AA2 Week 9 Mixing

I played around with the compressor and plugins again on that song. I added heaps of compression to the drum kit and it gave me a very controlled sound. Best for Rock. I played around with the EQs on a a few of the Drum Mics aswell, the examples ive given show the difference with the plugins. I also added a lead guitar track, the sound ive got there is pretty close what i want in the end. Notice the change from double Tracking to single channel in the solo.

Check out the sounds and photos in the Box widget.

References: Grice, David. "Mixing Week 9." Lecture 13/5/08. Adelaide University.

CC2 Week 8

In this patch i haven't used the midiparse or midiformat objects, i simply used the pitch and velocity values to control the filters in Reason's Analog Synth. One is oscillating and the other just ramping. I played around with adding the probability sequencer to the patch, but i just couldn't get it to work properly. A lot more playing around and many tedious hours may possibly solve this, but this is just something I'm not going to use, i understand the concept of mix matching MIDI input values, i.e substituting pitch for a filter value, and MIDI routing (Max to Reason).

I had a bit of a play with the seq object, lots of potential, but its the mtr object I'm more interested in. In the context of this patch i could record the control performance as well. How awesome is that!! I didn't get around to looking at how u can use this as an accompanist, but very impressed, even the ability to detect mistakes, Max you've outdone yourself.

Heres the video



References:

Haines, Christian. "CC2 Week 8." Lecture. Adelaide University. 8/5/08

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

Forum Week 8

Best Forum Ever!! It was all about the small things that you dont normally think off. How many chairs were available, only somebody who's been in the business for a while would have thought of something so simple yet important. The importance of preparedness, schedules and being prepared for everything was really driven home with the big band example. That many people and that many mics is just to big to not be prepared. I'm learning a lot of these ideas now with AA recording. I can see how small issues with a small band could be very large issues with large ensembles.

The way that the Pepsi ad has been constructed. The over compressed files without crossfading is a real eye opener into the way they now construct advertisements and pop songs. Made for radio and made for short attention spans, with little or no dynamic variation throughout the song. We really are an immediate society.

http://www.auldworks.com/bbrec1.htm

Forum Week 7

i never knew how "close to the action" Adelaide is in Electronic Music. I knew nothing of Tristram before this class and now i can see how much of an integral roll he's played in Electronic Music. Being apart of designing the VCS3 just says it all. What i find particularly amazing is how dedicated he was, nobody (very few and very far) understanding what his work was about, and being criticized from every angle, yet still managed to make amazing discoveries. Not that he was the only case of this, especially in this field, but still something to mention. The fact that we can now tinker and explore the very instruments he was designing is a fantastic way to literally keep in touch of electronic past.

Its very interesting to hear some of his later works, composed for orchestras and acoustic instruments. Although these pieces do draw from his electronic past (lines and themes), it says a lot about his musical mind, education and passion.

References:

"Songs from a Life." Tristrum Cary. 2000

http://www.tristramcary.com/

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Cary-Tristram.htm

AA2 Week 8 Mixing

YOU CAN SKIP THE FIRST PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT, JUST BLABBERING!!

Mixing at first is very tedious, organising your files, setting up buses after buses, blah blah blah. But after all this leg work it becomes quite enjoyable, adding effects and plugins. Hearing the difference between raw and modified. After this is done it again becomes quite tedious, tweaking the plugins, outboard etc. Tweaking is so frustrating, hearing the same bit over and over again, finding the perfect levels only to find out that the volumes and effects you've added don't work with the rest of the song. But ultimately the final product is very rewarding.

The 3 examples are a clear example of why you should use reference songs, and test it on multiple speaker systems. THE BASS IS WAY TOO LOUD!!! But if you look past this you can see that Ive done a few things to the signals. Compression on the bass, EQ on all instruments, used multiple guitar recordings panning left and right and reverb on the snare and guitars. I'm fairly happy with my result, apart from the bass, but this is a simple volume issue. Ive even done some manual compression on a soft note from a guitar riff.

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Grice, David. "Mixing (1)." Lecture. Adelaide University. 6/5/08

White, Paul. "Mixing Essentials." Sound on Sound Magazine. October 2006

McKercher, Paul. "Mixing Psychology." ???? Mus Tech Reading IIA 2008

Starvrou, Michael. " More Salvage Mix Techniques." ???? Mus Tech Reading IIA 2008

CC2 Week 7 Probabilty Sequencer

At first I was totally lost and had no idea where to begin, but slowly after closely analysing the Tutorials i began to find my way, the big discovery for me was using the sel object to trigger the notes, i have no idea why it hadn't dawned on my before, just one of those things i guess. The Patch is fairly straight forward and the instructions are simple.

I didn't understand the importance of lists in Max/MSP until i started actually playing with it, address/value lists are going to be very helpful when doing the major CC assignment.

I know this patch is a little inefficient, but this was the best way i could think of doing it.

Check it out in the Box Widget

UPDATE, i just reviewed a problem with the patch, the velocity and duration wasn't set when you first load up, that has now been fixed. Check out the Probability Sequencer2.pat

References:

Haines, Christian. "Probabilty Sequencer." Lecture. 1/5/08. Adelaide University.

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

AA2 Week 7 Piano

I really enjoy recording piano, the instrument (especially the Steinway) is such a fantastic work of craftsmanship and the resonating sound qualities of the strings and the body come together to make a wonderfully dynamic and versatile sound. It fills the room with its full sound. Trying to capture this is what i enjoy about recording piano. I used 6 mics, 3 pairs. 2 NT5s, 2 NT3s and 2 U87s. I put the NT5s in the open piano pointing towards the high and low strings and panned them left and right in the mix down. The NT3s I put in the corners of the room about 5 or 6 meters away from the piano to create a stereo room sound and panned them left and right in the Mix down. The U87s I put in a MS configuration and did the necessary post production (invert, pan) for this configuration. I know that we didn't cover MS in the lesson, but i believe i haven't had enough practice with MS in the past, in fact i have only observed this technique and not actually done it myself. So i saw this as a good opportunity to get some personal experience. I am quite happy with my final product, i think i captured the sound of the piano pretty well. A small amount of EQ i think is required (which i haven't done to preserve the microphone technique) to make it more tonally dynamic, the highs a little higher and the lows a little lower. Overall Enjoyable.

Check out the Files in the Box widget, the photos Ive taken are in there as well.

References:

Grice, David. "Piano Recording." Lecture. Adelaide University. 1/5/08

Robjohns, Hugh. "Recording Real Pianos" Piano Principles. Sound on Sound Magazine. May 1999.

Stavrou, Michael Paul. "PNO Secrets." Mixing With Your Mind.