AA1 - Semester 2 - Project

This project is a recreation of the sonic environment of a bus stop. There are various sounds of people walking, the pedestrian road signal, cars assing, moble phones beeping for text messages and rings, people speaking on the phone, etc. None of the sounds used (except for person talking to phone in Dutch language) are recorded from the original source; i.e. the sounds of the cars are made of other sounds and noises. In some cases -such as the ring of the mobile phone) MIDI technology has been utilised. There are also other sounds (particularly sounds of car engines), which are made using Plogue bidule. In reality however, there are many more sounds audible to an individual standing in a bus stop.
A number of sounds, which I used in this project, actually come out of my mouth! In these cases, I have recorded the sounds and have modified them using Protools. Utilising various effects, time stretch and other processes in protocols, in some cases I have dramatically changed the original sound and have simulated a real-world sound.
There also are a number of sounds, which I have used Plogue for. Particularly digital (or rather artificial) sounds such as mobile beeps are made by plogue.
My approach was to get as close as possible to the real situation of a bus stop. Although the result is not the best simulation of that particular situation, I have come very close to some of my aims.
Most of the issues, which I had to deal with, were regarding the ordinary errors and problems of using digital mediums such as computers.
The software that I had to use in order to compile my project (Cubase) was/is not the most reliable software and it occasionally slowed me very down.
In general I experimented new ways of manipulating various sounds and noises; The most important part was that each single element of this project should imitate the some existing sounds and should lead the listeners’ imagination! This needed a new approach to observe the sound scene.
The MP3 of the final result is here:



The documentation for this project can be downloaded too:

CC 1 - Semester 2 - Final Project

Project; Sounds Without Origins.

My project is to experiment the effects of different devices on sound. The original sound, is an electric guitar and utilising the software Plogue Bidule, various effect devices affect the sound.
Firstly it is the sound of guitar which fills the final mix, but after a while a rhythm enters, the sound of guitar get delayed, reverbed, distorted, etc.. till the original sound completely fades out from the final mix and there are just “aftermaths” of the sound-generating process..
It should be noted that the patch provided by me, contains two rewire setups. It already is rewired with Reason and Live. In the example (blogged) I have used the rhythm of a Reason Dr. Rex device.
The idea behind this project of mine is to examine the existence of several electronic and digital effect processors without the presence of the original sound; hearing something and not knowing where it comes from or how it is generated.
In addition to this, the patch also adds harmonics to the original signals (pitch-shifter is one of the elements used in this patch).
For the most important part, the effects and the amount of them in the final mix could be controlled via an external controller (again in the case of my example, I have used Novation 61 SL) therefore in the final mix, there are different levels for different sounds throughout the duration of the project.
Issues that could possibly occur mostly deal with the interconnection of different softwares. It is essential to consider Plogue Bidule as the master software of the rewiring process. On the other hand it is also essential NOT to start another software which could be rewired to Plogue while the tune is going on.
This technology and the sound coming out of this patch, in my opinion, would be reasonably useful for a sound track or generally a “background theme”. Like many other tunes in the genre of Ambient, the final mix is not made up of too many sounds and the listener would not have many difficulties distinguishing the sounds. Mostly for this reason, the patch suits a film score.

Here is a piece that I did using this patch:



you can download the documentation needed for this project from here: (ZIP file.)