Week 12

Today in Audio Arts we spent the whole lecture micing up a drum kit. I have already miced up a drum kit twice in my SAE course. Even so, I still found this lecture very helpful because Christian explains everything differently. We didn’t have much time to pull some sounds. By the end of the class, we only had miced up the kick drum, snare and overheads. But realistically, one hour is hardly enough time as it normally can take hours. One aspect which I haven’t considered before, when micing up a drum kit, is the room acoustics.
[1] I didn’t realize that the position of the actual drum kit itself made any difference to the sound, but apparently it does. One major problem we encountered is that the kick drum didn’t have a hole in the skin, so we had to take the skin off. In a proper recording I don’t think this is a great idea. I would buy a new skin with a hole in it so the mic can pick up the sound properly (normally the mic goes in the kick drum to pick up the beater click sound). [2]

In Creative Computing this week we discussed tape techniques. We started talking about the old spicing techniques of analogue tape and then moved on to sample editors like Peak. I have spiced analogue tape before in my SAE course.
[3] I think if other students knew how annoying it is they would be glad that we don’t do it anymore. But since I have done it before, I know just how much easier it is on the computer. There is also so much more that you can do in Peak when using all the plugins and DSP effects. The options are endless. I was really blown away when Christian showed us how a sound like a crash symbol can be used to simulate a factory background noise by looping a section and pitchshifting it. I also liked the vocal effects we went through by duplicating syllables of words. [4]

Today in Forum we listened to 7 pieces. They were by Nobukazu Takemura, Gutbucket, Bach, Toby Twining, Arnold Dreyblatt, Otomo Yoshihide, Igor Stravinsky. They ranged from orchestral pieces to psychedelic pieces. [5]

Instead of having a guest speaker we had two students Vinnie and Tyrell play some music, and Patrick talked to us about a project he is starting.

Vinnie played us a piece that he had written himself using the program Reason. I thought his song was awesome. It had really great sounding melodies and the progression was just wonderful. I would love to do a remix of the song and add some of my ideas (which came to mind as the song was playing). I might look into that, but I’m not sure if Vinnie would want that. One part, in particular, which I thought was great, was when the regular beat transformed into a drum ‘n’ bass beat without the song changing tempos. Now that I think about it I’m not sure really how he did that. The song was great kudos to Vinnie.

Patrick talked about this project he wants to start called Planetarium, at the Sound Scape Dome at UniSA Mawson Lakes. I though this idea sounded interesting and I mite consider it. The only problem is that I’m not sure the kind of music I produce would be suitable for this kind of project.

Finally Tyrell played us some pieces by a Japanese composer called Ryoli Ikeda. I hadn’t heard of this composer before and the music was very different to what I am used to. I thought some of the sounds in the piece were well produced and the reverbs sounded really good. My only criticism would be where this kind of music is applicable. I’m guessing video games as it has a very robotic feel to it. I though overall the two pieces sounded interesting. [6]


[1] Pyramind's MP&E 301 class with Rock Engineer Frank Gryner at Hibiki Studios in Mt. View. ‘Where Creativity Meets Technology’, Pyramid http://www.pyramind.com/news/images/gryner/large/Drums_Miced.JPG (Accessed 5th June 2006)

[2] [1] Christian Haines. "Audio Arts Lecture - Studio 1, EMU Space". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 30th May 2006.

[3] The Idaho Falls. ‘Concrete Prairie’, http://www.theidahofalls.com/photos/RRGPhotos/TapeMachine.jpg (Accessed 5th June 2006)

[4] Christian Haines. "Creative Computing Lecture - Audio Lab". Lecture presented at the Audio Lab, University of Adelaide, 1st June 2006.

[5] David Harris. "Music Technology Forum Lecture - EMU Space". Lecture presented in the EMU Space, Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 1st June 2006.

[6] Vinnie, Patrick McCartney, Tyrell Blackburn-. "Music Technology Forum Lecture - EMU Space". Lecture presented in the EMU Space, Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 1st June 2006.