mtf - week 12 - dj Skilz

Well, scratching is all well and good... however more than 30 seconds continuous is just tedious. It reminds me of the Theremin - at first it's a really interesting use of time/space, then "OMG is that is ? A warbly pure tone ? Where's my polyphony ? Let alone distortion/delay/chorus/etc...?"

Apart from that minor quibble, the art of DJing is a very fine art. There are practitioners of all skill levels and it is rare that I experience the finer end.

On the blunter end, my experience of CutDemUp, a digital hardcore freak, (whose approach to scratching was perhaps improved with a blunt needle) was at the time a veritable laugh and a half. Techniques included dragging the needle sideways, and dropping it repetitively. And given the material he was mixing (digital hardcore - and if you don't know, then..here) it blended relatively seamlessly.

On a personal level, my finer moments of DJing have included using the infinite loop at the end of a record for extra "authentic record crackle", and leaving the needle on an unrotating platter - and cranking the volume for quality record feedback (a lovely warm sound).

In regards to the quality DVD we were exposed to in the name of education :P I am a bit curious as to the lack of emphasis on EQ as a tool. The EQ on a decent mixer is incredibly intense, and when used with something as simple as whatever it's called when you have two tracks on at once (beatmixing?) can enhance the layering. Not to mention the use of EQ killswitches (switch based band on/off), which when used with quality psy-trance, can raise the level of your generic middle eight peak to a level of glowstick abandon !!!





[1] Stephen Whittington, "Music Technology Forum: Semester 1 - Week 12 – Itching and Scratching". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 5th June 2008

mtf - week 11 - 3f1x

Here's a beautiful quote from an un-named author in a vitamin catalogue.
"Laundry powder - you know you'll use it up over time, so why buy a small bottle that'll only end up in the bin ?"
go green. Glow magazine. Winter 2008 edition.

This is just common sense, the like of which often falls by the wayside. A small bottle costs 1/3rd the price (or whatever) so obviously it's cheaper to buy the small one...... or is it ? Let's try a little math.
I do recall at some point in my dim distant past, supermarket trolleys with inbuilt calculators !!
Although, in personal research into toilet paper, as far as the Safe brand recycled paper is concerned, it is often cheaper (by the roll) to buy 9 rolls rather than the larger packet of 12 - I figure it is a super market conspiracy to shape purchasing.

My conclusion, is if that life is happiness, ethics is maintaining yourself in a state of conscious happiness rather than an unconscious zombie. ie buy bulk, use energy efficient lightglobes and give your mum a kiss XX



hurrah for being !!


REFERENCE
Whittington, Steven. Harris, David. Forum presentation on Ethics and Technology at EMU space, University of Adelaide. 3rd June 2008.

aa2 - week 10 - mastering

I had a go at 'mastering' 3 different tracks. I used similiar chains on all 3, EQ, stereo imaging, and compression, although I experimented with multi band and single band.

Examples are first half pre-mastering, second half post-mastering.

This track, metal style, I think I lost a bit of overall level but gained clarity.
http://www.box.net/shared/urq9p1neo4

This track, weird pop style (early 90's), similiar result, loss of level but gain of clarity.
http://www.box.net/shared/gr9o68740s

Third track, electronic, gained clarity and level. This one has fairly dirty synth pad that becomes more noticeable.
http://www.box.net/shared/6fu0m14gso

Sitting back and listening to them makes me keen to try again :)

I'm keen to try and use more EQ for pre compression control, narrowing in on particular frequencies, and to experiment more with compression I've always found compression amusingly difficult on a overall mix, individual instruments ok, but when you combine sounds it makes it another step difficult.





REFERENCES
Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mastering.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 27th May.

CC2 - Week 10 - Interface Design

two offset windows for the multislider bpatcher, and the ramp value bpatcher..

note the blue slider...


With the variable size MultiSliders it can be hard to tell where in the cycle it is, so now the slider that is being called will change colour. This limits the variability size to 8 as that is the definable colours for candycane sliders. I could use mulitple Multisliders to get more than 8 sliders - but that is a programming challenge for the future.

I put a mulitslider in a bpatcher, with the use of offset to display additional settings - very cool, and space saving !!

However I discovered that I was unable to save presets in the bpatcher window.. I can save the presets in the original patch, but this is quite limiting but good for pre-loading. This caused me to leave the duration multislider as it was, as it uses a range of 0 - 5 for the sliders.

Also bpatching the ramp to controllers, making it neat, but again harder to use re. presets.

I dig the bpatcher, I really did what I did with the multisliders "other settings" button.

link to zip..
http://www.box.net/shared/i93c885voo

UPDATE:
have worked out preset dilemna !! so have added more bpatchers..

References

Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 10 - Interface Design - Planner.pdf

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

aa2 - week 10 - mixing 03

For mixing down this week I've chosen an electronic piece I sort of finished several months ago, and dug out for a new perspective.

It features an interesting array of drum sounds, with most of the track having a "click" rather than a kick. And pretty much most of the bass spectrum actually lives in the bass line, with other sounds rarely touching the low end.

It turns out however that the first sample is from a section featuring another kick. It is in other respects quite a sparse section.
tiny tiny bits 01.mp3 (http://www.box.net/shared/tcxtrlx2cc)

The second sample is the first with a HPF and compression on the stereo mix.
tiny tiny bits 02 hpf+cmp.mp3 (http://www.box.net/shared/ozi60gbkkg)

Third sample is a different section and features the HPF and compression on the stereo mix.
tiny tiny bits 03 hpf+cmp.mp3 (http://www.box.net/shared/rfr7ru5a8c)


All files are at
http://www.box.net/files#0:f:15566470



REFERENCES
White, Paul. 2006. Mixing Essentials. Sound On Sound magazine.

Stavrou, Paul. More Salvage Mix Techniques. Audio Arts 2 Readings.

forum - week 09 - of electronics and harmonics

.. these different musical styles ... affected the evaporation rate of distilled water...
From full beakers, 14 to 17 ml evaporated.. in the silent chambers, 20 to 25 ml..under the inflene of Bach, Shankar and jazz; but, with rock... 55 to 59 ml.
[142: Tompkins and Bird]

George E. Smith.... planted maize and soyabeans ... in two identical greenhouses, both kept precisely at the same level of temperature and humidity. In one...Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' 24 hours a day....in that greenhouse sprouted earlier than those given the silent treatment.... their stems were thicker, tougher and greener.
[137: Tompkins and Bird]


In the early 1950’s, Dr T. C. N. Singh of the Department of Botany at Annamalai University, Madras, India, discovered under microscope that plant protoplasm was moving faster in the cell as a result of the sound produced by an electric tuning fork. This discovery led to his conclusion that sound must have some effect on the metabolic activities of the plant cell.
[Singh]




REFERENCES
Tompkins, Peter and Bird, Christopher. 1974. Secret Life of Plants. Blackburn, Victoria: Penguin Press.

SINGH, T. C. N., On the Effect of Music and Dance on Plants, Bihar Agricultural College Magazine, Volume 13, no. 1, 1962–1963:

CC2 - Week 9 - Data Management and Application Contro

This week's problems were.

Upon the patch loading - the probability sequencer looked like it was loaded with note, but it wasn't.

Attempting to get the note recorder to record time between notes (as well as of notes), and play back sequence with this info. The major problem being metro won't change time between bangs. and I couldn't get the coll object to succesfully spit out appropriate address' eg 12 13 10 11 8 9 6 7

SO the recorder will play notes back in the same order as played, and has the option of either using the time recorded (for the previous note) or triggered by main sequencer or modifiers.

Other problems were with the layout, my patches just seem messy, but I don't know what to do about it... also there may be a better way of laying out the sections and relating them to each other.
I think I need to look at other peoples well developed patches..

IMPORTANT note, the record section can be sent to any channel (Prob Seq = 1). Giving more variety.
Getting Reason to work with two incoming MIDI channels is bloody annoying !!!

http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week09/edwardkelly_week09_cc2.zip
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week09/WEEK09_EDWARDkeLLY.mp3

References

Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 9 - Data Management and Application Control - Planner.pdf

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

aa2 - week 09 - mixing 02

This week I've mixed down sections of a recording I did last year of Tristan Louth-Robins.

It features numerous guitar tracks, vocals, backing vocals and melodica.

I've pretty much maintained eq settings on instruments, just varied levels and effects between mixes.

I'm quite enjoying the fairly dry vocal sounds, and the varying levels of backing vocals and melodica.
That said I think mix01 works the least with the vocals being too forward and dry.
And mix03 is my favourite with much a much wetter mix than the other two.

http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week09/edwarKelly_Tmix01.mp3

http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week09/edwarKelly_Tmix02.mp3

http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week09/edwarKelly_Tmix03.mp3



This weeks lesson to be learnt was what happens when you use plug-ins on one computer that aren't available on another computer :P




REFERENCES
Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mixing.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 13th May.

cc2 - Week 8 - MIDI and Virtual Instrumentation

Since last week I have modified the phrase slider/tables to be more flexible (theoretically up to 128 sliders and including a random selector - non weighted, just random selection).

I added one of these to be a controller modifier, and three line objects for triggered changing values (the bottom one is half speed).

I also found the preset object as a way to load the patch with number boxes with a useful value (with loadmess).

Bugs -
the ramp subjects, are only triggered by a change in the max value OR by the sequencer running.

zip of files
http://www.box.net/shared/3lrkz4ls84

mp3
http://www.box.net/shared/9fqe4bp1c8

EDIT: have neatened the patch a little and updated the preset so it loads better. 160508.

References

Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week - MIDI and Virtual Instrumentation - Planner.pdf

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

mtf - week 08 - industry nerd jabbering on

In this case, not the parish priest, Peter Dowdall...

Peter Dowdall gave a rather interesting talk on both recording a large ensemble in the EMU space, and working for such multi-nationals as PEPSI. (mmmm, it makes me wonder what pepsi tastes like ?)

His use of organisational skills in the preparatory process of recording gives a good sense of necessities when approaching a recording with such a big set up, and in a space which is not something one is totally familiar with. Hence spending an amount of time prior to the actual session running through the process proves itself invaluable. For example I myself am curious as to exactly how many mic leads there are at EMU, and to hear Peter saying he had to outsource comes as no surprise.

His over the top photographic journal of the experience was also amazing !! Just recently I have had cause to bemoan my own lack of note taking when I was attempting to document some of my past works (like 6 or 7 years ago), and my own experience in the mixing world also brings home to me how bloody good it is to know what's going on now, and what was going on yesterday.


I was also very amused by his description of editing to a grid. Cutting of the end of phrases because fall outside the appropriate length.. I am looking forward to trying it at the appropriate juncture :P It's a bit like slow motion glitch.


REFERENCE
Dowdall, Peter. Forum presentation at EMU space, University of Adelaide. 8th of May 2008.

aa2 - week 8 - mixing basics

I went into uni twice to mix down a recording session I did last year. First time the DVD case was labeled, but the DVD was blank :? Second time, I had found the correct DVD, but left it at home :(

So perusing the EMU storage I found 20 .wav files which made up a track by Brian Eno and David Byrne.

I put them into ProTools, and to continue my clown action, forgot to get a snapshot of anything..

Anyway, here are three different mixes.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week08/mix%20down%2001.mp3
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week08/mix%20down%2002.mp3
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week08/mix%20down%2003.mp3

Some of the tracks are very noisy, with lots of hiss - enter the LPF.
And the vocal tracks are very nicely badly recorded, sounds like tape distortion and just dodgy tape action in general.
But given that they worked quite a lot together in late '70s early '80s, its quite possible that these tracks are
from those times :0

Generally used EQ to get rid of hiss and fit some sounds together, a bit of reverb, and some compression on the overall mix.





REFERENCES
Grice, David. 06 May 2008. Mxing Basics Lecture. Adelaide University.

mtf - week 07 - tristram carey

I was absent for this forum on the life of Tristram Carey.

His name brings back thoughts of Dr Who. Jon Pertwee (also Worzel Gummidge) and Tom Baker whom were my favourites :)

Watching recent series makes me yearn for the simple (yet rich) audio accompaniment that was the then Dr Who.

Also the "impossible piano" which features some very fine pieces of midi piano mayhem.

A shame I missed finding out more about him :(

cc2 - week 07 - Messaging and Analysis

Missing the lecture for last week left me pondering a bit, but I think what I've done should be more than adequate :)

I've created a 12 tone sequencer, where each tone is given a probability between 0-100 as to whether it will be played. Given that it's output is 1 - 12 that was easily associated with the notes 1 - 12, then an octave chooser was added to give a range.

I thought about adding individual choices for each of the 12 pitches but spent all my time on the other sections.

The phrase length gives a number of possible individual note durations and velocities. I had an amount of fun trying to get the multislider to change size AND remember its settings.

The lists of duration/velocities includes all 8 no matter what size the 'multislider' because it was easier !!

Patch (in text format)

http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week07/edwardKelly_week07_12step.txt

REFERENCES

Haines, Christian. 2008. CC2 - Week 7 - Messaging and Analysis - Planner.pdf.

Cycling'74. 2006. Max45ReferenceManual.pdf.

Cycling'74. 2006. Max Tutorials 30 -33.

aa2 - week 07 - piano goodness

It's a picture of a mic technique !!

This week to record the grand piano in the EMU space we used a selection of 5 microphones,
a Neumnn u-87 and 89 as a M-S stereo pair, two Rhode NT-5's as spaced pair, and a realistic PZM.



First features the MS with a bit of the PZM thrown in . The MS was placed halfway along inside the lid with the figure 8 along the length of the strings, and the PZM was sitting on a music stand a few feet away from the end of the piano.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week07/piano_MS_pzm_01.mp3


This second example features the NT-5's and the figure 8 from the M-S pair. The NT-5's were placed about 12 feet apart on the open side pointing at the raised lid.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week07/piano_nt5_side_02.mp3


third : NT-5's but this time with the middle from the M-S, and the NT-5's were placed on either side of the players head about ear level. A lot of extraneous noises (such as fingernails clicking) but it gives a closeness that the others lacked.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week07/piano_nt5_middle_03.mp3


fourth : for this one just the NT-5's still at head level.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week07/piano_nt5_04.mp3

The last two captured a closeness that was lacking in the other mic's. It seemed that all the other recordings had more space, and sounded from a listeners perspective rather than a performers perspective.


Other comments, this is such a dynamic instrument - recording levels are very important !!



REFERENCES
Grice, David. 29 April 2008. Recording Piano Lecture. Adelaide University.

CC2 - Week 6 - Messaging and Routing

I have made something similiar to the 'stochastic note list' in plogue bidule.

I added a multiplier of the tempo setting it will randomly choose between. Then I added a probability fader to these multiplier selections...

I added a 'drunk' object to the pitch of the delayed notes.
The modulation wheel will change potential step size from preceding note to each suceeding delayed note.


Notes_ using background objects (eg panels) make things annoying to select/move/edit.
_Using the keyboard while keyboard shortcuts are on, can make things interesting... mmm, a keyboard shortcut off switch...
_Adding things over weeks can lead to a disorganised mess. Start again for neatness.
_Left to right ordering is amazingly important !!!

debugging_One of my objects 'constantUrn', is designed to behave like 'Urn', but without the pause at the end of the cycle.. mine, when choosing 3 as the number range, seems to constantly spit out the same cycle :?
_'randsequence' seems to need a seperate reset after loading before it works right.



It's all in a zip at
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/cc2/week06/edward_cc2_week06.zip

inside is a folder with all files as .txt in case of incompatibility..


EDIT: I have neatened and updated the patch. 15 05 08.
MORE EDIT: forgot to save .txt version. 18 05 08.

References

Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 6 - Messaging and Routing - Planner.pdf

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

aa2 - week 06 - recording strings

I wish I had a brown microphone.

A few problems this week.
- Found it impossible to find a string player at university that fit in with potentials :(
- Then my laptop spontaneously died ::( leaving me without some valuable resources...

So, borrowing another laptop I recorded my neighbour playing violin at home using a Rode NT3.

This first recording of a scale was done from above about 1 ft away pointi ng halfway between f-holes and the top of the body. Some eq in the form of a HPF, and a upper shelf to reduce some other noise.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week06/scale.mp3

Second the mic pointing more at the f-hole. One of those things that appeared after the recording (in "production") some nasty frequencies appeared in this one :(
Again a HPF, high shelf, and a bit of a bell at around 1150Hz.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week06/jigger.mp3

Third, much closer mic for some pizzicato style. Using the HPF and high shelf.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week06/pizzi.mp3


Observations included; annoyance at not having a soundproof recording area. Usefulness of a diversity of mic technique when working with limited resources. String players seem much harder to please (university ones that is).




REFERENCES
Grice, David. 01 April 2008. Recording Brass/Woodwind Lecture. Adelaide University.

forum - w33k 6 - david harris sez...

distribution of david harris listings across the United States

i walked in late to this one. I always enjoy the feeling of having no idea what's going on !! It generally is a good way of watching 98% of movies/television - if you miss the beginning then to a certain extent you don't even know who the baddie is !!

anyhoo, crazy mash up, mmm... after a while into the first extended example I got into the appreciation of different sound qualities overlayed. There were sections where there seemed little interest in "production', more in novelty. This led to interesting sound qualities.
Two days ago I listened to some online demo's of the Rode NT3 microphone, one featured the sound of acoustic guitar through a reverb, with an interesting effect where playing variations would accentuate the high end which would be highlighted in the reverb.
The layering of poorly "produced" vocal samples over highly "produced" rock, was curiously similiar.

then David Harris (unlikely to be represented in above graph), presented his own mash up video to more of Vicki Bennet's mashed muzak. More "bad" pop, and just when I got bored, in came the horrible buzzing noise !! hurrah !!.

random quote from mash-up "the most unwanted music".

related quote from myself "art can be so tedious".

Other related thoughts; this Ms Bennet seems to also have a fine set of ears, and a discerning judge of layering. The pieces were constructed very well, but I felt overall contained far too much clarity in the attention to maintaining recognisability.
I think perhaps these pieces are constructed with the idea of novelty as a selling point !!






__________
REFERENCES
Harris, David. Music Technology Forum, presented at the EMU recording space, Adelaide University. 10 April 2008

"Rode Microphones - NT3". http://www.rodemic.com/microphone.php?product=NT3 (10 April 2008)

cc2 - WEEK 05 - UI Controls and Application State

I though the delay would be easy using some sort of self looping function, but was unable to think of how with the two variables of velocity/pitch. If I'd tried a bit harder perhaps I would have done a few more of those infinite loop thingy errors.

I just went and peeked at Doug's, and realised I've spent far too long on making it look like a keyboard (ish), ha !!! This is software, for doing funny things, not to emulate a physical device and please gear junkies.
That said I take a certain pleasure in its lopsidedness.

I couldn't access my ftp site (at uni) so have posted the patch as text at
http://harmonicornaments.blogspot.com/2008/04/cc2-week-05-ui-controls-and-application.html


What do you know, just had a look once I'd posted everything, and...... I'd forgotten the program change and midi channel.
So a quick copy and paste from week 05, then mapping them to the arrow keys... and hurrah!!!
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES
Haines, Christain. 2008. CC2 - Week 5 - UI Controls and Application State - Planner.pdf

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

MTF - WEEK 05 - PIERRE HENRY

this picture is not at all related

A novelty this week was the coincidence of filmic presentations in my study life. By the time I got to forum and the presentation of a documentary about Pierre Henry, my filmic nerves were well strung. Hence what was potentially an interesting doco was slightly wasted on me. Not to say I didn't enjoy moments !! Monsieur Henry does seem to have a very delicate and well directed ear.

I have previously enjoyed Henry's "Variations for a door and a sigh", an amazingly delicate experience, not at all like his presentation of La Dixome, or his work with psychedelic rock. As I mentioned, he does have a fine honed sense of sound, it is not always necessarily pointed in the same direction as my own.

Unfortunately I was not ready to sit through another hour long non-interactive piece of film, nor was I ready to read all the subtitles !! So I sat in the corner, inspired by two other laptop typing students, to get my own out and perform our own symphony of key pressings to the accompaniment of the doco and it's following selections of other works - perhaps we were a bit rude/distracting, but I was at the time uncaring :(

I would like to offer apologies to anyone who was offended by the laptop frenzy in the corner, and for my part in it.
Although perhaps this was the interactive element in the normally interactive environment of the forum :?

I had previously been discussing the potential contents of the forum, and was excited by the potential of Stephen Whittington sharing some of his recent work/projects, and the following descent into video hell was no doubt worsened by my disappointment.

So I would like to finish this post with a suggestion that perhaps Stephen and even Christian (whose work I have been curious about for a while) would like to present a short dissertation on one of their recent participations :)




in regard to :
Music Technology Forum, presented at the EMU recording space, Adelaide University. 03 April 2008

AA2 - WEEK 05 - RECORDING WIND

This week I recorded a saxopohone.

For whatever reason when I went into the studio there were but two microphone leads :?
So I recorded several takes with two microphones.

I used variously an AKG C-414, a Shure beta 56-A, and a pair of Rhode NT-5's.

For this first recording I made a little percussion loop which I got Nick the saxophonist to improvise over - this was to extend the useability of the recordings and give me a chance to place it in a mix.
Using the C-414 about 1.5m above the bell pointing down, and the 56-A sort of at the side pointing at the body below the bell.
A lot of room in this mic, which I've further added more reverb and a bit of EQ and compression to sit it in the mix.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week05/beepySax.mp3

This example has the 414 and 56-A in opposite positions to the previous example. Stereo panning, different volumes and a bit of compression.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week05/414bell56Aabove.mp3

Next example was recorded using the two NT-5's in an X-Y stereo position, vertically along the length of the sax, about 1 ft away.
This is presented here with no processing whatever - some interesting sax artifacts in the first little bit.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week05/frey.mp3

Next example features the two NT-5's, one above the sax about 1.5m pointing down, and the other pointing into the bell 20cm awayish. This is a mix of the two mic's, with some stereo panning and a bit of compression.
http://ed.growerscollective.com/uni/aa2/week05/nt5abovebelow.mp3





REFERENCES
Grice, David. 01 April 2008. Recording Brass/Woodwind Lecture. Adelaide University.

Gemmell, Keith. 2003. Recording brass and woodwind. Music Tech magazine.

Robjohns, Hugh. 1999. TOP BRASS, Recording Brass & Reeds. Sound On Sound magazine.