Week 2 Forum - My Favourite Things I

[2]

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. . . .


Todays class on Music Technology Forum didn't really include "music technology". Well, we did use a CD player. Two hours of this class were spent on listening to music. When listening to David's piece, my first feelings were sympathy for the performers. I've never seen a piece with so many changing time signatures. I would find it near impossible to play, but I guess that's because I'm not a composition student. The varying tones and dynamic range of the piece sounded good but there wasn't any kind of timing structure. I think David was actually going for this idea.

The Schubert piece we listened to was okay. I prefer Beethoven when it comes to classical music. Schubert's music tends to be a lot more repetitive. David mentioned that this piece reminded him of minimal music. I can definately see why. Minimal music can be very effective but I prefer Philip Glass or minimal electronic music.

I don't think this class was very productive. We hardly did anything. The break was good.


[1] David Harris, "Music Technology Forum: Semester 2 - Week 2 – My Favourite Things". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, Schulz 1109, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 7th August 2008

[2] Redfin, 'A Few of My Favorite Things (Sort Of): 2 Kinds of Gas, BART and Being a Homeowner'. http://sfbay.redfin.com/blog/category/sweet_digs_classic/ (Accessed 7th August 2008)

AA3 Week 2 - Sound FX Analysis - The Matrix Lobby Scene*


One of the best scenes in The Matrix is this lobby scene. I have analysed this scene and listed the sound design, foley and music. There is so so much going on all together and I haven't included the time at which these events occur as it will take too long. The clip is below so you can follow what I have included.


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Sound Design
pile driver
bag slide
machine beep
jacket opening (swoosh!)
reverse woosh
gun spring sound
lift beep
body fall
swoooosh
hand combat SFX
shells being fired
empty shells dropping to the ground

Foley
footsteps
dialogue
strike
gun fire (machine, shot gun, pistol)
gun cock
gun dropping
army footsteps
smashing pillars
smashed pillars rock fragments dropping
shoe sliding on floor
lift door opening/closing
lift "bing" (which for some reason goes off when they are in the lift?)

Music
pile driver
rhythm element
background tone
propellerheads soundtrack


[1] Luke Harrald. "Audio Arts: Semester 2 - Week 2 - Sound FX Analysis - The Matrix Lobby Scene". Lecture presented at EMU, Audiolab, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 5th August 2008

[2] youtube. "Matrix Lobby Scene". www.youtube.com (Accessed 13/8/8)

CC3 Week 2 - Graphical User Interface II

I was lucky this week as one of my synthdefs was very similar to the example we went through. This is a simple AM synth. I have used the array method but I couldn't work out how to change the colours and make it more customizable. In my code I have used the EZSlider which does limit what you can do quite a bit.




Below is my finished code. For an audio example click here [1.8MB].

//Synth Def
(
 SynthDef("SinTone", {
 
 arg cFreq = 500, cAmp = 0.5, mFreq = 3, mAmp = 0.75;
 
 var carrier, modulator, out;
 
 modulator = LFSaw.ar(freq: mFreq, mul: mAmp);
 carrier = SinOsc.ar(freq: cFreq, mul: modulator * cAmp);
  
 out = Out.ar(bus: 0, channelsArray: carrier);
 
 }).send(s);
)

~asynth = Synth("SinTone");

(

 // Variables
 var win, sliderData;

 // Build Slider Data
 sliderData = [
  // Label    Min  Max  InitMin  Param
  ["Carrier Freq",   [10.0, 5000.0],   200.0, \cFreq],
  ["Carrier Amp",   [0.0,  1.0],    0.1,  \cAmp],
  ["Mod Freq",   [0.1,  200.0],  0.1,  \mFreq],
  ["Mod Amp",   [0.1,  100.0],  0.1,  \mAmp]
 ];
 
 // Window Setup
 win = GUI.window.new(
  name:  "Granular Control", 
  bounds: Rect(20, 400, 440, 180)
 ).front;
 win.view.decorator = FlowLayout(win.view.bounds);
 
 // Build Control consisting of Label, Min NumBox, Range Slider, Max NumBox, 
 sliderData.do({
 
  // Arguments
  arg val, idx;
  
  // Variables
  var guiEZ, specGUI;
  
  // Build Slider
  guiEZ = EZSlider(
      win,              // window
      400 @ 24,           // dimensions
      val[0],             // label
      ControlSpec(val[1][0], val[1][1], \lin),  // control spec
      {|ez| ~asynth.set(val[3], ez.value);},   // action
      val[2]             // initial Value
      );
      guiEZ.labelView.stringColor_(Color.red);
      guiEZ.sliderView.focusColor_(Color.red);
      guiEZ.numberView.stringColor_(Color.red);

 });
)

I did have a go at building a GUI using a lot more detail but I couldn't work out how to change the scaling. Here is the code to have a look if you're interested


[1] Christian Haines. "Creative Computing: Semester 2 - Week 2 - Graphical User Interface II". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 7th August 2008