AA2 - Week 8 - Mixing Techniques 1

The Original Drama Queen

I find it hard to identify what the improvements of NoTools are in this updated version. Sure, the EQ's are cool, but they're just the same as third-party EQ's from 3 years ago. Anyway, my 3 mixes of 'Drama Queen' are quite differing in their style, perhaps as a subconscious attempt to relieve the apathy of the pop music style. I chopped up the vocal track quite severely to try and remove the backing guitar, so if a word fades out before finishing, it was just me making an executive decision to save the rhythm.

~MP3 700KB~Mix 1 is what you might call 'easy listening', with nothing too offensive to the ear. Only acoustic guitar was used, and the drums have a light reverb. I used a plug-in from Audacity called "Matrix Spatialiser" to widen the stereo field, giving the mixdown a fuller sound.

~MP3 696KB~Mix 2 is designated the "Rock Mix", and makes full use of the Amplitube plug-in. The drums have a more surreal reverb than before, and the snare is a little tighter and punchier. Listen out for the gut-busting (sic) guitar solo at the end of the sample.

~MP3 668KB~Speaking of Amplitube, Mix 3 is my tribute to everything not pop. Lovingly called 'THD Mix', this was actually the first mix I made, but it makes more sense when in the context of the previous two. The bass guitar has a meaty distortion with a light wah, and the vocals have a duplicate track with an overdriven counterpart. The snare is also filtered through Amplitube, with overdrive and strategic delay settings giving it the not-so-snarey sound. The kick had some light distortion, which really gave it a punch compared to the last two mixes. If only the vocal track didn't have the guitar strumming- the voice could have been a little more distinguishable.

My ProTools session files are in the dropbox under "Ben Probert AA Week 8".

1. David Grice "Audio Arts Semester 1 Week 8: Mixing Techniques 1." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 1st May 2007.

Forum - Week 8 - Mass Debate 4

The final week of 'Gender in Music Technology'(1), and the presenters once again amuse and bemuse. Bradley Leffler was welcomely direct in saying that the reason for different interests between genders is because the genders are different, so they would have different tastes. I'm glad somebody finally pulled out the obvious stick and beat the topic to death with it. He also made an interesting segue to Kraftwerk and their replacement of gender and indeed humanity with technology. (Not intentionally ripping off Dave's blog) I found the aspect of live performance in the Kraftwerk video he played to be a humanising of technology, where the humans walked the line between organic and mechanical. NB: Brad, don't ever quote Wikipedia as a research source, even if you use it. Every time somebody does, I hear a toilet flush.

Kraftwerk

Laura Gadd expanded on Amy's presentation last week. I just noticed that two of the three (two?) girls doing this course were given this topic- a gender-based selection? Surely not... Laura used Eminem and Pink to examine the different approaches to anger in music between genders, but I think everyone already knew that men are generally more violent than women. Before you all start at me, I didn't say all men are violent. Calm down, before you prove my point. During the Eminem spiel, I couldn't help but think of Barry White, rest in peace, and his contribution to (respectable) masculine love songs, along with Marvin Gaye, Burt Bacharach et al. Surely such crooners help to establish the possibility of some men being caring, non-violent people? Interesting side note, my sister just got married and her initials are now M.M.

Barry White

As you probably already know, anyone who has the same name as me is instantly my enemy, so Ben Cakebread wasn't off to a good start. Ben presented more of a generalised 'Sexuality in Music' topic than anything to do with gender or music technology, which was a still nice change from the last six presentations. Uh, five, not including myself. The band Queen was used as an archetype of the discrimination towards homosexuality, with several specific instances of discriminatory behaviour by the general public being brought to light. In fact, the entire presentation was more about how they were originally persecuted for their outwardly homosexual lifestyle, then 'got back' at all the nay-sayers. I fail to see the link between this and the given topic, and I found it to be more like a seized opportunity to express one's view instead of a researched and learned opinion.

Queen

Lastly, Peter Kelly shed some light on all things already illuminated, and some things that are supposed to remain in the dark. I was constantly waiting for the connection between raised topics and gender in music technology, but to no avail. What on earth do the drug smuggling scum in Indonesia have to do with gender, let alone music? Keep your clichéd anti-government bullshit for when it can be used in context, maybe then you won't get so many furrowed brows.

Visual representation of talk

1. Stephen Whittington “Music Technology Forum Week 8: Gender in Music Technology” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 3rd May 2007.

Windows Update

Ah HA! Now you don't have a choice, Mac users! Feel the wrath of our mighty leader Bill!

CC2 - Week 7 - Messaging and Analysis

Oh that horrible blank patcher window, how it haunts me. The lesson notes were more helpful than the tutorials, with the listfunnel ending up being the key to the whole thing. I had an idea to do with the histogram- when a value counts higher than the table readout, all the values could shrink by 1 so it is a constant comparative representation between all the values. Maybe next week. PATCH 4KB

Forum – Week 7 – Mass Debate 3

The topic for this week's student presentations was 'Gender in Music Technology', presented by 1st year n00bs Doug and Amy, and 1337 veterans Jake and myself. After Stephen Whittington's extended introduction speech (which covered a few of my points) I presented my findings on 'the lack of female interest' in Music Technology. It was a huge relief when I'd finished and there were no furious girls in the audience, so I hope that means it was sufficiently asexual.

The next presenter was Doug, who also happens to be the only other Music Education student studying Music Technology, and thus my mortal enemy. He had a few more enemies in the room by the time he had finished, as he tried to draw connections between Homo erectus lifestyles and the intricate differences between men and women today. While I can see where the suggested similarities lie, such as early man's need for more dexterity for hunting etc. translating to our obsession with 'tinkering', the presentation still spawned an awkward conglomeration of opinion from the audience. Some managed to let some stereotypes slip, such as “When women cook they use a recipe but men play around with ingredients”, which was certainly news to me.

Up next was Amy, who provided an insight into the mind of an anti-feminist female. She stated she did not like the hyper-feminist obsession with numbers, such as 'there aren't many girls doing this, so we need to get girls doing it'. I agree with her that it is not fair if a woman gets a job etc. because she is female when there may be a more qualified man who is rejected. I find this to be tangential to the purpose of feminism, which is (should be?) equality between sexes, not simply favouritism for women. It does not matter what gender someone is, if they have the skills they should be recognised for them.

The final presenter was Jake, who used singer Bjork as an example of gender indifference. I get a bit tired of people who say 'everyone is gay/bisexual', I find remarks such as this damaging to the image of bi/homosexuality. People of such persuasion have every right to demand respect for their life choice, but such comments show a disrespect for heterosexuality. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Get it? This one's better- You can't have your 'cake' and eat it too.



1. Stephen Whittington "Music Technology Forum." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 26 April 2007.

AA - Week 7 - Piano

As everyone seems to already know, I employed resident pianist Courtney Day to bang out some piano(1) tunes for me. Shut up, Luke. I have had some experience with piano recording with the sessions that Jake and I conducted last year with Deanna Djuric, however this time I had plenty of time to 'tinker' with everything. I chose to use Neumann U87s, KM84s and a Shure SM57.


~MP3 502KB~ This recording is using the 'midside' technique. I opted to have the Omni-pattern U87 right-way-up, as I figured that there would be a richer sound with the combination of direct noise and noise reflected off of the piano lid. As per midside rules, the figure 8 mic (upside down) is duplicated, inverted and panned left and right. It sounds good, but the whole point of midside is to create a contextual stereo phase, which I feel has a stale sound compared to the actual sound of the piano.


~MP3 527KB~ This recording uses 2 Neumann KM84s as a spaced pair of room mics facing into the body of the piano, and the Shure SM57 placed underneath, aimed upwards at the centre of the piano body. The KM84s were panned left and right respective of their position in the room, and the SM57 was centred. I was very surprised at how good this sounded- personally I find it to be much better than the midside recording.


~MP3 396KB~ I was intrigued by the clarity that the SM57 had, so I tested the midside technique with the SM57 underneath instead of the omni-pattern U87. As per usual I duplicated, inverted and panned the figure-8 U87, and left the SM57 centred. This did indeed brighten the midside sound, however it still does not reach the level of clarity that the SM57/KM84 setup had.


~MP3 673KB~ Keeping the last setup, I added the KM84s so the SM57/KM84 combo was back in play, but this time with the figure-8 U87 as well. I find this recording to be equally as good as the original SM57/KM84 combo, however they are quite different from each other. This recording has a more 'chorus' sound to it, which suits the piece being played, and the original SM57/KM84 recording is a neater, more intimate sound, like you are right next to the piano.


To quench my curiosity I compared the omni U87 (above) and SM57 (underneath) directly, in order to establish why a microphone 1/100th of the price is sounding better than its exorbitant competitor. It turns out it doesn't on its own, but when in combination with other microphones the SM57 seems to add something nice to the mix.

Shure SM57 MP3 146KB
Neumann U87 MP3 148KB

1. David Grice “Audio Arts Wk 7: Recording the Piano” Tutorial presented at EMU space and Studio 1, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 24th April 2006.