Week 5 - AA1 - Sound Art

I'm Back Here
by Jesse Glass and Rod Summers

Jesse Glass and Rod Summers are American and English poets, respectively, who met in Holland. They collaborated and conceived quite a number of works, as can be seen here.

What makes this piece interesting is the use of the simplest sound source which is a human voice. The poem text is also very short:

I'm back here

The piece basically repeats I'm a few times, and back a few times. I'm gradually getting softer as back gradually gets louder from a really low amplitude. The final word, here is also repeated but very quickly.

The use of technology is also very minimal. The only obvious use of sound editing is the change in dynamic, panning of the second word (back), and the fast looping of the last word (here).

Reference: Christian Haines. "Week 5 Audio Art - "Sound Art." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 2008.

Week 4 - CC1 - Midi Sequencing

Using Logic, I created a short sound file that sounded very cheesy. I used the strings, electric guitars (distorted), bass, piano and drum kit MIDIs.

I inputted the sound using the midi controller and then I smoothen the entries of the instruments and make it more on-time. I leave most of the end bit random so it sounded slightly more natural.

Download MP3 file here.
Download Finale file here.

Reference: Christian Haines. "Week 4 Creative Computing - MIDI Sequencing." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 2008.

Week 4 - AA1 - Source Sound

The first advert I'm going to analyse is PC vs. MAC.

Comic piano/vibraphone music is played throughout. The main focus is on the conversations between PC and MAC. Some hyper-real sounds and foleys are used like the handkerchief unfolding, shoulder tapping, falling down (crash). A single non-diegetic line, "good" at the end while showing MAC is also used. Other dubbed in natural sounds are sneezing, runny nose and nose blowing. I like this advert because it uses personification to show viruses and computer brands.

The second advert I'm doing is the infamous Lynx's Bow Chicka Wah Wah advert.


The advert has two distinct scenes, the living room (with background chattering) and a quiet bathroom. Dialogues are used throughout, but other sounds like the Lynx spraying and toilet flush is also used. The length of the advert is so compressed that I think there could be a mistake in the sound design. The sound of toilet flushing starts as the old man wipes his hands. Presumably, he wipes his hands after washing his hands. Unless someone else flushes the toilet for him, that couldn't happen at the same time. Only an extremely short music is used at the end.

I chose this because I thought the "mistake" in the toilet scene was interesting.

References:
Christian Haines. "Week 4 Audio Arts - Source Sound." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 2008.

YouTube. Mac vs. PC. Accessed: 19 August 2008. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQb_Q8WRL_g

YouTube. Bow Chicka Wah Wah Dinner Party. AccesseD: 19 August 2008. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QP6vJf9KM

Week 3 - Forum - Presentations

Year 1 students, including me, presented our projects this week. Most, including me, did our CC project, for some reason. Alex did his on his AA recording project which sounded really awesome. The mix and everything sounds pretty professional. Jacob's CC project is also another awesome one in the list, with kitchen utensils as the sound sources. Scott did his CC on his "daily life" activities which is an interesting topic to cover. Jamie's CC project is also awesome, it has a lot of noise sounds, including my narration of the quote he chose. The trumpet in that recording is also interesting. Scott's CC project is based on natural sounds versus man-made sounds. It's a great piece, especially the ending, when everything just mashes up into on heap of noise. Josh presented his animation project which is a really funny clip. He also composed the music + the sound effects in it. Scott's concrete is based on foley recordings and a lot of the sounds are great, especially the thunder one. Another (don't know his name) did his on a game project, in which he did the sound effects and music, that's another great one.

Reference: "Week 3 Forum - Year 1 Presentations." Presentations presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 2008.

Week 3 - CC1 - Bidule

Week 3 - AA1 - Sound Scene

Our task this week is to perform a sound analysis of a Hollywood movie.

The movie I have chosen is Shawshank Redemption, the scene where Andy Durfene is entering the prison.

I chose this movie and the particular scene because it's got quite a variety of sounds, especially in terms of dialogues (diegetic and non-diegetic). It has a narrator, a diegetic dialogues and even non-diegetic crowd noise/ambience). The background sounds consists of strings/music in the first minute, an ambience crowd noise in the second minute and just silence in the third minute.

The first really clear foley sound is the sound of the flag. If heard passingly, it seems very real, but the more I listen to it, the more fake it sounds. The transitions between the three background sounds are nicely mixed as it fades in and out without even being noticed by the listener/audience. There are a few underneath sounds, like the footsteps in the second minute, which are drowned by all the crowd noise and dialogues. It's quite meticulously added, subtle but it emphasis the importance of the character (Andy). The mood sounds at the third minute creates this eerie effect and unwelcoming mood in the prison.

The music plays an important role, as it creates the despair mood, contrasted by the cheering and the jeering crowds.



Reference:
Christian Haines. "Week 3 Audio Arts - Sound Scene." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 2008.

YouTube. Shawshank Redemption, Welcome to Shawshank Prison. Accessed: 18 August 2008. Available: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=El4Ri1U35Z4&feature=related

Week 2 - Forum - Some of David Harris' Favourite Things

This forum was a really interesting and different forum than usual! Instead of talking the usual stuff about aspects of music and technology, we are talking about modern classical composition, i.e. the String Quartet.

David Harris' string quartet was lovely. Somehow, I have a feeling that it's very Australian, even though I don't know what the reasons are. Someone commented on how it sounds Sculthorpe-like (Sculthorpesque?) especially the first slow section. I quite agree with that, but it does branches out to David's style, especially with the short, staccato, sul ponticello sound that I reckon sounds very David Harris-like (Harrisque?).

Stephen gave us a provocative thought on "Programme Notes," whether it is necessary in the understanding of the music or not. And how much should be informed and what to be included in a programme note. I reckon, it's useful especially due to the long wait before the concert starts. On the other hand, sometimes it's nice to just appreciate the music without any texts accompanying it.

His other favourite thing was Schubert's String Quartet in G major(/minor). The
abundant of parallel major/minor changes were amazing and the last movement was described by David as "minimalist/trance-like."

Reference:
Harris, David. "Week 2 Music Technology Forum - My Favourite Things." Lecture presented at the University of Adelaide, 7 August 2008.

Week 2 - AA1 - Environment Analysis

At first, I tried to record the sound outside my house, but it didn't have any interesting sounds at all, so I went out to Grenfell Street, Rundle Mall and North Terrace (corner of Kintore Ave.) and recorded 45 seconds of sound clips. The first one was too noisy and the second one, again, hadn't got much to analyse. So, I decided upon the third one, which has slightly more to analyse.

The sound has a lot of noise ambience (perhaps due to the poor quality of recording), and on top of that, it's very dense and loud, hiding most of the other thing under it. Traffic beep (indicating red light) can be heard almost throughout, except for the few seconds when the fast traffic beep (indicating green light) is sounded. There are a small portion of chattering and my cough towards the end. Skateboarding sound can be heard getting louder and softer due to the distance it is from the recorder. A car honk can also be heard in the beginning.

Soundscape.



Reference:
Haines, Christian. "Week 2 AA1 - Environment Analysis." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 5 August 2008.

Week 2 - CC1 - Modular Programming

We explored Bidule further. I did the tutorial as directed and came out with an instrument and I used that to create this.

Download music file.

I used last week's experimentation with the spectral plug-ins and combined it with this week's techniques (oscillators, ADSR Envelope). Following the tutorial was easy enough, but I still am rather confused about how it is supposed to be done (or how to do it differently from the tutorial). So I was rather struggling in understanding which plug-ins to use and what to connect with what. As the result, it turns out to be too similar to the tutorial's instrument.

Aside from that, I created a sound file with 6 layers of sounds. Three acts as "background" spectral sound, and three were the tones generated with the 16 Steps Sequencer. The result is not too bad, aside from the fact that I got a massive headache after doing this. But the sound generated sounds like aleatoric music.

Here's the image of the canvas. The red plug-ins are red because I took the screenshot with my computer's Bidule file, which does not have that particular plug-ins.


And here's the bidule file.

References:
Front and Back. Bidule Tutorial 1: A Simple Synthesizer. Accessed: 11 August 2008. Available: http://relivethefuture.com/choronzon/bidule-tutorial-1-a-simple-synthesizer/

Haines, Christian. "Week 2 Music Technology CC1 Tutorial - Modular Programming." Tutorial presented at the University of Adelaide, 5 August 2008.

Week1 - Forum - Listening Culture

I was not in the forum as I was coughing and sniffing a lot (did not want to spread the virus). But I read Jacob's blog and I talked to some of them who went to the forum and got a small idea on what the forum was about.

Excessive volume levels are definitely a negative issue for both the listener and the "second hand listener." Like smoking and a second hand smoker, excessive volume levels expose "noise" to people who do not want to listen to the noise. I remember from my trip to Japan, where there are signs in the trains warning MP3 listener to turn the volume lower and a sentence saying, "No matter how beautiful the music you are listening to on your headphones, to all others it is just noise." House parties with loud music definitely is an annoyance to neigbours.

With the convenience of MP3, we also have lower listening quality. I think this is not so much of an issue. People who listen to MP3s can't avoid the lower quality but nevertheless, the convenience it provides is worth more than the reduction in quality it causes.

Week 1 - CC1 - Modular Programming

I tried to produce some ambient sound with Bidule. I used the Stochastic MIDI Note to produce the notes. The instruments I used were Drawbar Organ, Schottstaedt String Tone, Risset Bell , PWMPolySynth, and DLSMusic Device.

Effects I used include Spectral Pulsing, Spectral DroneMaker, Spectral Gate and Spectral Shimmer. I used Spectral effects because it gives me the ambient effects I want.

The software is pretty useful as it can create quite a wide range of sound depending on the plug-ins available. It's very flexible in a sense that you can create a whole different ranges of sounds.

Sound Sample.

Bidule File.

Week 1 - AA1 - Sound Design

This week, we looked at sound design: what it is, the purposes, what it's trying to achieve and it's technical aspects. A sound design can be used as a sound effect or sound logo, etc. I have chosen Deep Note, a sound logo created by Andy Moorer in 1983. The sound is famous for being the sound logo for THX.

The sound can be downloaded here.

This piece of sound design was created for the purpose of a sound logo to accompany a logo to be put before the movie Return of the Jedi. The design specification given by the producer is that he wanted, "something that comes out of nowhere and gets really, really big!"

In essence, what it's trying to achieve is to produce sound that appears and gradually gets very grand and big.

Moorer achieved the big sound not only through loudness but also texture. In the beginning of the sound, lower frequencies were used and as the sound gets "bigger" the higher frequencies gets louder too and as a result, a big sound is achieved. He used a really dense texture to achieve this very loud and big sound.

References: Tiny Music Thing Makers: Pt. 3: The THX Sound. Accessed: 4 August 2008. Available: http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/05/tiny-music-makers-pt-3-thx-sound.html