Forum Week 11

After my brain got over the initial shock of listening to rap music for two hours at last weeks forum, I was able to recollect my neurons and focus on the subject of this week. Are humans being integrated into technology? I would say yes, but I have the naïve thought that it should be the other way around. Integration of technolgy and humans reminds me of a possible future I imagined about fifteen years ago. It is quite possible that there will be tech/human hybrids competing at the Paralympic Games. These games, filled with technological ‘freaks’ with artificial limbs created for the sole purpose of breaking records, will overshadow and be more popular than the regular Olympic games. Another thought is that if we can replace limbs with so called better ones, what will the outcome be for humans? Will humanity go down the path of replacing healthy limbs for the sake of an ‘upgrade’? It could simply be considered an expansion on cosmetic surgery for some people which basically becomes an ethical issue. An issue I think I will leave alone for now.

As for a greener University we could adopt this:
We should only wash half our face on Monday.
Perhaps even a ‘tits out’ Tuesday.
Smoke weed on Wednesday.
Eat only tofu on Thursday.
And wear flares and tiptoe through tulips on Friday.

On a final note is technology attractive, seductive and sexy as Steven pointed out? I guess it is.

Whittington, Steven. 2008. “Forum.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 29th May.

Harris, David. 2008. “Forum.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 29th May.

AA2 Week 11

Mastering

I mastered songs from Edward[1] and Sanad’s[2] major assignments from last year.

With VU’s calibrated at –15 (RMS) I used EQ to bring out the vocals more and to add some air in the top end. I also used EQ to reduce the precussive sound from the acoustic guitar. Compression set at 4:1 was also used. The main thing I found was that when the second time “folly” is said, the sound goes dull then bright again. I don’t know if it had to do with mic technique or frequency masking in the mixdown. I am guessing it was the latter. The mix had a bit of out of phase content but nowhere near as troublesome as the next song.

Sanad’s song basically sounded better the minute I flipped one side out of phase, or in this particular case, back in phase. Again the VU was calibrated at –15, this time the song was off the scale with the VU completely pegged all the way through the song. Calibrated at –6 it still went over +1. This time the mastered version is actually quieter than the original, but at least now it should translate well on a variety of different stereo systems.

Personally I am not interested in ‘loudness wars’ so I focused on the tone of the sounds rather than simply making them louder.

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Edward Unmastered

Edward Mastered

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Sanad Unmastered

Sanad Mastered
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Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mixing.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 27th May.

[1]Louth-Robbins, Tristan “Tragic.” 2007

[2]Sanad & Co. "The song with no Tech students." 2007

Digidesign. 1996-2007 Avid Technology, Inc All Rights Reserved.

CC2 Week 10

Well it seems I am out of time with this one. Unfortunately the patch is still a mess. The main thing I can take from this is to create all the ‘add ons’ in a separate patch to start with. I had issues with the menubar. For some reason the text would not save in the menubar object window. Basically a disappointing blog entry.
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patch
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Haines, Christian. 2008. “CC2 – MIDI and Virtual Instrumentation.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 22nd May.

1990-2005 Cycling 74/IRCAM

AA2 Week 10

This is another song I revisited from a couple of years ago. The original recording was done by someone else, but I thought the song was pretty cool so I offered to give it a second mix. The first song is not the original mix but it sounds close to it. I recall it had no instrument separation, sounded quite dull, was mostly mono and had no pizzaz if you know what I mean. It sounded rather flat and deserved so much more. It had nothing to make the listener want to actually listen to it. The main point of the song to me was the bass line. Why that was not prominent in the initial mix is beyond me. A rebalance of the lead vocals vs backing vocals was definitely needed also as I recall the backing vocal overshadowing the lead. The rest I simply cleaned up as best I could with filters and compression to give it a little lift and to provide some much needed vibrance and energy.
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before
after
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Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mixing.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 22nd May.

Kartinyeri, James. "Land Rights." Ruwini. Kruize Kontrol Entertainment, 2005.

Digidesign. 1996-2007 Avid Technology, Inc All Rights Reserved.

Forum Week 10

I am always surprised by the lack of spelling ability when it comes to the actual letters of the genre referred to as rap. People always seem to forget the C at the beginning.

Whittington, Steven. 2008. “Forum.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 22nd May.

CC2 Week 9

I created an object named “infograbber” that contains the coll. I added the coll section as an effect of sorts. The data from coll can be collected on the fly when desired by the user and sent out and activated when felt appropriate. Each data list can be selected and the data sent to different MIDI channels or control devices. Logically everything seems to make sense. I get stuck sometimes remembering which objects do what at times though. All in all when a patch is thought through in small sections rather than one big finished assignment, I find that it is just a matter of logical thinking.

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mp3

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MAX patch

infograbber

encapsulated object1 from week7

encapsulated object2 from week7
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Haines, Christian. 2008. “CC2 – MIDI and Virtual Instrumentation.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 15th May.

1990-2005 Cycling 74/IRCAM

Reason. 2008 Propellorhead Software

Forum Week 9

It was extremely interesting to hear about how the notes were chosen by Darren Curtis for his works. The Giza pyramid set up to create 0, 90, 180 and 360 AC amplitude, the fact that the sarcophagus happened to be red referencing 440Hz (out of interest I have always thought the key of A ‘sounds’ red) and the discovery of F#, A and C# in his observations were intriguing. I could not help but think that these ‘discoveries’ are a lot of the time made to fit inside theories in an effort to create fact. I also think that a lot of effort was put into what essentially at the end of the day was simply playing an F# minor chord. I do think I hit the nail on the head when I asked him whether he believed his work was a “sonic reiki” opening chakras and such which is fine if you believe that sort of thing, but from my perspective all the ‘discoveries’ could have been implemented into researching more real health benefits such as cell realignment, fat loss or even a cure for cancer. It also seemed to me that this was made into another musical art show to justify all the reseach.
Seb, get down to IP Australia and patent your Water-chimes. You are sitting on a gold mine.

Tomczak, Sebastian. “Masters Student Presentation.” Workshop presented at the University of Adelaide 15th of May 2008.

Curtis, Darren. “Masters Student Presentation.” Workshop presented at the University of Adelaide 15th of May 2008.

AA2 Week 9 Mixing

I dug up an old drum recording I forgot I had from about five years ago. The first mix is simple level adjustments, panning and a bit of eg and compression on the kick. The second has eq and compression on all the tracks. The third has eq, compression, a 27ms delay on the snare to thicken it, the kick drum has a 58hz sine wave gated across it and finally some reverb added to the snare and overheads. The reverb has a quick decay with a 20ms predelay to try and steer clear of the 80’s sound. I am pleased that I can not only start to get better sounds, but can actually imagine a sound and create what I hear in my head.
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Mix1
Mix2
Mix3
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Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mixing.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 13th May.

Digidesign. 1996-2007 Avid Technology, Inc All Rights Reserved.

CC2 Week 8

It is no secret that I always struggle to create music this way. I do prefer a set format in a composition. I did find this much easier than last weeks exercise. I controlled the mod wheel in MAX via metro that is going into a counter. That is set to 2 so it goes up and down and then goes into scale set at 0 127 so it goes across all 128 data bits. Two number boxes can manually control the range of the mod wheel. I also made a MAX controller for the ADSR section in Subtractor. This is simply a metronome going into random then into scale. This was going to be used four times so it was more convenient to encapsulated them. I called it randslide, short for random slider. All controls are manually adjustable by the user. The result is not overly musical, but the random results are interesting. Kind of like R2-D2 on crack.
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mp3

MAX patch

randslide encapsulated object

week7 encapsulated object

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Haines, Christian. 2008. “CC2 – MIDI and Virtual Instrumentation.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 8th May.

1990-2005 Cycling 74/IRCAM

Reason. 2008 Propellorhead Software

Forum Week 8

VU meters and peak meters should be used in conjunction with each other. They monitor audio in two completely different ways and one should not be neglected over the other. The V in VU literally stands for voltage, although these days it generally stands for volume. A bit like the simpletons that changed the V in DVD to mean versatile. How can one distinguish between high and low frequencies and relative volume with a peak meter? They cannot. It is a fantasy. Just like the fantasy of waking up next to Jessica Alba. It will never happen. Peak meters simply show when you have exceeded the bandwidth of the digital medium, not when distortion occurs. Even if the red light appears that does not necessarilly mean you have 'gone over.' It may mean you have simply met your mark. And just because the peak meter did not flash red is no indication there is no ugly distortion like Julian Clarey going on. All a peak meter can accomplish is displaying transients. That is it. It will never identify the contour or relative volume of a sound. Sure some VU meters operate with LED’s but they have VU ballistics and not to be confused with peak meters. Ears are analagous to VU meters and move with the power of the sound. Do not listen to the down and out pill popping junkie bums that think a VU needle is something you stick in your arm or that DC regulated means they copped a court order to wear an ankle bracelet. Use a peak meter. Use a VU meter. Use them both. Know what they can accomplish and what they cannot. And most of all…know the difference between the two and never use the term VU loosely. There is a big difference between VU meters and peak meters just like peanuts and cashews.

Dowdall, Peter. 2008. “Forum.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 8th May.

AA2 Week 8 Mixing

I will present the three mixes in three stages of progress.
Mix1 has the guitars panned slightly off centre. Bass is placed to be subtle and add depth but not overbearing. The vocals has a telephone effect on it via eq.
Mix2 has reverb added to the guitars and the telephone effect removed.
Mix3 has an added delay of 68ms on the vocals. I also stuck a modulator effect on the rhythm guitar. A compressor was placed on the melodic guitar. I also automated the volume to duck at the word ‘sun’ to reduce sibilance. This needs to be fine tuned though.
With only four tracks I kept the differences subtle and ‘more real’ while sparing people any ridiculous panning effects or over the top automation. I felt keeping the emotion in the song would be more challenging and appropriate. I will most likely use these ideas in different places in the final song and thought I would practice making a real world mix.

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Mix1

Mix2

Mix3

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Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Mixing.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 8th May.

Digidesign. 1996-2007 Avid Technology, Inc All Rights Reserved.

Forum week 7

Good Lord. I just realised that the ‘TC’ in the company name TC Electronics obviously stands for Tristram Cary. I think todays presentation by Steven was an appropriate and insightfull look into the life of Tristram. EMU would most likely not exist if not for him as he had a major influence in its creation. I think we need more wars so the military can throw away their ‘junk’ at the end of it so we can scavenge it all. Who am I kidding. The military would probably shoot anyone these days if they even thought of taking anything.

Whittington, Steven. 2008. “Forum.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 1st May.

CC2 week 7

The multi slider acts as an addition object adding together number values. These separate values are sent to the + objects where they are added together in a line. This value is then separated by “less than greater than” objects and a note will be triggered somewhere between 0 and the added value.

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text file

week7 encapsulated object

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Haines, Christian. 2008. “CC2 – Introduction to Max.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 1st May.

1990-2005 Cycling 74/IRCAM

AA2 Week 7 Piano

I set up an MS pair with the negative side tilted lower towards the bottom end and the positive side tilted up and away from the top end as demonstrated in Michael Stavrou’s book Mixing With Your Mind (pp92-93). This sounded good as it had ‘air’ but the tops sounded a little too close to my ears. I then placed the mics about 15cm further out and this resulted in a more darker even sound with the bottom end solid and the top notes fading off. It sounded better to me but still had a slightly mid sound to it. A bit more adjusting finding the mid area and pointing the dead side of the MS directly at it should get better results in the future. A spaced pair was also set up. The spaced pair consisting of NT5’s, each one placed mid way between strings and lid at each end of the piano, sounded overly bright to me but stereo wise sounded even across the speakers.

MS first try

MS second try

NT5

Grice, David. 2008. “AA2 – Recording Guitar.” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide 29th April.

Digidesign. 1996-2007 Avid Technology, Inc All Rights Reserved.

Stavrou, Michael. “Chapter 6. PNO Secrets.” In Mixing with your mind. Christopher Holder ed. Flux Research. 2003.