Forum | Week 1 | Music and Society

Just like old times. Our first forum for this last-for-some-but-not-for-me semester somewhat centred around the role music plays in our society. Personally, music is generally used as a tool for boredom alleviation or experience augmentation. For example, today I spent 2 hours catching buses and trains from Modbury to Gawler, during which I listened to some 80's classics, such as:

Hall & Oates: Out Of Touch
Wang Chung: Dance Hall Days
Michael Jackson: Billie Jean
Go West: Call Me
INXS: Kiss the Dirt
Yes: Owner of a Lonely Heart
Aneka: Japanese Boy
Talk Talk: Life's What You Make It
Joe Jackson: Stepping Out
The Fixx: One Thing Leads to Another

I know what you're thinking: "What are you, gay?", but no, these songs were in fact a part of an hour-long MP3 which I ripped from the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City game disc. You may know it as "Flash FM", and it even features all the adverts and DJ banter. In this instance I was listening to music to alleviate boredom (and it should be noted that this music could not be used for much else). As for 'experience augmentation', this often occurs when in a moving vehicle (eg. RATM), walking (recently Earth, Wind and Fire for some reason) or dancing (Parliament or funk in general). Word count w00t!

1. Stephen Whittington. Music Technology Forum, Semester 2, Week 1. "Technology Theory & Culture." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 31/07/2008.

Creative Computing Major Project

I suppose late is better than never, except at university. My major project for Creative Computing is centred around a concept of environment and weather, in particular rain in a rainforest.

In the main composition, the rain that builds up and then subsides was the original concept for the program, and is the main controller of thematic material, namely drums and bass (both natural inhabitants of a rainforest).

The animal sounds were downloaded from www.a1freesoundeffects.com and http://www.sound-effect.com/ for free. The low quality of the sounds meant I had to change the sample rate (from 8000Hz to 44100Hz) and use Noise Removal in Audacity. Once the files were played in a SynthDef with a reverb, the low quality was barely noticeable. I wanted to use Gverb on every animal sample, however this would crash the server after about 5 animals were initiated. I considered using FreeVerb, which would allow me to pan many sounds within a stereo field without panning the reverb, however the implementation took far too long and I eventually cut my losses and recorded the patch in sections. Due to such CPU/memory issues, I did not implement an automatic play-through code, as the server would inevitably crash.

Oh, and all soundfiles were originally mono (even the thunder).

The drum SynthDef was created by accident while trying to build a flute/pan pipe instrument. Utilising a nested sequence of Pseqs (based on a weekly task), I created a form of drum sequencer, a part of which includes a random order sequencer and a random beat sequencer. I particularly like the effect I created for this drum sound, as I am running a ClipNoise into a klank, meaning the amount of resonance in the drum depends on how hard it is hit (ie how loud the ClipNoise is). Combine this with the drum sequencer which has attenuable amplitudes, and the the result is fairly cool.

By far the most taxing task was trying to create a realistic rain sound. While my result is not yet indistinguishable from the real thing, I feel I brought it fairly close. Dust, Dust and more Dust. Ironically.


My score is as good as they ever are, basically just showing a timeline of events.

If I had more time/better organisational skills, I would have created a cricket and frog synth, as this seems to be the main thing missing in the mix. You can imagine my state of mind after working on it for far too long in one sitting, all while listening to rainforest ambience - relaxing sounds are not the best stay-awake technique. Oh how I wish I still drank coffee.

A big shout out to my main man SuperCollider Help, who pulled me out of a dark time in my coding life and carried me to safety. Did I say shout out? I meant middle finger. David Cottle's book was very useful, as were the weekly tasks, so an actual shout out to them.

My composition is best heard with speakers capable of producing low frequencies well. Or with a subwoofer. Doof doof squawk.
Composition: MP3 4.53MB

My SuperCollider code is in this order: Ocean breeze (background noise), Ambientator (ambient synth), Rain, Conga (feat. Drum Synth, Reverb Synth & Drummer), Bass (feat. Bass Synth & Bassist) and finally Animals (about 9 sections, includes Thunder, the king of all animals).
Rainforest Code: RTF 27KB

You do not have to download the animal sounds to use my patch, unless you actually want to play them. Don't, they aren't very interesting. You can hear them in the above composition anyway.
Animal Audio: ZIP 2.3MB

My patch in layman's terms. John Layman. Hmm, if he exists he should write one of those 'for Dummies' books.
Program Note: PDF 38KB

AA Major Project

CHOIR

I recorded a choir that is based in Murray Bridge, consisting of 9 singers and a pianist. I had a microphone and set of headphones for every person, which was a feat in itself.
'May It Be' MP3 3MB

I have decided I don't like the sound I achieved through mastering, and will remaster it when creating the choir's album. Overall too much compression, the piano sounds like arse and some singers are too loud (which was on purpose at the time, so as to hide the less talented ones). I think I should've stuck with a music genre I have done before, instead of trying something completely alien to me (Alien as an adjective? And alliteration!? Awesome!). It was still a great experience, and I look forward to doing a more formal choir recording sometime.

UPDATE: Here are the tracks I will be giving to the choir, including a remastered 'May It Be'. I think I've figured out the trick to these sorts of recordings- a light touch is always best. Light EQ, light limiter, light compressor. If you only download one, make it 'Yesterday'.

Sweet Georgia Brown MP3 1.4MB
Splish Splash MP3 2.2MB
Yesterday MP3 3.3MB
May It Be MP3 3MB




BAND

The band I recorded was called Save And Exit- yes, named after the computer task. Despite this they aren't nerds, and perform an interesting take on pop rock, with a slightly heavier edge. The recordings went pretty smoothly, in particular the singer only took a couple of takes to get each track.

The first song is probably the best mix I've done so far, however if I had more time I would turn the vocals down so the UltraMaximiser wouldn't squash the crap out of everything when the vox combined with the backing vox. Also I would like it slightly less compressed, however it was fun seeing how loud I could get it. Overall I didn't spent enough time mastering, but the results are still serviceable.
Song 1 MP3 4.5MB

The second song from the band is a little less well presented, but still 'does the job'. I'm finding that the more I mix, the more I am able to hear what needs to be mixed. Which is a good thing I guess. This track in particular ended up having the bass too loud, mostly due to the use of amplitube over the top to 'meat' it out a bit. I do however like the guitar tone I got for the bridge- it was exactly what I was trying to achieve.
Song 2 MP3 3MB



Just an update, the band took the ProTools sessions and gave them to the guy who produced their last couple tracks. Nice.

Fourm - Week 9 - Masters of Music Technology

Seb Tomczak presented his work on electronics and of course his work in the Milkcrate sesions. Something I have found strange about Milkcrate is the seemingly exclusive invitation list, which (perhaps unintentionally) restricts the attendance to the 2005 graduates. It is unfortunate that such an interesting concept will not be passed on to future generations of EMUers.

Darren Curtis updated us on his research into medicinal music, space music, vibrational research and... other stuff. The other stuff involved ancient architecture and their auditory properties, the most interesting being the temple that has a bird call "stored" within its design, which can be recalled with a simple clap. I would have thought this concept had been thoroughly explored already considering the advanced technology available today, however it seems to be a rather untapped field of exploration.

Forum - Week 8 - Peter Dowdall and Sound Engineering

This week took me back to the glories of first year, where Forum involved industry professionals presenting their work and experience to us. It was a most welcome flashback, particularly with Peter being so experienced and successful in the industry. His work for Pepsi's Superbowl advertisement exemplified the exorbitant amount of money and effort that can be required for a simple 30 second advert. It was also a little disconcerting, as the complete commercialisation of music apparently results in the removal of many the musical or lexical normalities that we as students have been trained to pay special attention to retaining. In the Pepsi example, there was basically no dynamics of sound, with horrific over-compression present throughout, and some of the singing had the ends of words cut off, just to appease the music. While the money would be lovely, I would feel as if I had sold my soul should I ever participate in such a blatantly non-musical music industry.

Dowdall, Peter. “Sound Engineering and Session Management.” Lecture presented at EMU space, University of Adelaide, level 5, Schultz Building, 8th of May 2008.

Forum - Week 7 - Tristram Cary

First there was nothing...

This week's forum was devoted to Tristram Cary, electronic artist and founder of the Electronic Music Unit we all know and love. Tristram's contribution to the world of electronic music is immeasurable, so I was glad we paid tribute to him after his passing. I thought if would be fitting to do a photoshoppery featuring the man himself in his rightful place, considering that's all I'm good at. I have since been informed the concept of this picture may be somewhat taboo, but until I'm asked to remove it I think it'll stay up.

Whittington, Stephen. “Tristram Cary.” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 1st of May 2008.