Week 10 Creative Computing - Meta Synth

Here is my Metasynth soundwork

There are several sections that I composed using the image synth and the effects room.

Part 1

Used the image synth's sampler instrument loaded with quote samples

Sequenced a piece using the colours to pan the sound

Part 2

Used the image synth with it's default instrument and a pitch scale based on harmonic series.

Much smudging was used to create cloudy ambience

Bleeps created on a second layer using the tool that creates repeated notes

Part 3

I used reverb, compression and intertia on part 5 to create a pad sound and then used the harmonics effect to add extra interest

Part 4

"Come" sample was resonant filtered in stereo then turned into a beat using the delightful "shuffler".

Part 5

Used some "grain" and "stereoecho" to freak out the straight rhythms of part 4 and then used inertia to make the hits ring. Reminds me of the first track of Confield by Autechre.

Week 10 Audio Arts - Acoustic Guitar

U87 Omni mono 2 inches from 14th fret

I like this as a more low-fi option. It might require bass roll-off to be usable. The harmonics of the notes seem to stand out while the picking is very suppressed. Lacks punchiness and definition but is warm and soft, a little dull.

NT4 at 12th fret 30cm back

Small diaphragm condenser is less coloured and provides a quality hi-fi stereo field with lots of pick attack. Coincident pair of identical mics makes for a natural image. Would suite a solo situation due to large natural sound.

SM57 on the neck (right) + U87 Omni 2 inches from 12th fret (left)

Interesting how the thin, inarticulate 57 tone provides a bit of interest to the larger Neumann which also includes the pick attack. Lacks clarity and sounds thin, SM57 on neck picks up unwanted fret buzz.

NT4 (revoiced) layered with U87 omni (as above)

I really like the way the revoiced guitar (NT4, left) sits above the original (U87 right) track. The Neumann's smooth rich tone fills out the brighter NT4. Separate panning of the NT4's capsules adds depth. Nice rich stereo field would provide a good bed for an acoustic track.

Bonus: C414 30cm from sound hole, NT5 close to neck at 10th fret

I like the way there seems to be a clear image that separates the percussive strumming and the ringing of the steel strings. Emphasizes harshness of steel strings, a little thin.

Week 10 Music Technology Forum - Turntablism

This weeks forum presentation was the DVD documentary "Scratch" about the history of turntablism. Steven introduced the DVD by explaining that the turntable had actually been used as a musical instrument long before "turntablism", one example of this is in early pre-magnetic tape music concrete where vinyl recordings were mixed and rerecorded.

I found the DVD very interesting. I never realized the extent of the DJ "solo" culture - I only knew them as accompanists to rappers with the occasional flourish of a complex scratch. The DMC world championships seem to hold considerable prestige for many.

The amount of musical exploration that has been created by experimentation with a former domestic playback device is extremely amazing and I think that this illustrates that interesting music can  gleaned from all kinds of areas if someone is willing to take the time to study it as the early DJs did. 

The "Amen Break" video was further evidence of this point (and was also very amusing). It's even more impressive that there are entire genres heavily relying on this sample. Perhaps this 5 second recording could be considered their instrument. Many sample maestros write for the same sample just as many composers write for the same instruments.

Reference: Steven Whittington. "Week 10 Music Technology Forum - Turntablism and the Amen Break". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 22 May 2008.

Week 9 Creative Computing - SoundHack/FScape/NN19 GlitchFest

I tried to explore SoundHack and FScape as much as possible this week while creating a sampler instrument of glitchy effects that could be used in genres such as IDM in combination with fuller drum sounds. I started with my library of voice samples and began processing with both applications. Sometimes I chose files because they contrasted and I thought they would yield interesting results, while other times I chose randomly. Every so often I listened to the library and deleted the boring files.

I used SoundHack more as a utility to lengthen or pitchshift files with the phase vocoder and to create more synthetic tones using convolution and mutation. FScape was used to further process these sounds and erratically introduce more hardcore glitchyness. I found that the selection of audio files generally affected the result quite strongly and so experimentation was important to achieve interesting results. The manual is hilariously vague at times and very technical at others.

Performance

I ended up with 44 samples which I imported into the NN19 and automapped (1 sample per key) I then placed the instrument for 45 seconds using the pitch and modulation wheel (assigned to low-pass filter) and aftertouch (also assigned to LP filter).

Week 9 Audio Arts - The Viscous Groove of Ska

30 Second Ska Groove by Jamie and Miles

A group of us spent 3 hours recording 4 different excerpts and this was the one I chose to mix. The mics are:

• 2U87s in omni, spaced pair low over the kit
  
• Beta52 inside kick 1 inch from beater area
  
• Beta52 outside kick 30cm from resonant head
• Sm57 on top snare angled inwards
  
• Beta57 on bottom snare 2 inches from snare
  
• Beta56 on hi-Tom
• md421 on mid-tom
• md421 on floor-tom
• NT5 2 inches from top of hi-hats
• c414 behind a baffle in the room
• Avalon DI - Bass
• md421 perpendicular to guitar amp
• sm57 facing inwards - guitar amp
• c414 facing at guitar amp

Mixing

Kick

• Cut boxy lower mids, boosted bass, upper mid slap area
• Positioned the kick higher than the bass
• Gated for less mud
• Compressed with long attack for slap

Snare

• Cut boxy mid area
• Boosted cutting treble
• Gated for less mud
• Compressed with moderate attack

Toms

• Boosted higher frequency slap area
• Cut excessive bass on some toms
• Manually gated via editing

Overheads

• Cut some bass, lower mids to decrease mud
• Compressed slightly

Drum Bus

• Compressed for pumping effect

Guitars

• Blended together
• Cut chirpy upper mids
• Boosted treble, lower mids

Bass

• Cut mids
• Compressed with slow attack

Master Bus

• Cut lower mids, compressed slightly

Snare seems to have just enough roominess while remaining clear in the busy fills. Guitars cut without harshness. Bass is rich. I think the kick sounds a little unnatural. Not quite gelling with the bass. Ride bell cuts.

Week 9 Music Tech Forum

Today's forum was completely eye-opening to the world of music tech. Each of the experienced music technologists were involved in so many interesting studies.

I particularly enjoyed Seb's "milk crate" music. I really enjoyed much of the music and I think that it's a really interesting idea to try to "force" much music out of a short amount of time. A fantastic way to avoid procrastinating and spending time making decisions when it is possibly more productive to experiment and plan/think as little as possible (something I'm poor at). The results of milk crate support the value of this fast working style.

The water-based controller was also very very cool and obviously not a fully exploited concept yet, but I can understand why with the amount of zany stuff Seb is up to.

The second presentation was more chilled with some discussion of the relationship of music to science and history. Loved the quartz bowls, and also loved the theories about ancient constructions. Just been reading up on ancient greek musical philosophy for history and the importance ancient civilizations placed on music is really interesting. I'm beginning to think that there's not much difference between coincidence and real conspiracy anyway with regards to the wide use of the A# "natural" frequency.

Reference: Sebastian Tomczak, Darrent Curtis. "Week 9 Music Technology Forum - Recent Works". Lecture presented at Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 15 May 2008

Week 8 Creative Computing - Sampling

My sampler performance

Sorry that it's mainly novelty noises......

I took around 12 very short phoneme samples from the quote and assigned them to sections of the keyboard. I found myself attracted to the snare and hat-like "shhh" and "sss" sounds (no processing was used) and also an "mmmm" which had a stable pitch. I reconfigured the sample layout so that these percussive sounds would be easy to play and I had a large range of "mmm" to groove on. The loop function was used on some sounds. I assigned the rest of the phonemes to the rest of the keyboard for icing. I creatively altered the root note of each sample using command-click to make some playback above their original pitch and some below.

For extra expression, I began assigning controllers to modulation destinations as below.

Aftertouch - filter frequency decrease + LFO level increase

LFO - noise wave - panning

Modwheel - filter frequency decrease and resonance increase

I experimented with the envelopes and while they would be very useful to create interesting sounds, I did not use them much in this exercise because I felt that using the same harsh envelope effect on every sample would make them sound similar and stop them being contrasted effectively.

Week 8 Audio Arts - Drum Recording

We recorded the in-house drumkit in two different multi-track configurations. I roughly processed the tracks because I decided that as this was usual for drums, it would help me compare the possible results for each setup better.

Configuration 1: Mic Everything

Overheads: U87s (cardoid) spaced pair

Kick: 2 beta52s in hole and on skin

Snare: SM57 top angled 45˙, beta57 bottom

Hi Tom: Beta56

Mid and Low toms: md421s

Hi Hat:NT5

Room: AKG C414 (omni) in corner of room

• Soft, polished sound 
• Wide stereo spread
• Seperated elements
• Reasonably natural
• Room mic adds depth and body to snare
• The kick does not have very much definition in slap, maybe too much air movement
  
• Imaging of overheads perhaps a little unstable. Maybe too much separation of mics
• Probably better for most modern, commercial pop/rock

Configuration 2: 3 Mic Setup

1 U87 in omni high over the kit

SM57 12ish cm from the snare facing inwards

Beta52 about a foot back from the kick

• Low-fi but present tone
• Kick sounds huge and natural and snare cuts nicely, though toms are not very loud or defined. 
• Kit elements less separated due to further-away mics and no stereo panning
• Kick and snare can be mixed quite loud while keeping the kit homogenous. Important elements get priority.
• Mono makes drums more compact so they could fit nicely into a mix without dominating
  
• Nice natural ambience from omni overhead
• Maybe useful for more vintage production styles or to sample in electronic pieces

Note: Sorry about the excessive bass - I mixed these on cans

Week 8 Forum - Peter Dowdall - Audio Engineering, Session Management

This week experienced audio engineer Peter Dowdall spoke to us about many aspects of recording, editing and mixing for bands or advertising agencies.

First he discussed technical details and session management concerns on a recent recording of the "Mike Stewart Big Band" at EMU. It was good to hear a quality commercial recording done in EMU using nearly all in-house equipment. I was surprised at the amount of editing that Peter used even on Big Band music with skilled players. The editing was not audible and the resulting product was tight.

I found Peter's stories about his work in advertising and relating to clients interesting. He has had to record and edit without soloing tracks because the people sitting behind him in the control room needed to hear the whole mix. I see that it's quite important to remember that clients don't know what edits are easy or difficult to do, and so you have to foresee future requests and protect yourself in ways such as creating submixes so vocals can be replaced without redoing the instrumental mix. I liked Peter's suggestion that sounds that are considered wrong today are likely to be fashionable tomorrow. I appreciated advertising music more when he explained some of the art of achieving "maximum impact".

Reference: Peter Dowdall. "Week 8 Music Technology Forum - Audio Engineering and Session Management". Lecture presented at Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 8 May 2008

Week 7 Creative Computing - Sample Library

My compiled library.

Instrument Sound: Clarinet note becoming multiphonic

Found Sound: Clarinet case and accessories being dropped

Generated noise: Mid-range saw wave

Ascending filter sweep

• Filtered a clarinet note and cut out a section
• Timestretched it and pitch shifted for a chord
• Automated a sweeping low pass filter and a peak band (for resonance). Two EQ plugins used for heavy boost
• Pitched-down heavily filtered saw wave underneath

Descending filter sweep

• Clarinet portion of above reversed

R2D2 Rotting in Hell

• Sections of the clarinet case
• Slowed down, lowered in pitch, 2 tracks
• Reverbed
• Automated peak EQ frequency by dragging knob insanely
• Backwards reverb trail created from snippet, left channel pitchshifted up a semitone

Chilled Synth Pad

• Many layers of pitch shifted saw wave sample with many layers of EQ and volume envelope

Panned Bleeping

• Short toned portion of clarinet case drop (the metal mouthpiece cover rang) timestretched and pitch shifted, placed on multiple panned tracks
• Backwards reverb

Descending flutter then back up

• Heaps of tracks with systematically varied panning, EQ peaks and delay time
• Clarinet note and clarinet case excerpts were placed on descending tracks

R2D2 Finally and Efficiently Dying in Hell

• Buzzy sound created by clarinet with very short delay
• Clarinet case section with long delay and reverb

Clarinet with glitchyness

• Clarinet, it's case and protools operator playing in a trio

Marching Beat

• Beat from clarinet case with pitch shift, EQ, fades etc.
• Amplitube, delay, fades on clarinet

Glitchyness

• Edited, reversed, timeshifted clarinet case

Week 7 Audio Arts - Electric Bass Recording

We recorded 3 tracks simultaneously with Jamie playing to our previous track. We discarded the SM57 because it sounded thinner than the Beta 52. The amp was fed by a split from a Behringer DI box which also fed the Avalon preamp mic input. The three tracks were time-aligned later.

Beta 52, Side of cone, perpendicular to amp face, 30cm

Much upper mid presence, though this presence is slightly hard and cheap-sounding. Lacking stability in the bass frequencies. Very audible hum from the amp. Undesirable string noise stands out.

Behringer DI into Avalon preamp

Solid sound with round warm bass. Has attack, without harshness. Maybe a little too much lower mids. Lacks upper mid presence which might be needed for some styles eg funk. Darker sound may sit well in a mix under other instruments.

Beta52 and DI blended

Generally a nice compromise between the soft bass of the DI and the presence of the miked cabinet. The mic and DI signals perhaps sound a little separate still.

Beta 52 and DI blended with EQ and compression

Mic and DI blend a little better. Notes sound much more even in volume compared to before, and some notes do not jump out anymore. More sustain, would probably sit much better in a mix. Attack is there but contained.

Week 7 Forum - Tristram Carey

Tristram Carey was the founder of the electronic music unit that we all know and love, and also an electronic music pioneer, separately developing the synthesizer almost concurrently with Robert Moog. Last week, Tristram passed away and so Steven presented a tribute forum session about him.

This wasn't immediately apparent, because the session began with a bleeping sound installation that referenced Tristram's time as a navy radar operator (though the 2nd and 3rd years couldn't see the connection).

Steven explained some of Tristram's work and then we watched a documentary about him and his fellow "Electronic Music Studio" members. I was surprised that I hadn't heard of any of these pioneers while the house of Moog gets so much attention.

In reply to Steven's suggestion that the study of history is worthwhile, after spending 2 minutes with Carey's relatively simple "picnic" synthesizer (as used by Pink Floyd), I agree. I think that by looking at the origins of electronic music we can find new pathways, that were never fully explored; in 2 minutes I heard sounds from "synthy" with character that I have never experienced from the software which dominates today. Another discussion I found interesting was the differing attitudes of the early electronic musicians towards popular modern electronic music genres.

Reference: Stephen Whittington. "Week 7 Music Technology Forum - Tristram Carey". Lecture presented at Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 1 May 2008