Forum wk12

And then the magic happens! This week took a whole new turn and I was really quite happy with the outcome. I think that the success (in my opinion) can be summed up quite simply. There were the use of real instruments and greater attention was placed on harmony and melody. Sonic texture and timbre still played an important role but there was freedom it it to achieve pleasing sound. Ben was awesome on his instrument and for a great part of it played a lead role, holding the group together. Matt's use of the grand piano also worked well in the same way, giving something for people to follow and add too.

I was only upset at the fact that my instrument didn't have as much volume as I would have liked and I was quite bored with what it is able to achieve, I want more options. I'm thinking for the concert I might bring my Marshall amp to add volume and more area's for control as it has reverb and built in distortion.

Heres some videos I have acquired from John Delaney's blog (as with the pics for the last few forum posts of mine.)





Video Reference:

Delaney, John. "Music Tech Forum wk 12 Improvisation 2." John Delaney's blog. http://johndelany.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-tech-forum-week-12-improvisation.html (October 25 2007).

Reference:

Whittington, Stephen. “Forum – Week 11 – Improvisation 2.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 25th of October, 2007.

Harris, David. “Forum – Week 11 – Improvisation 2.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 25th of October, 2007.

Forum wk11

Theres nothing quite like a wash of noise at deafening volume, its really quite a wonderful experience. Yes that is sarcasm, and I think its important to look back at my week 10 forum post for more info, BUT there was some good elements to our first group improvisation session.

People did try and introduce some interesting sonic ideas from their instruments which I quite enjoyed hearing, but they were quickly drowned out by the mass collective. The idea of playing as soft as possible was a failure do to the fact that no one was willing to take the lead and put themselves out there with a musical idea from their instrument.

What was highly successful in the session however, was Stephen's idea of Beat frequencies. The sonic texture, the layering of a collective sound was magnificent. The interplay between different instruments as the came into 'tune' and then drifted slightly out again was awesome. This would not however hold out as a lasting piece as it would still get monotonous after a small amount of time. But as a layering to exist under some interesting rhythms would be awesome.

Pic Reference:

Delany, John. "Music Tech Forum week 11 improvisation 1" John Delany's Blog.
http://johndelany.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-tech-forum-week-11-improvisation.html (October 18 2007).

Reference:

Whittington, Stephen. “Forum – Week 11 – Improvisation 1.” Workshop presented at EMU space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 18th of October, 2007.rnre

CC wk11

I took a while to really try and iron out some bugs in my patch while developing this panner. I am happy with the result. I am yet to test the 4 speaker pan, but the stereo pan definitely works. I was going to try the 5.1 pan as well, but I have decided if I can't completely understand it, then I shouldn't use it until I do. (By understand I mean, how every element in the example patch works)

ccwk11 mp3

Zip Max Patch ccwk11







Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Creative Computing – Week 11 - Processing – Spatialisation.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 18th of October, 2007.

AA wk11

This week was slightly time consuming due to it being hard to force creativity. Although I knew I wanted to create music that reflected the futuristic setting of the game and that would give the war like element, I was unsure of how to go about doing this. I also wanted to ensure that the music was a background element to the game as the sounds occurring in the game are very dominant.

I am happy with what I achieved. I created a slight variation on my wind patch from plogue and got an eerie ambiance which sounds mechanical and (in my mind) fits the futuristic criteria. Then I used a sample to create a war like drum beat which progressively increases in tempo and then decreases again. This keeps a constant tension to backdrop the game. I kept the levels of everything very low and used a reverb in Cubase to give a distant feel to it. as though its a far off army drumming their war march.



Any ways here it is.

Music.ogg

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts – Week 11 - Game Audio Design (3) – Soundtracks.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 16th of October, 2007.

Forum wk10

So the day finally came, and everyones instruments were presented. I was quite worried after seeing David's instrument over the break that I would be outdone by everyone. However I think there was quite an equal level of achievement accros the board, even if the majority of people decided to oscillate a square wave.

I was really impressed with Ben's instrument. It was disappointing that he was limited in his bending due to so many digital components, but I like the fact that it still maintains a large proportion of standard musical functionality having a keyboard controller etc. The effects he did manage to achieve were really cool. The distorted bass tones would work really well in an Aphex Twin (my hero for those who haven't guessed yet) style track.

I was also disapointed that Freddy's instrument was on the fritz as it looked really cool, and what he described of it sounded very promising. I hope that he can get it up and running for future forums.

And heres the video of my instrument again just as something to look at :)



Reference:

Whittington, Stephen. “Forum – Week 10 – Instrument Presentation.” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 11th of October, 2007.

Harris, David. “Forum – Week 10 – Instrument Presentation.” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 11th of October, 2007.

AA wk10

The Ambience I have created is a bit stark, but the sounds in the game are more focused upon the factories and vechiles with the environment being very plain.

That said I used Plogue Bidule to create the sound of a strong wind blowing through the cavernous land scape for one of my Ambiences. I modulated white noise with a sine tone and sent it through a filter to achieve this result.

The second Ambience I edit some recordings I had done to get the sounds of birds chirping. I kept the chirps stark and random and then added a slight reverb to the track for extra colour. I didn't want to add too much reverb as it is an outdoor setting.

So in essence I have to different weather situations created with the ambience. A windy day, and a still day.



Wind.ogg

Birds.ogg

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts – Week 10 – .“ Lecture presented at Tutorial room 408, Level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 9th October, 2007.

CC wk10

I was able to directly implement the delay I created with the beginnings of my major project (sampler) this week. I am quite pleased with the results. I am also happy I was able to make a poly version of the delay to save on CPU. :)

Delay Recording

Patch


Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Creative Computing – Week 10 - Processing – Delay.” Lecture presented at Tutorial room 408, Level 4, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 10th October, 2007.

Forum wk9

The Bent Leather Band graced our presence this week. I have contrasting feelings about this session. I highly admire and appreciate there instruments. They are works of art and incredible skill. The various different control elements they are able to employ through the use of their instruments is astounding. Then there is the well thought out designs for easy use, not to mention the visual aesthetic!

Were I came upon challenges was their desire to use these incredible instruments in a strictly atonal manner. Stuart demonstrated a beautiful and moving use of the 'light harp' to generate an Indian Raga. Yet this was purely for example purpose. To demonstrate that it was a matter of having the right max patch to create whatever sounds you desired. Instead they preferred to improvise music which his melodically and harmonically void.



I am completely in favor of experimenting with timbre and texture of sounds. But sharp stabs of noise random strums of notes are not the ideal way to achieve this. Its unnecessary to stick to rules of harmony, but ridiculous to replace them with even more confining rules limiting the music to complex tones and washes of noise with no sense of the interrelating tones.



There was a reason the ideas of Schoenberg haven't taken off. He took the ideas of harmony to the farthest reaches, and it was necessary to understand this. But its time to return to the ideas of Debussy. Music is for pleasure, not the autocratic following of theoretical dogma!

Reference:

Stuart Favilla and Joanne Cannon. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Haines Christian. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Sebastian Tomczak. “Forum – Week 9 – ‘The Bent Leather Band’.” Workshop presented at EMU Space, Level 5, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.

Pic References

Delany, John. "Music Tech Forum week 9 bent leather band." John Delany's Blogspot. http://johndelany.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-tech-forum-bent-leather-band.html (October 9 2007).

AA wk9

This week a began to create some of the Assets needed for the game Warzone.

To create the sound of a power generator I created a patch within Plogue and then added the sound of an welder sparking in Cubase. This sound will be used for the building in warzone which is the 'power generator' with the Plogue sound being the generic hum and the welder arch representing the electricity which sparks from the tower on top of the building.





The Steam sound was used for the factory in warzone. It is the sound of my voice manipulated in Audacity and Cubase.



The sound the the trucks make when they are building a building was created by manipulating a sound I have had in my sound library from c4. I got it from the DAT recordings made by previous students. I used Audacity and Cubase for this.

The menu sound was also from the same sample but manipulated further.

The sound of the truck moving was an open source sound of a truck driving around in a factory edited to suit the environment with Audacity and Cubase.

Here is a folder of my assets for the major project thus far. They are for the game Warzone2100.

AAwk9

Reference:

Haines, Christian. “Audio Arts - Week 9 - Game Audio Design (1) – Assets.” Lecture presented at Tutorial room 408, Level 4, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 2nd October, 2007.

CC wk9

It took me a bit of effort to understand Fast Furior Transform again from last year but I think it makes sense to me now. The only part that still has me stumped is the Phase Vocoder, in particular what the bin is?

FFT Xover filter

Folder with patches

Reference:

Haines Christian. “Creative Computing - Week 9 - Processing – PFFT.” Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 408, level 4, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide, 4th of October 2007.