AA2 - Semester 3 - Week 9

Mixing; stage 2:

- For this week I chose to work on the sound of the band I will be recording for the final project.
This jazz band called "Aaron Austin Quartet" played a bit of blues in the last weekend and I recorded a bit of it.
- Just for the sake of trying, I used the delay plug-ins, very very slightly affecting the sound of the solos (particularly the 2nd and the 3rd examples, the guitar and bass solos).
It sounded pretty much awesome! It actually gave the sound some effect between a reverb and a chorus.

I will probably set my session pretty much like this one for this band's recording some days later..


References:
- David Grice, 'Audio Arts 2.1' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 6/5/2008

Forum - Semester 3 - Week 8

The best forum ever, EVER..

Peter Dowdall
Alright, the story is that we got speeched! by some gentleman who has heaps of experience in REAL-LIFE; i.e. sound engineering and recording.
Having spent a notable number of years in the music market of New York, he talked to us about some points which we ave to take into consideration. (of course if we want to end up as a part of this industry).
The tenseness of the job, the value of time and the hardness of satisfying the clients were main topics of his instructions. He took an example of his work for Pepsi; Britney Spears was supposed to sing on a whole bunch of different videos and the final mix was for him to finish.
The various points of technical difficulties expressed by him was my personal main interest.
At the end, I talked to some of my classmates and there were a few who were literally "freaked-out" and were saying that this was not what they would opt to do as their career.
In contrast, I got moer interested in the whole "thing" of audio engineernig and production.
It was a really good one. Congratulations Stephen (or Chrisitian?)

PS: Peter also talked about a recording session which he did a while ago, honestly wasn't really the most interesting topic for me!

This picture below is Peter Dawdall (Britney Spears' sound engineer), South Park interpretation: References:
- Peter Dawdall "Music Technology Forum - Week 8." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 10/04/2008.
- South Park, Season 12, Episode 1202 "Britney's New Look",Southpark Studios (http://www.southparkstudios.com/) [Accessed 13/5/2008]

CC2 - Semester 3 - Week 8

Controlling Reason via Max MSP

As the topic says, the exercise was to create a patch which sends information to Reason and controls it. The features were supposed to be added to the probability sequencer from the last week.
Since I had screwed up the last week exercise, I had to do a double job!
The MP3 of this week, demonstrates a sequencer set to play notes C, E, G and B (C Major 7th) from different octaves.
There are also controllers for ADSR, filter, etc,... in the MAX patch; of course they control parameters in Reason.
The issue I came across was the common control numbers. For instance controller 25 is for both panning channel 3 in the Mixer in Reason and off the Keyboard Track on the Subtractor sampler. However, there are ways to get away with it.
My patch looks like this:

and the MP3 of around a minute of the result could be found in the Box.net box in the right side of the page.

PS: The TAB key turns the device on and off!

References:
- Christian Haines 'Creative Computing 2.1' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 8/5/2008
- Max MSP, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max/MSP) [Accessed 5/5/2008]

AA2 - Semester 3 - Week 8

Mixing; stage 1.

For this week's exercise, we had to mixdown 3 different mixes of owned material.
I recorded one of my friends' bands last semester, having chosen 1 of 11 different versions of the tune I had, I took 2 different parts of the song and re-mixed them. (files labeled (1) and (2))

My Protools session including all the plug-ins that I used looked something like this:

The other re-mix was from a soundtrack I made for a TV documentary; the mix includes acoustic instruments (guitar and a traditional Iranian lute) and sampled sounds. I rewired Reason and Protools for this tune. (file labeled (3))

References:
- David Grice, 'Audio Arts 2.1' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 6/5/2008

Forum - Semester 3 - Week 7

Tristram Cary;

The composer of the music theme for the series "Doctor Who" who died on April 24th, 2008 in Adelaide, was a British electronic musician who basically gained his reputation from works he did right after the WWII. As a radar engineer, he got acquainted with various electronic devices and developed a -relatively unique- concept of electronic music.For his biography click here; I better not talk more and if interested, you might as well check his website yourself. Unfortunately, by this date his website is not updated. He is passed away (at the age of 82) but the website says that he is productive at the age of 81.
Stephen Whittington basically told us about Cary's life, the way he got into what he got into, the ups and downs of his career and his late works. According to Stephen, a notable part of his late years was spent on re-archiving and re-mixing his former works; apparently 73 (or 75?) CDs in total.

References:
- Stephen Whittington "Music Technology Forum - Week 5 - Pierre Henry." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 3/04/2008.
- Tristram Cary - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram_Cary) [Accessed 6/5/8]
- Tristram Cary - Official website (http://www.tristramcary.com/) [Accessed 6/5/8]

CC2 - Semester 3 - Week 7

Probability Sequencer.

Direct and honest! this was out objective:
Create a probability sequencer application using the multislider object as the fundamental GUI component. The user will select 12 different notes with each note having a certain probability of being triggered. The note will be triggered in sequence at a specific BPM. A table will be used to store the information and a histo / table object will be used to analyse the results of different sequences.I had two major issues: I came up with a patch to serve the algorithm but I used it 12 times! for 12 different notes; I must have been pretty stupid. I know it is possible to use a list, i.e. a set of identical parameters to do this job but SO FAR I haven't been able to do so. Wait for a while, please..
The second BIG issue was that I realised (AFTER I ACTUALLY UPLOADED THIS FILE!) that I had understood everything wrong!
My patch should have done something else basically!
It's funny 'cause what we were asked for, was much easier than what I came up with but there is about 3 hours left to the deadline and I have a class and stuff.. sorry, my bad..

PS: I came up with my project idea and -apparently- Mr Christian Haines has roughly approved it. It's good news, isn't it?
PS2: Week 7 CC was on my birthday, May 1st!

- Christian Haines 'Creative Computing 2.1' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 1/5/2008
- Max MSP, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max/MSP) [Accessed 5/5/2008]

AA2 - Semester 3 - Week 7

Piano recording.
Like other weeks' exercises, the job this week was to experiment several recordings of piano and several mixes of them.
The notable point here was the magnificence! of PZM microphone; I had tried it before and I had come to realisation that it was a wicked mike but I think I needed a confirmation as well; David Grice confirmed the quality of sound recorded by PZM!

The first is a mixture of C414, an NT5 positioned in front of the piano and a U87 picking the reverb of the room: Sounds a bit metallic but I kind-of like it. Especially when you have "repetitive" sort of music, (house,etc..) a metallic piano line would be nice.. the file is labeled: 1-aa2sem3week7c414nT5RU87R(1). Should be easy to find..

The second mix is pretty simple: a U87 with an omni pattern and two NT5s positioned in the read and he back of the instrument. I find the sound pretty wide and nice.. Labeled: 2-aa2sem3week7MSO-NT5s(2)

The 3rd one is probably the best one; a PZM sticked to the open lid of the piano and a stereoised! U87 (figure of 8 pattern and doubled; left and right are 180 degree different in phase) labeled: 3-aa2sem3week7PZM-MS(3)

The 4th exercise probably carries the "fullest" sound; It's not really surprising because there are 5 microphones present in the sound. PZM, both U87s of the M-S technique, and two NT5s:
4-aa2sem3week7PZMMS8MSoNT5s(4)

References:
- David Grice, 'Audio Arts 2.1' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 29/4/2008