New Blog

Hi,

This is my 2006 blog. It is very interesting and could be a worthwhile experience to check out. However, I have a new blog for 2007, which focuses on my Honours program, and you will find it here ...

http://ificantdanceidontwantyourrevolution.blogspot.com/

Enjoy

What's In the Stew?

My Audio Arts Major Project is in the Stew ... woohoo



Many of you know the story behind my major project, but I will relay it again. In consultation with Ashley, it was decided that I would basically restart my project with a new film with four days until the due date. The new film is Spring Romance made by Becky Zhang and it is great. Ashley was doing the sound for it and had worked with the movie maker in making it longer. Thus, it is approximately 4 minutes long.

Without the pressures of time this movie would have been a lot of fun to work on. I did not initially realise how humorous it could become. My friends who came in and did voices added a whole new dimension. I express gratitude to Poppi for doing the voice of the flower at the last minute and I hope you enjoy hearing yourself in the movie.

Here is an excerpt from my documentation:

A number of key areas were identified as main focuses, given the short period of time to complete. These include the music track, vocalisations/voices, the bashing of the can scene. Successfully creating these elements along with the right atmospheres and effects would bring the movie together.

In starting, I attempted to source as many effects as possible. A number of these were provided by Ashley, but it was important to produce as many of my own files as possible. Recording the grass sounds and bashing sounds helped this scenario. The bashing sounds were originally recorded with a shovel hitting a tin, but this was updated by bashing two music stands together. The sound was much fuller and when I do a 5.1mix will sound fantastic when sent to the sub.

Creating appropriate music tracks in a short space of time (about 2 hours) was going to be challenging. It was challenging and they were rushed, but the bass guitar (played by me) and the piano (played by Robert Ellinger) worked surprisingly well. Combining the music with the vocalisations brought the film to life. Various sound effects like the sheep, grass munching, cow poo, and windmill are highlights, whilst the door and watering need more work.

Due to the short period of time to complete this film, the mix is stereo only. I will come back and complete a 5.1mix for my own benefit at a later point. An audio commentary is also planned. ‘Spring Romance’ would have been a fun movie to work on without the time pressures, but the sound works, and I like the reintroduction of the music in the credits. At some point I do wish for the credits to be updated, and a bonus track may be added.
---------------------------------
I hope that the credits will be updated, as it says Ashley Klose is the musician. One last thing I wish to say and it may horrify some is the location and nature of the tin bashing. In between the Steinway grand piano and a Neumann U87, a tin was repeatedly struck and smashed by a shovel-wielding friend for foley/sound effects. Unfortunately these sounds were not used, but were fun to make/record. The replacement sounds were not as vicious, but were better suiting.

The "Stew" is complete. Everything is in there. I hope the tasters give full marks/compliments to the cook.

Albums that made this blog possible:
7-10 Split by 7-10 Split

If you look carefully through out all the entries you may get a good indication of my favourite bands/albums or who I was enjoying at the time.

Chunky Stew

Creative Computing Minor Project
- What is OKI?

It took awhile, but my Creative Computing project is now blogged.



The following is an excerpt from my program note:

What is OKI? was built with the procedural programming language SuperCollider and is a real time composition. It combines noise with chaos, but uses the electric bass guitar. A psychedelic atmosphere is produced and desired. Some inspirations include Pink Floyd, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the song 'Ultramarine' by Michael Brook from the soundtrack to the motion picture Heat.

What is OKI? incorporates methods such as granulation (automatic and manual, breakbeat cutting (created by Nick Collins), and streaming and processing live audio (from the bass guitar). It was a challenge to play and improvise on the bass and manipulate the code into a continuous, contrasting and dynamic composition.

The use of the bass guitar results in a work that is more lovable than it is professional. However, it is good and fun that the work can never be reproduced the same. The use of the bass guitar is based on a tempo of around 120 crotchet beats, but is not synchronised with the granulation that occurs.

The title What is OKI? is possibly obscure, but is appropriate.

The bass guitar is processed in the same way that it was for the Improvisation performances. I really liked the delay that the breakbeat cutting created, and it also gave a very clean tone to my bass. Maybe I should investigate this further, and not have to cart my bass amp around with me as much.

I think the Improvisations went well, but I was kind of distracted by the issues that were surrounding my major project at that point in time.

By the way, feel free to try and work out what my title means. Some people may know if they are observant...

Albums that made this blog possible:
The Band Geek Mafia by the Voodoo Glow Skulls

Week12 - Improvisation Project - 19 Days

Every improvisation class is different, and our final session together was no exception. Our sessions are very hit and miss. I think we were close to hitting something again this week, but we may have just missed it. I never really felt anything whilst playing my bass and struggled with the heavier songs we attempted.

It was possible that we never really settled after experimenting with the 7/8 assymetric time signature that David Harris suggested. It was again disappointing that we did not have the full group together.

The performance will take place in 3 weeks time and hopefully we will produce something impressive. I am trying to decide whether to continue playing on 2 bass strings or bring a 4-string bass with me. Will the full range help to expand my playing or make me try and do to much?

Albums that made this blog possible:
Ska-core The Devil and More by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

Week11 - SuperCollider - Data Technique - 19 Days

I have worked on a patch for this post, which works. I did not get the control envelopes to work so if I do post it is not showing any extra development to that shown in week 10's patch. Except, I have buffered a sound for granulation, where my previous patch involved granulating via the sine method. The sound I have created is good and I have overcome a couple of significant hurdles, which is useful for my project. I think I will be producing an interesting SuperCollider project.

My rhyming sucks - 21 Days

The album making this blog happen is a funky, rap, early 90s record with heaps of rhyming. It kind of inspired me to start some rhyming in this blog. However, I think it will be too difficult.

Week 11 began with Audio Arts and the class was good. It was useful to discuss some of the issues that are already coming up in our projects. Since the class, I have received what I believe is the animatic. It has not enlightened me to a great extent as to the plot, but the main character is interesting. I think the story is called "The Story of the Recipe Alchemist". There is some potential for some interesting sound design. Atmosphere is going to be incredibly important, but at this point it is difficult to think of any areas that may need extending in the temporal sense.

Trooper Saliva rhymes with SuperCollider, but makes no sense. Similarly, the short section of the Creative Computing class looking at score creation did not make much sense. It may be worth going over this with the proper working example in class. The data technique stuff did make sense and I got a control envelope to work with my sine granulation. I will probably post my SuperCollider patch tomorrow because circumstances should allow something good to be ready then, but not now.

My groups promising and successful improv session was cut short to have a listen to Luke Harrald's presentation. Luke is an acoustic and electronic music composer. He discussed some of the musical experiences he had overseas. These mostly occurred at IRCAM and NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression). Much of the focus was on the new interfaces. Thus, there was a significant section of the presentation devoted to some of the work of Adachi Tomomi.
It was good to hear Luke speak,
and there's no more for this week.

REFERENCES:
Haines, Christian. 2006. Data Technique. Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 19 October.

Harrold, Luke. 2006. Artist Talk. Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU Space, University of Adelaide, 19 October.

Klose, Ashley. 2006. Sound Design(9). Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 19 October.

Albums that made this blog possible:
Free at Last by DC Talk.

Week11 - Improvisation Project - 24 Days

This weeks Improv session was the most successful session so far that I have been involved with. We came up with a number of songs in a range of styles that just seemed to work and were enjoyable to play.

Unfortunately, there was only 5 of the group. So, there are still two that have to be incorporated into the group's dynamic and that is a challenge. Five people seems to be the critical mass for the success of the group. I hope that this can be changed in our last session before the performances.

I think that all groups performing on the same day/evening is the way to go. It will be hard to set everything up, but that beats having three separate performances. Especially, if some of them were going to occur prior to the completion of the major project. Hopefully, the improvisation peformances will be a substitute for the recital. It may be possible to display some of the movies that the third year students are doing and some selected compositions from across the years.

Albums that made this blog possible:
Second Solution/Prisoner of Society by the Living End.

Week10 - SuperCollider - Granular Synthesis (2) - 28 Days

I successfully managed to recreate a sine granulation patch with my own minor modifications. Thus, I got some granular synthesis working. The next step for me was applying it to the Karplus-Strong Method of physical modelling...and it almost worked. I will post what I have done (the patch) and at some point work out how to get the pitch to granulate. If I don't do this I am left with a sound that is fairly useless.

Here is the revised code that works:

//Karplus Strong Granulated
(
 //Noise > Filter > Delay
 SynthDef(
 \noiseBurst,
 
 {
 //Arguments
 arg amp  = 0.5,
  dur   = 1,
  pan   = 0,
  midiPitch = 69,
  dec   = 0.001;
  
 //Variables
 var burstEnv,
  env,
  att   = 0,
  delayTime,
  decayTime = 10,
  noise,
  del,
  panning;
  
 //Delay Time
 delayTime = midiPitch.midicps.reciprocal; 
  
 //Envelope
 burstEnv = EnvGen.kr(
     envelope: Env.perc(att, dec));
     
 //Envelope2
 env  = (EnvGen.kr(Env.sine(dur, amp), doneAction: 2));   
 //Noise
 noise = PinkNoise.ar(burstEnv);
 
 //Delay
 del  = CombL.ar(
     in:    noise,
     maxdelaytime: delayTime,
     delaytime:  delayTime,
     decaytime:  decayTime,
     add:   noise) * env;
     
 //Spatialisation
 panning = Pan2.ar(del, pan);
 
 //Output
 Out.ar(0, panning)
 }).load(s);
          
)
(
 //Variables
 var message,
  wait,
  thisGrainDur,
  time   = 0,
  totalTime = 20;
  
 //Routine
 fork{
  block{|break|
  
   inf.do{
    message = [ \midiPitch, rrand(40, 52, 64, 76),
       \amp, rrand(-18.0, -6.0).dbamp,
       \dur, thisGrainDur = exprand(0.1, 0.2),
       \pan, 1.0.rand2,
       \dec, rrand(0.001, 0.2)
       ]; 
 //Instance
 Synth(\noiseBurst, message);
 
 //Duration and Interval
 wait = thisGrainDur * rrand(0.05, 0.5);
 time = time + wait;
 if (time > totalTime) { break.value};
 wait.wait
 }
 };
}
)
 

Save the Stew - 29 Days

Here is quick update of Music Technology in week 10:

Most of the Audio Arts class was spent looking at the I/O and track setup in ProTools. I really hope that a template or screen shots are provided for us, as this is something I usually struggle with. When it comes to the project, I want as few side issues as possible to deal with. I think that I now have a movie in the pipeline, but due to other work can not yet get my teeth into it. In the not-too-distant future I think it would be useful for each of us to have a one-on-one session for at least 20-30 minutes with Ashley to discuss our projects. That would be very useful.

Creating our own custom built granular synth patches was the focus of Creative Computing. I will hopefully post some code when I can figure it out. I would really like to try and modify some of the other processes that have been examined, but I have not yet been able to build the example patch. On the positive side of things, I submitted a preProduction plan that I am confident will result in a good-sounding and achievable project.

This post is now complete.

REFERENCES:
Haines, Christian. 2006. Granular Synthesis (2) & Array Sequence. Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 12 October.

Klose, Ashley. 2006. Sound Design(8). Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 12 October.

Albums that made this blog possible:
Caught In the Act by Royal Crown Revue.