CC - week 04 - more midi keys

To further extend the functionality of last weeks assignment.

Fairly straight forward, although I did come across an issue with the 'midiinfo' object again. In this case the patch would route an incoming midi signal to the output OK, until I initialised it :?

Basically,now it seems to behave in an appropriate manner, but I have doubts about why it is doing this .. but then again maybe I'm being paranoid :P

Moments of this I did enjoy; further going through the help clicks - window after window getting a bit lost at the potential, and the hope I could remember all this. And the random colour scheme button (the background colour of the screen shot is in fact, a random colour scheme).

I was thinking of putting a 'loadbang' object in (to replace the initialise button), but for some reason things worked before I pressed button, then not after !! So I left just in case.....

I had problems loading the patch, so here's the .txt file of it.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week04/week04 final.txt


Oh, and I did notice that 'flush' doesn't work so well if you change channels during a note duration.

Oh Oh, and getting the note durations. Couldn't wangle getting it to pass through appropriately so used 'makenote 100 2200'.





REFERENCES
Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 4 - MIDI Information and Control - Planner.pdf

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
.

AA2 - week 04 - recording percussion

This week I went into the studio with Freddie May, and did some recordings of Vinnie Bhagat and a selection of percussion instruments.

We used an array of 4 microphones to create two stereo setups.

A Neumann U-87 and U-89 for a middle-side setup, and two Rhode NT-5's for a stereo spread.

This first example features the two NT-5's recording a percussion tree - the two mic's were place about 7 1/2 feet up pointing down.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week04/nt5_percTree.mp3

This second example, again of the percussion tree, features all the mic's at various levels.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week04/all_percTree.mp3

And the third, the middle-side setup on a large aluminium plate gong
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week04/ms_gong.mp3

___________________________________________________________________

REFERENCES
Robjohns, Hugh. Rhythm Method, recording real drums. 1999. Sound on Sound Magazine. Viewed 30 March 2008.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul99/articles/recordingdrums.htm.

Davies, Dan. Recording Latin Percussion. 2005. Sound on Sound Magazine. Viewed 30 March 2008.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec06/articles/latin.htm.

Jackson, Blair. The Big Beat. 2004. Mix on line. Viewed 30 March 2008.
http://mixguides.com/microphones/product_features/big-beat-audio-704/.

Grice, David. Recording Percussion Lecture. Adelaide University. 25 March 2008.

___________________________________________________________________

MTF - week 04 - more presentations

This weeks extravaganza of presentations was once again an inspiring leap into the world of watching people talk about ....... "stuff".

Ben Probert's presentation was the funnest/most entertaining with his hiding behind an array of baffles at the back (for sound isolation apparently) and showing his Max project and his effected face on the screen for everyone to watch. Thinking of the presentations the real time manipulation of his patch (and David Dowling's last week), were much more interesting than just listening to pre-recorded examples.

Although, perhaps this was because their sonic outcomes had more interest for me than Matt Mazone and Khaled Sanadzadeh's examples. But again preparing myself for a step backward, John Delaney presented a pre-prepared piece that used an interesting technique (ie stochastic choice of prepared loops), and was a nice piece in itself......mmmm, this leads me to the conclusion that I'm glad I'm not studying psychology or philosophy when these observations would themselves be worthy of several pages of study.

Freddie May's presentations was the most lacking in multimedia. The cloud background from the media player just didn't cut when compare to the still's from Luke Digance's collaboration art show (let alone the getting down silent performance with flashing background), and Doug Loudon's home movie of mouse clicks and software jumping around.

Although again Freddie's sonic outcome was quite interesting which adds another layer of perspective :)



BONUS LINKS:
http://www.infinitecat.com/ http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

references
Music Technology Forum, presented at the EMU recording space, Adelaide University. 27 March 2008

CC2 - WEEK 03 - MIDI KEYS la MAX

Well the predictions have proved correct - too much time can be spent on this Max !!

I spent far too long trying to work out how to use the modulo (%) to actually spit out a letter name... I figure I should be able to create a list (C,C#,D,D#...) then choose which item in the list to output but couldn't work it out, but figured another way which involved not quite as much typing as I could have done!!

I also discovered how to make things invisible in the lock mode, and how to draw striking boxes !!!
I spent a while also on the midiinfo object. I had a problem getting the MIDI output mode, but only just discovered putting the "1" into the left input halfway through writing this sentence !!!

Patch is at
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week03/midi2.pat

I have also just added a panic button for extra goodness (not included on above picture).


EDIT :
just noticed a problem with opening a different patch in Max at Uni, so to be safe, here be the .txt version
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week03/midi2.txt





Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 3 - Program Structure - Planner.pdf

Winkler, Todd 2001. "Chapter 4 - Program Structure and Design". P71-78. Composing
Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max, The MIT Press.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
.

MTF - WEEK 03 - PRESENTATIONS

I was just saying how much I enjoyed last years efforts to give presentations - by myself that is - generally I found most others uninteresting and poorly delivered... that is why I put so many man hours into Plogue, and so little into my actual presentation.

I just hope someone got something out of it :P

Since the forum I have spent another selection of man hours into the patch which I did show on screen, making it more sexy/smooth/glamorous and highlighting each individual hairy moment !!!

this is a stylish end product, with fake graphical stimuli !!!

this is the real end product, luffly simple !!!

That said about my own work, I enjoyed seeing the two variations on the Max patches. Graphical styling is key to all obvious Max endeavours !!!!
Now, how do I do it.. that is obviously the question I should have asked at the time >.<

BRING ON THE ROBOT DOGS !!!
mmmm, http://thisismycomputerblog.blogspot.com/, that someonelse mentioned in their blog ?
Just don't read the comments !!!!



REFERENCES
Everyone. 2008. All the things anyone ever said or wrote or thought this year.

AA2 - week 03 - recording the electric guitar

I set up the guitar with three microphones, the Shure SM57, Sennheiser MD-421, AKG C-414. These were adjusted for different takes.

First example is with the SM57 and MD-421 close to the speaker pointing across at the other side, the C-414 on hyper cardioid about 3-4' in front of the amp.
There is a mixture of each mic in this, giving quite a big pub rock sound - would be good as intro to a song. The C-414 in this case gives a good sense of depth/size to the sound.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week03/monoRockk.mp3


Second is a little doom. Mixing the SM57 and the MD-421 together giving that slightly phased metal sound, lacking in mids.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week03/powerDoomm.mp3


Third example, undistorted picked guitar, a bit indie.. in this case the 57 and 421 are pointing more directly in at the edge, and the C-414 moved out to about 6'.
I created a stereo effect with panning the 5SM7 and MD-421 slightly out, and adding a little C-414 for roominess - it seems that a little of the reverb I was playing with also slipped in on the C-414.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week03/indieStereo.mp3

There is also compression on each of the finalised mixes.




references.
White, Paul. "STRINGFEST!", Sound on Sound, viewed 22 March 2008.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/nov96/recordingguitars.html

Crisp, Pete. "nu-metal guitar tracks", MusicTech magazine, August 2004.

aa2- week 02- vocal recording

This first example highlighted a few things for me -
it was the second of my deliveries and i did so with added volume/excitement, this had the effect of making the room sound much more noticeable - especially when compressing as I did with a total gain reduction of 10dB. There is also slight side chain compression on the "f" sound which seemed a bit strong. I also noticed it was very important when editing that the initial "th" sound of the first word was represented adequately to make it sound good.
Also familiarity with the script, as I noticed a mispronounced word that wasn't picked up on the day.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week02/01EdLoud.mp3

This second example, recorded by Freddie, retains an amount of the dynamics of the delivery, but not as much as the original. This highlighted how the excitement of the actual recording could give new volume levels in the delivery.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week02/02freddieDynamic.mp3

This third example was a quieter more relaxed delivery from myself, I tried to maintain the relaxedness with a bit of evening out.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week02/03EdNotSoLoud.mp3



There is also a slight amount of eq on each, to help remove room boxiness. The above picture is of example 3.

The vocals were recorded with a Neumann U87, with a pop filter placed about 2 inches away, and the voice over person at various distances.





References
Haines, Christian. "AA2 - Planner - Week 2 - Voice Recording.pdf"

Anon. 2004, Recording Background Vocals, viewed 05/19/2006
http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?sectioncode=41&storycode=4716.

White, Paul 1998, 20 TIPS ON.. Recording Vocals, Sound on Sound, viewed 12/1 2007,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct98/articles/20tips.html?print=yes.

White, Paul 1994, WORD UP: Recording the spoken word, Sound on Sound, viewed 12/1 2007,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jun94/spokenword.html?print=yes.

cc2 - week 02 - intro to max

Print a descending Pythagorean chromatic scale given a starting note.


Had a few problems with this, I couldn't see any way to complete this within the lesson content and tutorials - so looked at last years blogs for help. This exposed me to a few new objects which I integrated (looking at the readings helped as well).

However, I could only get it to print numeric output - but I did manage an object to show note names as they descended.

Also, by selecting starting note, this prints the selected note number- to make the scale clear, I added an effective information break (.:___) at the beginning and end of the output (I needed the delay otherwise the end break was inside the notelist).
I also thought it might be nice to include a clear window command but couldn't fine one.

The patch file is here,
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week02/DescendingChromaticScale.pat




references:
"CC2 - Week 2 - Introduction to Max - Planner.pdf". Haines, Christian. 13/03/2008.

"Chapter 3 - Graphic Programming with Max". Winkler, Todd 2001, Composing
Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max, The MIT Press.

mtf - week 02 - blogging, what is it good for ?

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CC - Week 01 - pseudo programming

This weeks task : to transform input from a drum kit into a note on a 'musical device'.

I suppose I probably don't need to worry too much about certain assumptions, but am not entirely confident so will make a couple.

There is a drum kit, when one of the components is struck, this becomes the input.
The output is directed to a musical device with input mechanism undefined (could be midi, could be physical direct manipulation).
The program will stop running at the end.

So, the code (as expected the formatting was lost so I am effectively using 2 complementary images).






I was struck by the number of ways this exercise was possible, but mostly i was struck by 'CASE' hence my using this method.




REFERENCES.

Haines, Christian. CC2 - Planner - Week 1 - Programming & Pseudocoding.pdf

Dalbey, Dr John 2006, Pseudocode Standard, 11/1/2007, http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/pdl_std.html


Dalbey, Dr John 2006, Vague Pseudocode examples, 11/1/2007, http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/pdl_vague.html

Edwards, Peter 2000, A Pseudocode "Standard", 11/1/2007,
http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~pedwards/teaching/CS3007/requirements/pseudocode.html

aa2 - week 01 - session planning

BLACK SABBATH - original line up, going for 70's style.

4 piece band - guitar, bass guitar, drums, vocals. from past recordings their is also potential for other instruments such as harmonica.

I imagine going for a live performance/recording. So using baffles/or separate recording rooms for the acoustic isolation of instruments (guitar/bass/drums) and separate room for vocals.

Running separate headphone mixes for each performer with their preferred levels of each mic/instrument will maintain their connection as a band, with eye contact also important between members.

Overdubs will also be happening so they'll be recorded after, either for replacing takes or adding extra layers for dimension.




references :
Leadley, Simon 2004, 'Digital Etiquette - Session Documentation', Audio Technology,