AA 1 - Week 7 - Voice Recording

This week was very similar to last week's assignment, except instead of recoridng accoustic guitar we had to record voice. Here is a run through of the 5 recordings i did. I used a Neumann Condenser microphone for my recordings and a pop flter for the first four recordings.
Recording #1:
This was Doug talking about 2 inches away from the microphone.



Recording #2:
This was Amy talking in the corner of the dead room, about 1.5meters away from the microphne.



Recording #3:
This time Amy sang into the mic, standing approx. 2 - 3 inch away.



Recording #4:
This time Amy sang into the microphone, but whilst standing off axis to the mic and with no pop filter.



Recording #5:
For the last recording I modified the 4th recording by compressing the attack and lowering the release.

cc#1 - Week 6 - score interpretation

This week we had to interpret a picture of an abstract score given to us through email. I thought this would be an interesting experience to see and hear what everyone in the class would come up with. It was.
I started by dividing the score up into 10 sections, and finding, out of my collection, sounds that woul fit the picture.
1st Section:
I could see a moderate crescendo
2nd section:
I used the normalizer on one of my noises that i thought acceptable and made it louder so as to make it fit better.
3rd section:
I thought of this as just a random loud-ish section
4th section:
i used the same sound here as i did for the 2nd sound as i thought they looked the same, i did change the normalizer on this one slightly though.
5th section:
This to me looked scattered, and i had an 'outer space' sound that i thought would fit quite perfectly, so i used that.
6th section:
that was almost like another loud section, although i wanted to make it more prominant than the first loud section.
7th Section:
For this sound i thought it to be also loud, but slightly different, so i chose exactly that; another loud noise that was loud, but different from the one used in the previous section.
8th section:
This was a large loud section, with slight decrescendos in the middle. I had made quite an interesting sound in the previous week using the 'Mooger Fooger', and, slightly modifying it with the normalizer i used that noise.
9th section:
Here i found quite in interesting change in the score, with just a random quiet bit, so i used a paper tear folloing the loud 'MoogerFooger' noise.
10th section:
With the last section there was a simple dounble decrescendo, so i used another noise made by the 'MoogerFooger' to finish this piece off.

Unfotunately on the Mac computers i spent about an hour trying to find the 'Print Screen' button, but no matter what i pressed it would not work, so i was unable to give you a picture of the actualy score, which is extremely frustrating for me!
Overall i had fun working with this score.

gaddcc1wk6.wav

Forum 1 - Week 6 - Collaborations final

Unfotunately i was absent for this weeks forum as i was struck down with a wonderful case of the flu, which not only helped me lose grades, but also completely ruined my Easter... just thought you might like to know. I talked to a few people and read a couple of blogs, and apparently this week was just an overview of the whole collaboration process with a couple more examples.
This week i would like to give my opinion of the collboration process as a whole. I think that collaboration is a very important aspect of the music industry. It shows that people can change their style, no matter what they are used to, and that new types of music can be derived from it. I believe that people who collaborate must have a very open mind as they are willing to try something new, rather than just keep to the typical 'normal' music that they know everyone will like. Trying new things it how new styles/new music is made. I mean, look back in the days when people only ever used to sing hymns about thier God or their religion. Now, especially since synthetic/electronic music has been made, a whole new side of music has been made, and there is a lot more with which people can collaborate with and create.
Overall i am generally one for sticking only with the type of music that i like, but since starting this course, it has opened my ears to many kinds of music, and also new types of music in which i would not normaly be willing to listen to.

AA1 - Week 6 - Accoustic Guitar recording

This week was definately the most fun i have had with one of my assignments! Working in a group, for once we got everything right.

The pictures and recordings prety much explain them selves,but i will put a brief explanation for each of them anyway.

Guitar Recording #1:

Using a Neumann U89I for the first four,the first recording i pointed it angled up at the sound hole, so as to get a much deeper sound with a lot of bass. Very basic and standard sound. Nothing too special. I wouldn't have used it for a good recording.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com



Guitar Recording #2:

This time i had it pointing at the 14th - 16th frets on the neck. This sound had much less bass, but was a litle bit tinny to me.





Free file hosting by Ripway.com



Guitar Recording #3:

This time i had the microphone pointing angled down at the sound hole. Unfortunately i could not actually hear any difference from the first recording.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com



Guitar Recording #4:

For this recoridng i had the microphone placed across the other side of the dead room, approx. 1.5 meters away. The sound wasn't clear at all and you could hear a lot of background noise. This was my least favourite of the recordings.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com



Guitar Recording #5:

For the last recording i used two Rhode NT5 microphones set up the the XY position infront of the sound hole. This was definately my favourite recording of the five, giving a much richer sound without too much bass.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com



Overall i had a really fun time recording these sounds, and i can definately see how they will be useful in the future.

Forum 1 - Week 5 - Collaborations (2)

This week we had another set of four students do their presentations, this time, again, about collaborations. The first speach was done about a man named Marc Cunningham, a dance teacher who made his own dance studio in 1953. He ad always been interested and heavily involved in collaborations. Late in the 1990's he decided to do a collaboration with two different popular bands, Radiohead and Cigros.
Radiohead was your typcal rck band, whilst cigros stepped out and became electronic to be different.
For the performance they split the performance into two halves - radiohead's performance and Cigros's performance, having two different sets of dancers. Cigros went first and radiohead preceeded. The performance was said to be a huge hit.

The second talk was about a man anmed Mike Pattern who did collaborations with many people including John Zorn, Kool Kieth, and the Executioners, which was interesing seeing as they were a hip hop band. He liked to make concept albums based on movies, one albmun hense named 'Director's Cut'.

Darren was the third person to do his speach, talking about two collaborators - Wayne and Joe. They were said to almost work as one, although it was hard to say as they always seemed to lie in interviews. It was said though that Joe always seemed to control everything.After many years they eventually went their own ways, Joe forming his own band.He also did a solo album in which he played al of the instruments throughout recording.
Frank went on to collaborate with different genres. He then started making movies and learnt about collaborating with film/TV/Sound people.

Lastly Alfred did his talk about why people collaborate, and went into detail about the advertising/world demand process. This started a good conversation throughout the class, letting everyone have their own opinion on what he had talked about.

aa1 - week 5 - sequencing (2)

This week we had to create another 45 second piece using our modified paper noises, incorporatng new aspects of Pro Tools that Christian had taught us in this lesson.These includd things such as volume control, changing the names of the regions and audio titles, as well as teaching us many new shortcuts. My piece is similar to last week, as i still used 'audiosuite' to change the sound of my noises, but i was also able to change the names of my regions and audio line, as well as changing the volume throughout the piece.
Overall i was very pleased with the outcome, as i didnt actually know that you were able to create sounds like these from something as simple as a piece of paper!


Free file hosting by Ripway.com

AA1 - Week 5 - Introduction to microphones

This week we had to record five different sound techniques using ifferent microphones/settings on microphones. For my recordings i chose to use two different mics; AKG Condenser mic and the Shure SM 58 Dynamic mic. I used these microphones set up in front of a radio, moving them around to get different sounds.

First Recording:
This recording i used the Shure SM 58 dynamic mic and simply moved it from side to side in front of the radio as it was recording. You can tell that the input gets louder as the microphone moves closer to the speaker, thats just logic, but you can also hear the better quality of the sound as the microphone moves closer as well.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com

Second Recording:
This time i did exactly the same thing with the mic, as in moving it from side to side infront of the radio again, but instead i used a different mic; the AKG Condenser mic, and chose a different radio station. I also had it set on the cartiod setting at the back of the microphone. The sound was pretty much the same as with the first recording, although somewhat milder.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com

Third recording
This time i used the AKG mic again, chose a different radio station, and had it set onto the Hyper Cartiod setting at the mabck of the mic. This time I, firstly, had it close to the radio, pulled it away, turned it 90 degrees, brang it back close to the radio, turned it 90 degrees again, and kept repeating that. This sound also turned out to be quite mild when listening to it afterwards.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com

Fourth recording
For my fourth recording I, once again, used the AKG mic, but had it changed to the omni setting on the back of the mic. This time. after changing the radio station, i simply moved the mic close to the radio then pulled it away again, repeating this pprocess for 5 seconds. This had a similar effect to the third recording.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com

Fifth Recording:
For my last recording i used the AKG and used the last setting on the back of the mic, the figure of eight. Whilst recording on a new radio station i held the mic infront of the speaker and simply turned it on the spot. YOu could notic where it wasn't picking up as much sound in the weak spots.




Free file hosting by Ripway.com

Overall, after learning the hard way from recording the paper noises, i found this exercise quite easy and fun.