AA Sem 2 Project

This by far has been the best project in Audio Arts to date, well at least for me it has. Although towards the end i was a bit over the Asset creation and tired of constantly coming up with new ideas, the process is still interesting. Actually playing the game with your sounds is the best part of the whole project. Testing to see if it is actually 'believable' for the game, trying to make them better than the original sounds. My favourite sound was one of the easiest ones to make. This was the weapon change sound. It was a recording of stuffing things into a bag and it sounded just like many other FPS weapon swap sounds, and i think it was better than the original 'swoosh' sound. This is certainly a field I'll think about experimenting with in the future.

Check out the documentation in the Box Widget.

CC Sem 2 Project

This project was fun to begin with, making your own synth is very interesting, but the interest was lost towards the middle where i had already make my fundamental patches and the rest of the work was just fixing bugs, making the GUI and connecting everything together. I am not entirely satisfied with my final product. I would rethink the GUI and perhaps add other form of synthesis to the patch. This all said it was a worthwhile experience and now i have first hand experience with the inner workings of synthesis.

Check out the patch and the documentation in the box widget.

Forum Week 12

In response to Dave's question of relevance in tech subjects, i have to disagree with him. Although i don't have much interest in many of the forms of electronic music that i have been exposed to in the course, it is my ability to say that i understand, at least fundamentally, the particular style(s) of music/sound art and have decided that it's not for me. But their place in history and the influence they have on today's electronic art world is undeniable and to not be at least made aware of it would be an incomplete education of the subject. But more specifically the question of composing these styles of music. For me i didn't really find the tasks very engaging, however, as Stephen said, it is in doing that you learn the most, and i certainly did. I totally agree that without doing your education is incomplete. And although integrating these techniques into something that you would enjoy and more likely do in the future of your music career is a good idea. It doesn't give you the pure fundamentals of the art. To compose a late romantic piano concerto, you need to know how to write a classical piano sonata.

It may seem that I'm brown nosing, as Sanad has mentioned to me many a time, I truly do believe this. And although a lot of this avant-garde art is too incomprehensible for my closed mind, the fact that I've been exposed to and had it explained and still walked out less than inspired by it. I can at least not make ignorant, at least i like to think so, judgement of it.

CC2 Week 10 (11)

Delay is great. This is certainly something I'm going to use in my patch. Delay effects are the ones that i use most of the time in my own compositions. Now i have complete control over this.

Ive decided to create my favourite delay effect, ping pong delay. Its loosely based on the idea presented in the tutorial, however Ive added a few controls that i would use, i.e BPM controller and i limited the feedback and delay time controllers from one for each channel to just the same for each, i simply don't need this much control and it makes things too confusing and difficult for future use.

Check it Out in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Delay Lines." Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

Forum Week 11

The idea of technology taking over the world has been a great influence for many artists. The film industry has offered a great deal of material on the subject, films like the Terminator series, I Robot, The Matrix and has been a very popular topic in the anime field with films like Vexille and Ghost in the Shell. As technology is taking over more and more aspects of our lives and that these technologies are becoming more intuitive it make you wonder if they're intuitiveness becomes an Artificial Intelligence and they start ignoring our requests. When a machine can build a better version of itself is that too far? Do we need to keep them out of the loop? In all these films mentioned above it seems to be that when a machine can do this it ends or enslaves the human race, is there some truth behind this? Would a machine realise that we humans are the creator of our problems and try to fix us? I'm still very unsure, humans need to be kept in the loop, i don't know the power of AI and if it was close to simulating human consciousness it would be slightly worrying.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 11

Game Music is something that really interests me. It's such a new way of thinking about composition and good game music and engines make good games great. As an example Harry-Gregson Williams and his work on the Metal Gear series.

Because the game is a fast paced FPS i made a Drum and Bass style piece with a few sort of psy elements to it (using phasers and ping pong delays). I did this because of my own personal aesthetic. I used Reason to create this song.

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Music." Adelaide University.

Hannigan, James 2004, "Changing Our Tune", 2007,
http://www.jameshannigan.co.uk/changing.htm.

"Chapter 7 - Ideal Production". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Pp149 - 152. Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games, Thomson
Course Technology.

pp246 - 252. Irish, Dan. 2005, The Game Producer's Handbook, Course Technology
PTR.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 9 (10)

I have to admit, I'm quite lost with this whole FFT thing, i think i really need to go over some of my old lecture notes. I understood it in Bidule, but MSP is a whole other level, i understand that it translates the samples over a list like output, but manipulating that is very difficult. Anyway, here's my patch. I simply multiplied two signals together using coltopol and poltocol, attenuating uncommon amplitudes and accenting common ones. Ive also included individual playback volumes to change the timbre and avoid clipping. Enjoy!

Check it out in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "MSP FFT." Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 10

Open Arena doesn't offer the best ambient sounds, so i picked one of the most interesting ones to recreate, the second sound however isn't in the game, i made it because i believe it would suit what I'm doing or something that i could use in future, a night street ambient sound.

For the first sound i took a sample of a jet plane cabin noise, reduced the bit rate, slowed it down and put it through a dynamic shifting eq to create that creepy slightly changing ambient drone.

The second sound was created from a field recordings of a night scene with crickets and general night ambiance, like from a pond. And mixing this with a background street sound. I found for this i needed the most ambient of noises, anything too close to the mic, or individual wouldn't work for the outcome.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Ambience." Adelaide University. 14/10/08

Bernstein, Daniel. 1997, Creating an Interactive Audio Environment, Gamasutra, 2006,
. (Available Online)


pp173-174, 182-189. Sonnenschein, David. 2001, Sound design: the expressive power
of music, voice, and sound effects in cinema, Michael Wiese Productions, Seattle, Wash.

Forum Week 9

Well im blown away by ben's patch. That rhythm operator is fantastic, i wanted to do something like that in my patch, but i didnt have the time to take it on. The interface is amazing and all the bug fixes were great. Great work.

Looking at all the supercollider patches dont interest me very much, everything that im seeing is something that could be done in max, im sure the precision and quality wouldn't be the same, but the result would be something simmilar. Jake's 5.1 surround patch had an interesting sound, but again something that could be done in max and im glad im not doing this next year.

Jakes advertisement was pretty average, but the sound was done well and the rock riff at the end sounded pretty sweet.

It was a shame that Will's game was never finished, but i always like to see people working on films and games and general sound audio work in SA.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 9

Recreating these game assets was fun and it got me thinking about the sounds i need to create for the final project. Its already given me some ideas.

The rocket fly sound was created using a noise generator in Bidule and the sound of a Harley Davidson through a low pass filter.

The no ammo sound was created from me tapping on the table, clicking, rustling paper and a toy gun.

The Regeneration sound was created using the subtractor synth in Reason.

And the Reload/weapon pickup sound was created using a toy gun.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Assets'. Adelaide University. 7/10/08.


"Chapter 5 - Sound Design: Basic Tools and Techniques" and "Chapter 6 - Advanced
Tools and Techniques". Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games,
Thomson Course Technology.

Kelleghan, Fiona. 1996, Sound Effects in SF and Horror Films, 2006,
.

Forum Week 8

What a crazy movie. At first i thought it was funny, but then it just became quite disturbing. And i was struggling to sit through it by the last half. Is there hidden messages in this movie, or should you take this at face value? Or should you just take it how ever you want to? So many unanswered questions. I can see the appeal of the film purely from the fact there is nothing like it out there, but its not my taste.

The premature baby(?) was the most odd thing Ive ever seen, it wasn't the lady in the radiator, or the pencil eraser, that baby was just disturbing. And when it turned into that huge monster, WTF is going on? Was that his guilt for killing it, or is that Wat happened? haha. I can see the appeal, but it just doesn't appeal to me.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 8 (9)

I'm really happy with this week's result, I've always wanted a quick way to use my midi controllers with my patches and my midilearn object is the answer to this. I'm sure its a little in efficient, but the main concept is there. The Midi learn function in Reason is so helpful so using it in MAX is going to save so much time.

Check it out in the Box Widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "MIDI and MSP." Adelaide University. 9/10/08

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 8

Ive chosen Open Arena as my AA assignment this semester. I decided on this game because there is lots of support for it, and i used to play Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament lots when i was 13 and 14. So it was also a kind of nostalgic choice as well. Also i am quite familiar with FPSs. Although I'm familiar with the style of game, i am really uncertain about the process of this assignment and have many questions to ask. I am also very unsure of the preproduction form and i suspect that there may be several errors in the way Ive filled it out. But Ive given it my best shot and i hope its ok.

Check it out in the box widget.

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Asset Integration." Adelaide University. 16/9/08

Anon 2007, List of Open Source Games, Wikipedia, viewed 7/9 2007,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 7

No problems this week, Fairly straight forward. The GUI version is different from the individual patches, however the concepts are the same. Ive built the individual patches as an easy and simple way to recording and playback to use in future patches. This is why they dont use computer keys to control it.

Control Keys are Shift + P = play, Shift + R = record, Shift + S = stop record

Note the image shown of week 7 GUI patch has been modified.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Music and Signal Processing.' 11/9/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
.

Forum Week 7

Seeing everybodys projects being used by their creator was good to see. You get a sense of what they they actaully wanted to achieve and how to get the best out of their programs. Looking at SuperCollider didnt interest me to be honest, perhaps it wasnt the best demonstration of its ture power, but from what i saw, the outcome could be easily dupliacted with max and easier to manipulate.

Sanad's song was great, well mixed and had his own particular flavour. All of his songs have his own distinguishable sound, its hard to descibe, but its certainly there. His use of scale modes i believe contribute to his sound, that and his choice of instruments and effects add to the style aswell.

It was a shame we couldn't get to hear Ed's patch, but i could see where it was going. The images were pretty kewl, very trippy, i do like mathematical images, theres something about the symmetry thats appealing.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 7

My input for the group task was the music. When i play games the music is something that i always listen out for. Essentially games have interactive music and it amazes me how composers and music programmers make it as seemless as they do. This is my attempt at emulating what they do. I essentially brought two similar ideas together using a common harmonic theme and key, however changing the beat to suit the mood. The first half is a drum and bass like fast rhythm with a symphonic harmony backing, and the second half is a slow electronic hip hop style with a simmilar string backing. My main influence for game music is Harry-Gregson Williams, in particular his work on Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and 4.

Check out the mp3 in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Week 7 Game Audio Aesthetics.' Adelaide University. 9/9/08.

pp 245 - 247. "Chapter 10 - Excellence in Sound Tracks and Sound Effects". Irish, Dan.2005, The Game Producer's Handbook, Course Technology PTR.

pp 112 - 117, 196 - 201. Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process,and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Forum Week 6

The Indian rasa is something that i don't know much about at all, but from this brief introduction to them i believe that i can draw some inspiration from them. And i can see how so many musicians have been drawn into its philosophies. The relationship with music is strong and both feed off one another.

Music exists, or rather its popularity exists in the concept of emotion, yet when studying it in the classroom, theoretically, historically, the word rarely seems to come up. What emotion is the piece of music emulating, how does it make you feel. It sounds good, why? Because of the way it makes you feel, so not only should you understand theoretically how it made you feel that way, but how to recognise similar musical 'feelings' and how to string them together. We seem, i say we loosely but certainly i feel that i am trying to make things that sound clever, or cool, not really analysing what sort of feeling the music is emulating and what i want to do with this musical feeling. I need to develop a higher sense of muso-emotion creativity that goes beyond major = happy, minor = sad because this certainly isn't the case.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 6

Now we're getting into the good stuff. Spent many hours with my midi controller playing with the sampling techniques mentioned. Most of the patch was quite easy to do, however i couldn't get the poly~ object to work. I've included the patches with the poly in this weeks pack, perhaps somebody could tell me why it isn't working. When i run the patch inside an instance it works, but not as polyphony. Do you need multiple buffers, i cant think of a way of doing this using poly, can you assign an instance number as an argument to the buffer name, thus creating multiple buffers?

Check out the files in the box widget

References:
Haines, Christian. Lecture. Music and Signal Processing. 4/9/08

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 6

This week Ive tried to recreate the audio for a computer boot up, and yes it was my idea that christian used in class. Ive used several sounds, initial boot up, start up sound, typing, denied and access sounds. I spend more time creating the operating system sounds than actually doing the task. It was an interesting experience trying to copy the aesthetics of the windows sounds. In the FMOD patch Ive included two sustain points for the typing, waiting for you to enter the data into the field. I had a look at the chapter on switching and it looked very visual, i was expecting to see lines and lines of code to do this, but no, it looks like a PowerPoint flow chart. But as the tutorials we did in class didn't cover this, i didn't look into it any further.

Check it out in the box widget. Ive included a 45 sec version and a full minute version.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Sound Asset Design." 2/9/08

"Chapter 8 - Ideal Technology". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

pp 25 - 56. "Chapter 3 - Using FMOD Designer". Creative 2007, FMOD DESIGNER:
USER MANUAL, Creative Labs, 2007, .

Forum Week 5

Some of the sounds Ive used are quite generic, but others, like some of the synth sounds i think really have the associated rasa's quality. In particular the fear and wonder files. For Peace I used the sound of a water stream, to me this is very peaceful and natural. I struggled to think of something for Courage, so i made a cheesy fanfare like recording. I'd like to hear what others have used to represent courage. Fire, especially a large fire, is a sound and image that i find very aggressive so this is what i used to represent anger. This next sound, disgust, is of somebody throwing up, this sound file is quite realistic and is the most disgusting sound Ive heard and only conjours feelings of disgust. Joy is represented by a laughing crowd, again, i was at a loss for ideas with this rasa and will be interested in what others have used. Love is one of my favourite samples, it is the corniest, cheesiest synth and chord progression that can only be associated with something lovely or happy. Sadness is another realistic sample of a woman crying, for me, this particular sample can only be associated with sadness.

Check out the files in the box widget

References:

Whittington, Stephen. "Indian Classical Emotions." Lecture. 28/8/08. Adelaide University.