Saturday, June 24, 2006

What's In the Stew? Electro Acoustic Composition or 6 Minutes of SuperCollider Magic

Everything is now in the stew. This is the last entry for the first semester, and is the major project blog. My major project was created in SuperCollider (SC) using sounds generated in SuperCollider, as well as a sound file brought into SC. Using a chaotic noise function, an ambient layer was created, providing a foundation for the rest of the work. The composition is called 'Horses', but I don't think there is any real correlation between the title and its ambient nature. However, the title has been made in reference to the inspiration for my score and compositional structure. This inspiration came from an old graphic calculator game, which involved four horses racing for the benefit of the betmakers. The resulting composition is a layered work and here it is for all those in taking a listen.

Horses
6'25





Here is a picture of what I was doing when I should have been doing my major project.




I am unsure as to how much inspiration I got from doing it.

Albums that made this blog possible:
Hourly, Daily by You Am I.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

This may use up a bit of your Download Quota

The time has come to post mixdowns of the band that I recorded. Two songs were recorded, and then mixed. It was challenging to record the band when a) you have no one assisting in setting up and microphone placement, and b) you play in the band yourself. I think the songs came up pretty well considering we've only been together for about 6 weeks prior to the recording date. The second song was only completed 4 days before the recording session, and one of the guitarists had never even heard the song until the recordings were made.

The equipment used by the band was a bit of a mixture of cheap gear, borrowed gear, and what gear we could find from around the EMU, including the Juno-6 and Laney guitar amp. Next time, we record (if there is a next time), a better drum kit would be ideal. Some parts of the kit required significant gating to correct some of its shortcomings.

I would like to post these songs with external links, but don't have the time to work it out. An essay has to be done. Here is the first song for your listening pleasure (I think its called Rescue Me):


The second song, called Queen of Hearts is also here (if you wish to listen to it):


Here are some photos I've decided to add to this entry:

















Albums that made this blog possible:
The General Electric by Shihad

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Super Bonus Special End of Semester Edition Blog

Catchup classes popped up like mushrooms in the week following week 12. Around 8.35 on a cold, but not wet tuesday morning I found myself zigzagging from King William Street to the other end of Wakefield Street. Rounding the corner from Hutt Street, I located Fat Trax recording studio, which was to be my Audio Arts destination for the next 2.5 hours. It was a fascinating insight into a real professional recording studio. The mixer was incredible and the quality of sound was amazing. The amount of work that went into setting up the studio was enormous, with all the soundproofing. Being able to block out the sound of the V8s at that particular part of Adelaide shows that there are some smart people around. The period spent at Fat Trax gave us all a significant amount of time to ask questions about anything concerning us. Subsequently, I am kind of concerned by the limited amount of work in Adelaide, as bands tend to travel to Melbourne to record. David assures us that we do have decent facilities in Adelaide, and that the live room in the EMU is actually better than his live room. My recordings (surprisingly) were made in the EMU live room. They are due on wednesday, so heaps of work left to do on them. I hope I can remember how to properly bus and automate plugins. These things take time, and time is starting to run short. So, stay tuned for the songs being posted on What's In the Stew.

Talking (thinking) about tech projects means that there is still a major project to be done. I have to come up with a plan on how I'm going to create a 6 minute electroacoustic composition in SuperCollider. The catchup class focused on the UGens Mix.ar and Array.fill. These items are great for creating more dynamic sounds, and they are placed inside SynthDefs. They create multiple, varied sound sources or so I'm led to believe. Producing harmonic series and relations are very much doable with these UGens.

It was an interesting mix of music for listening in the catchup for Forum workshop. In particular, the train pieces caught my attention. This could be attributed to my 2-year old nephew's love of trains. However, I think it may be due to seeing Different Trains performed earlier this year at the Project 3 concert. Like I mentioned in an earlier entry, creating a musical piece that is both complimentary and sympathetic to a tape piece is pretty incredible. By the way Steve Reich composed it and the Kronos Quartet were the musical group playing it. D.Harris mentioned that there is a recorded quartet part on the tape as well as the live playing by the quartet. As I have seen this played, I had some thoughts about acquiring the score. When the musicians acquire the quartet score, do they get the tape section as well? Steam Music by Tristram Cary was a tape pastiche, which I found interesting (a word that I use a lot). I liked the colours made by the trains. Maybe, we should go the National Railway Museum at Port Adelaide and try to recreate Steam Music. On that note, my weekly entries for the semester are now complete. Sound files of my minor and major projects are coming very soon.

REFERENCES:
Grice, David. 2006. Studio Tour (Fat Trax) . Tutorial presented at Fat Trax, 6 May.

Haines, Christian. 2006. SuperCollider (10). Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 8 June.

Harris, David. 2006. Listening (10). Workshop presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU Space, University of Adelaide, 8 June.


Albums that made this blog possible:
The Deluxtone Rockets by The Deluxtone Rockets,
Everything Goes Numb by Streetlight Manifesto.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Songs Coming Soon

Creative Computing has finally reached first place on the Blog, leaving all the other contenders in its wake. Forum comes a sad (or not so sad) last. Does this mean there will be some super SuperCollider code posted? I hope so, because then it means my major project may finally be back on track. Meanwhile, the class itself continued along the lines of bussing. In particular bussing multiple effects and controlling them using Synth.after and Synth.before. Instead of loading SynthDefs onto the server, it is a good idea to store them onto the server. In fact, this is a rule for sequencing with PBinds. We also touched on envelopes and the ideas behind dur and legato.

Audio Arts was mainly a discussion about marketing our own music and getting it to record companies. Consequently, there was not much new theory deposited to us. I would have liked to have played my new recordings for David to give general feedback for the class, but I had not listened to them since very early monday morning when the recordings were finished. I wanted to listen to them first. This scenario reminds me of high school woodwork where 1 or 2 kids would always get their work used as demonstration for everyone else. Thus, getting a significant amount of their work done superbly by the teacher. Anyway, I think my recording session went well. My first song lends itself to some creative mixing if I have enough time. These will be due in less than 2 weeks time, so expect some postings on my blog soon.

Lots of music and minimal explanations is what I encountered in the workshop. One song played was 'Snarling Wrath of Angry Gods' by Gutbucket. Was this played because it was "heavy rock with a snarling baritone sax?" Apparently the "opposite" of this is Bach's "profound" 'Ricecar' from Bach's musicial offering. A couple of the other pieces were interesting, but had fairly limited commentaries. I would like to know exactly why David Harris is playing each piece? Bring back Luke Harrald. He played some fantastic pieces of music and gave good descriptions (even if they were easily findable online).

I think that my focus disappeared during the first hour of forum and kind of wanted a discussion as opposed to more music presented in the second hour. Vinny's work was great, but I was not really up for it. It was an open session, but probably not a good time with everyone probably more focused on trying to get assignments done, rather than preparing a short presentation. I think a discussion-based presentation may work well early next semester, when everyone is (hopefully) refreshed. I was pondering whether David Harris would eventually have to start repeating music. Will he have to create a 3-year cycle of songs so that students who progress through the degree won't hear the same music played by him twice?

Considering there are catchup classes for everything except for the Forum presentation, will this be my last blog for the semester? or will we have to do another one and eat up more of swot and assignment period time? Doing 5 courses and having a huge amount of work to do, it is incredibly frustrating. However, a positive out of this scenario is that the lecturers are making up classes that were missed. It is probably just as frustrating for them.

My Code Example:
(
//Global Variables
~thisPath = (PathName.new(Document.current.path)).pathOnly;// ~ tilda means global variable

//Buffer sounds
b = Buffer.read(s,~thisPath++"glass_cymbal.wav");
)
( //Mod Synth
SynthDef (
\ModSynth,

{
//Arguments
arg freq = 1000, //argument that can be sequenced
modBus = 30;

//Variables
var mod;

//Modulator
mod = SinOsc.kr(
freq: freq,
phase: 1,
mul: 0.5
);

//Output
Out.kr(modBus, mod);
}
).store;


//Mod Synth2
SynthDef (
\ModSynth2,

{
//Arguments
arg modBus = 31;

//Variables
var mod;

//Modulator
mod = LFSaw.ar(
freq: LFSaw.kr(4, 0, 200, 400),
iphase: 0,
mul: 0.5
);

//Output
Out.kr(modBus, mod);
}
).store;

//Carrier Synth
SynthDef (
\carrier,

{
//Arguments
arg carrierFreq = 880, //argument that can be sequenced
iPhase = 0,
dur = 3, //argument that can be sequenced
legato = 2, //argument that can be sequenced
modBusIn = 30,
modBusIn2 = 31,
bus = 21;

//Variables
var carrier,
env,
mod,
mod2;

//Input Busses
mod = In.kr(modBusIn, 1);
mod2 = In.kr(modBusIn2, 1);

//Carrier
carrier = LFTri.ar(
freq: carrierFreq,
iphase: iPhase,
mul: 1,
add: mod * mod2
);

//Envelope
env = carrier * EnvGen.kr(Env.perc(
0,
dur*legato),
doneAction:2
);
//Output
Out.ar(bus, env);
}
).store;

//1st Effect
SynthDef (
\FX1,

{
//Arguments
arg out = 0,
in = 21,
delayTime = 3.5, //argument that can be sequenced
bus = 21;
//Variables
var audio,
fx1;

//Input Bus
audio = In.ar([in, in], 1);

//Effect
fx1 = CombN.ar(audio,
maxdelaytime: 5.0,
delaytime: delayTime,
decaytime: 5,
mul: 1,
add: audio
);

//Output
Out.ar(bus, fx1);
}
).store;


//2nd Effect
SynthDef (
\FX2,

{
//Arguments
arg out = 0,
in = 21,
filterRq = 0.8; //argument that can be sequenced

//Variables
var audio,
fx2;

//Input Bus
audio = In.ar([in, in], 1);

//Effect
fx2 = RLPF.ar(
in: audio,
freq: 220,
rq: filterRq
);

//Output
Out.ar(0, fx2);
}
).store;
)

(
d = Synth.after(1,"ModSynth");
g = Synth.after(1, "ModSynth2");
e = Synth.after(1, "FX2");
f = Synth.after(1, "FX1");
)
( Pbind(
\instrument, "carrier",
\freq, Pfunc({rrand(800, 1000)}),
\dur, Pfunc({rrand(0.5, 7)}),
\legato, Prand(#[0.1, 0.5, 1, 1.5], 8),
\delayTime, Prand(#[3.5, 0.2, 2.5, 5], 16),
\filterRq, Pseq(#[0.4, 0.1, 0.9, 0.6], 4)
).play;
)

REFERENCES:
Grice, David. 2006. Promotion. Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 30 May.

Haines, Christian. 2006. SuperCollider (9). Tutorial presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 1 June.

Harris, David. 2006. Listening (9). Workshop presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU Space, University of Adelaide, 1 June.

Whittington, Stephen. 2006. General Forum. Presentations presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU Space, University of Adelaide, 1 June.



Albums that made this blog possible:
Live plus One by the Descendents,
What Happens in the Space Shuttle stays in the Space Shuttle by Lazaro's Dog.