Forum Week1

The Victorian synth i found rather childish and simple, i can see how basic thoerys of sound can be discovered, and is a beginning to creating electronic instruments, but still, i found it uninspiring. I have created an mp3 file of some of my sounds.

My ideas for my electronic instrument are still in their early stages, but i am thinking of using a calculator, or somthing with buttons to activate souds and timbres. But still in their early stages.

My favourite sound is the high pitched screeching this is a fantastic demonstration of frequency and how speakers create sounds.

Here is the mp3 file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Audio1_01.mp3

Once again, like my CC blog, my photos have corrupted, i will update this ASAP

CC1 Week 1

Plogue's Bidule is a great inteface for using effects and audio processing. Although the effects and processing are nothing special, and can be found in many audio programs, its the visual modular representation that makes the sequence of audio process that makes it so easy to use and understand. In addition to this, the open ended progaming format that allows you to break the rules and simply, 'do what you want.' What surprised me was its recognition of Cakewalk Project 5's Rewire devices. I was able to use Project 5 and the audio output from the program was redirected through Bidule.

The sound i created is a distorted organ, with many stereo delays. It creates a great atmosphere of sound, however is very hard to control, the distortion can be difficult to get a hold of, and any slightly dissonant harmonies clash.

Here is the mp3 file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/WickedOrgan_0002.mp3

Here is the Bidule file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/HardOrgan.bidule

MY image file of the bidule setup has been corrupted and i will update this ASAP.

AA1 Week 1

Sound design has much more classification than originally thought. The piece that i have chosen is non-diegetic, and would be classified as mood music. This music comes from the game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and is composed by Harry Gregson Williams, who i believe has mastered the ability to marry film and game music to create a fantastic gaming environment. The title of the piece is 'Escape through the Woods' and is played while moving through the forest, as the name suggests. It contains elements of purely musical elements and non musical non-diegtic elements to create the atmosphere of the woods, the high flute trills and runs are more so there to represent the native instruments of primitive people who might live in the forests. There are also other miscellaneous sounds to represent this too. In addition to this the initial rhythm is very relaxing and unobtrusive, much like movie music. Later on the music increases tempo, this was composed so the music programmer could join the creeping music to the alarmed music seamlessly.

Also the use of the electric guitar riff, which in isolation seems out of place, reminds us of the time period, this being the late 60s.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/29_EscapethroughtheWoods.mp3

References:

Diegetic Sound; Non-Diegetic Sound, 2006,
http://www.filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm#diegetic.

Thom, Randy. 1999, Designing A Movie For Sound, 2006,
http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm.


Sound Design, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_design.

CC Major Assignment 'Music Concrete for the Common Man'

I made lost of changes from my initial compositional plan to the final result. Initially i was only going to use the vocal samples that we created over the previous weeks, however i only used the paper sounds because i believe that offered better rhythmic sounds.

I am very proud of my concept. Relating Music Concrete to pop/rock. It is something that hasn't been done before and yet still keeps within the bounds of Music Concrete.

Another plan change was the use of instruments. Initially i was going to use very short samples to create an instrument and a melody, however after playing with this for a while i realized that it didn't represent Music Concrete and wasn't staying true to the proper form.

I made my score applicable to anybody that wishes to make a Music Concrete piece in the form of a pop song. Its not the sounds that are important to the concept, its the form and the idea that it is based on repeating riffs and another continually changing sound to counteract this which represents vocals.

Overall lost of fun to play with, and i learnt a lot about the nature of Music Concrete just by playing around with the sounds.

Here is the Mixdown
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/MusicConcrete.mp3

Here is the analysis document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Analysis.doc

Pre production
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProductionComp.doc

Program note
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/ProgramNote.doc

Score
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/MusicConcretefortheCommonManScore.pdf

AA Major Assignment 'Way to Fall' by Star Sailor

The whole recording and production process was very enjoyable. Luckily for me my song didn't require many effects and therefore many laborious hours weren't spent perfecting a delay for example. The one thing that i wish i had experienced was recording a whole band at the same time, rather than piece mealing each part when i could find the time. I'm still undecided which part of the whole process that i enjoyed the most. The recording process is definitely lots of fun, but can be very frustrating when something isn't right, for example the vocals have a natural compressed sound and the snare doesn't sound as good as it should. Although i had these problems, they didn't affect the final sound. I found it amazing that you don't need a perfect recording to get a perfect result. For example, when Amy was singing, she was very tired and there were a few timing and emphasis issues. To get over these i simply moved the word to get into time, and/or i replaced the word with the same one of another take or even from earlier on in the song.

I also found out about the regular occurrence of flukes while recording. When recording the Piano tracks there was a mistake, a very low cluster of notes was hit on accident. However when listening to it, it came at the perfect place and works great with the vocals. It also adds a personal touch to the song. Another fluke was with the overdrive guitar, it didnt require any additional production.

Overall lots of fun and have learnt many valuable lessons for when i do another recording of this sort.

Here is the Mixdown Mp3 http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/WayToFallDougFinal.mp3

Here is the PreProduction Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProduction.doc

Here is the Recording Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Recording.doc

Here is the Production Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Production.doc

CC1 Week 12

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProductionComp.doc

AA1 Week 12

Mixing again. this time was a little more enjoyable because u could be more creative with the sounds. I haven't overdone the effects because the song doesn't allow for it, the song has a more natural feel.

The vocals really needed compression, there were times where it got out of control, for example when he said 'in bed.' The bass guitar also needed compression. With the vocal track i made a stereo auxiliary with all three vocal tracks and just compressed that track.

This is a photo of the stereo auxiliary setup.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture147.png
Note, the compression on one of the vocal tracks i bypassed when i bounced the file.

This file only contains compression
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/comp.mp3

The only effects i have added is reverb to the vocals and the piano, i was considering putting this effect on the acoustic guitars, but the reverberant nature of the instrument was enough. Once again i did this reverb using the stereo auxiliary.

This file is compression and reverb.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Revcomp.mp3

The final step was mastering the tracks, i added the bombfactory plugin on the master track and played around with the input output setting till i was satisfied with the result.

This file is Mastered, compressed and reverbed.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/CompRevMas.mp3

Here is the protools session file if you have the audio files at home.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYork_Doug.ptf