the panic button. The more i play with this program, the more i love it!

Check out the patch in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. "Midi Keys 3". Lecture. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Week 5 Sax Recording

I am quite pleased with this weeks result. The sound captured and the mics used i was very happy with. The only issue was with the 1st recording, the sound of the valves clicking was a little intrusive. With a small movement of the mics, the U87 and U89i, closer to the bell of the sax eliminated this annoying clicking. The NT5s in stereo gave a great presence and natural sound. The 414 was again pretty useless, however i have it in a few of the mix downs as i found it added a good mid range to the natural presence that the NT5s offered. When i do any more sax recordings, i will use a set up very similar to this.

Check out the recording in the Box widget.

With the recordings you can see the progression, removing clicks, adding EQ, finding the right mix ballence.

References:

Grice, David. "Wind Recording". Lecture. Adelaide University. 3/4/08.

Gemmell, Kenith. "Recording brass and woodwind". Method Magazine. 6/4/03

Robjohns, Hugh. "Recording Brass and Reeds". Sound on Sound Magazine. Jan 1999.

CC2 Week 4 MIDI Keys (2)

Now this is starting to get interesting, this is something that I'm excited about, using input devices and customising how they operate max. This is where i imagine having 4 synths in front of me and a control surface with faders and switches controlling my own max instrument or effect chain. TOTAL CONTROL!!! Here is the video of what I've done. As you will see, I've placed the cursor inside the screen to show that I'm using an external device to control the parameters.




Check out the patch in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. "MIDI Keys (2)". Lecture. Adelaide University. 27/3/08.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation