Daniel’s Top Blog for CMT

Just a test post really, to reassure me that my blog still works and that I am capable of using it!

Having done a small amount of research on Denis Smalley I have decided to this evening have a listen to Pentes (1974) and Base Metals (2000). I hope to get a rather clear contrast between the two extremes of the compositional techniques used by Smalley. I have gathered he began by composing using natural sound sources, manipulated onto tape and then later got into computer processing of sounds once technology allowed it. I am very interested to see how these differing techniques will alter the end result and I shall hopefully blog my many findings tonight…

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Yesterday I just finished work on my submission for the Jitter section of the module. It basically triggers different sounds depending on the movement of light it tracks through a web-cam. Using two red LED bike lights and a pair of gloves I was able to build the perfect tool for operation of the patch!

The patch works through the use of the jit.scissors tool to split the webcam capture into eighteen different matrixes (6 x 3). Then it is a simple case of using jit.3m to collect data about the amount of red light in each segment. Using a simple ‘If’ command, this data can then trigger a ~groove object.

One complication I came across was that the patch was very hard to use as the web-cam display on the screen was not mirrored, so for the user, trying to move a hand into a certain box became nightmarish as the triggers on the right of the user on the screen would be on the left in real life. However, eventually finding the jit.dimmap object sorted this out.

I wanted the patch to trigger both musical and atmospheric sound elements, but still be reasonably intuitive to use. I also included a bit of background ambiance that starts automatically and loops regardless of the lights. I decided to generally group the musical elements to the bottom of the screen, with their location on the x-axis corresponding to their panning position. This makes it easier for the user to hear what they are triggering with their movements by increasing the strength of the link between the two.

I had everything in place with only one more sample to add to the grid. However this was a sample of a car driving from left to right and I wanted to trigger this sound by having the user move their hand from left to right at a similar speed. I created a subpatch called light_glide which allows the computer to track such a movement across the middle of the screen. This is done by having the first sensor box temporarily open a switch allowing signals from the second sensor box through. This signal opens another switch allowing the third sensor box to be analysed and so on. This means only if the four boxes sense red light one after the other in the right order and at at least the right speed the bang will get through, triggering the sample.

I wish I had had more time to explore this more as the patch could have been alot more interesting if I had implemented this kind of feature on every sound! However, it all still works very well together and maybe using this kind of motion sensing too much would have made the patch to confusing to use in the long run. Overall, I’m very happy with the piece and the module as a whole. Now to burn the DVD, see you all next year!

Byeeeeee

Having used iDVD before it was reasonably unproblematic getting a basic menu structure sorted for the submission DVD. I did have problems figuring out how to freely position the buttons around the screen, but eventually found the relevant check box in the buttons panel on the right side of the screen. The only other complication was making sure any imported media in the menus (background images or music) and in the proper location for iDVD to find them when reopening the project file. The best way to do this that I have found is to just copy the files to the same location as the iDVD project and then import them from there. That way they can always be kept together.

I have now been trying a few different ideas for making the blog readable on the DVD itself by putting in menu screens containing individual posts. However, following the workshop on Monday it seemed somewhat unclear in this arrangement and maybe the best idea is to just include a PDF on the disc. I have created a post template within Word for formatting my blog for a PDF, so all I need to do is drag each post into this template. Having said this, I still feel I want some of it to be readable from the DVD menus so maybe picking extracts relevant to the submission and including them is a good way to get the best of both worlds!

Working the week before last on the first Jitter task and getting used to using the matrix system has been really good fun. The first really useful object I discovered was ‘Drunk’ which is a random number generator that takes ‘drunken’ steps through the specified range. You can set the maximum step as well which can make really interesting results when altered. The first use I found for it was to change the ARGB values AND the co-ordinates affected. This, in a 100 by 100 matrix creates a really cool random visualizer, giving the effect of slowly fading colours randomly plotting a course around the matrix.

I then created a random midi music generator using the scale techniques discussed in last weeks class (using the Select and Urn objects), and a bass note generator which has four notes to choose from and with the use of a +7 and +12 adds a fifth and octave, which really expands the sound. I then made these notes trigger where in the matrix the ‘drunk’ colours would go. In order to make these effects clearer I downsized the matrix from the previous task (100×100) to 8 by 2. Allowing one row for melody and one for bass notes and a column for each degree of the scale. Using a Coll object I then added the possibility of a melodic motif which I later made replace the random scale generator every 16 bars. This causes the result to be much more musical.

In order to display my patch here to clarify what I’ve just struggled to explain with only words I am now looking for a way to save the resulting matrix display to a movie file. If anyone knows how this can be done it would be much appreciated!

So having searched far and wide across the internet I came across this french painter and film maker Fernand Leger. His paintings are characterised by the use of really bright colours through his own realisation of cubism. His critics are said to have often referred to his work as ‘Tubism’ due to his heavy use of cylinders and tube like figures.

The following piece is the painting I have chosen (The Railway Crossing) as the use of bright colours should allow me to make some interesting and clear musical connections. I also see alot of possibility in the form of the painting as in my eyes most of the shapes point towards the bottom in the middle which could help give my piece a clear sense of form, possibly all leading towards one very low frequency. These are just preliminary ideas, but either way, heres the painting:

The third task making up Production and Recording for Musicians involved choosing three tuned instruments and making three stereo recordings for each, exploring different microphone placement techniques. The task required a lot of experimentation, close listening and fine adjustment for each of the nine recordings we made in total. I chose to record a mandolin, guitar and harmonica as I felt this gave me a variety of timbres to work with. While one may assume that a mandolin is very similar to a guitar there are many subtle differences which made recording each of them very different, for example the fact that all the mandolins strings are doubled, naturally causing a chorus like effect. I will, however, discuss these differences further later on.

The first recordings I made where using the AB pair technique for each of the instruments, starting with the mandolin. This involves two omni-directional microphones in parallel to each other, roughly 30cm apart. I tried a number of different positions for the microphones around the room and decided that slightly underneath the instrument pointing upward at it produced a very full sound, enhancing in particular the lower tones. This was very interesting as generally the mandolin’s sound has a very subtle bottom end and this mic technique and placement seemed to even the sound out.

However, this recording made me want to capture the sound of the mandolin as it usually is, i.e. with heavier top end. I decided rather than move the microphones themselves, I would simply try switching to figure of 8 and cardioids to see the effect this had on the sound. I found that the cardioids instantly gave me the sound I wanted and so although an AB pair is never usually used with such microphones, in this instance the ends justified the means.

I then switched back to omni-directional mics and began experimenting with the placement for guitar. I found that the mics needed to be on the same level as the guitar otherwise the signal became either too predominantly high or low end. I also experimented with placing the mics behind the instrument but the recording wasn’t as crisp and dry as before. However, with the AB pair directly in front of the instrument the recording became too dry and thin and seemed to lack body. To remedy this I tried offsetting the distances of the microphones from the instrument so that one was roughly 20cms further away. This instantly produced a very subtle chorus, probably due to the slight time difference for the sound to travel to the two mics.

Given the experimentation I had already done with mic positions within the room I decided that for the harmonica, placing the mics very high up would bring out the top end, which is essentially all the harmonica sound is. This instantly produced a very full sound with a lot of presence and so I used that for my AB pair recording of the harmonica.

The next technique I was keen to try out was the Decca Tree (due to it’s musically historic name), and needing only one more mandolin recording I decided to use it for that. It gave a very full sound indeed as this technique involves a third microphone (omni-directional) sitting in between and slightly in front of the other two, 90cm apart. However, this technique probably ending up being the least successful of the three mandolins as the stereo pair pointing outwards picked up almost only top end giving the sound as a whole a very tinny quality. Within the context of a whole band mix this may have worked very well as the abundance of high frequencies may have set it apart from the rest of the mix, for a solo recording however, there was just too much.

I decided to next try another three mic technique for a second guitar recording and so set up an OCT layout. However I found this produced a similar level of high frequencies to the Decca Tree and so I began to tweak the positioning of the mics to form my own variation. This helped in creating a more balanced sound but still didn’t seem to work quite as well as my variation of the AB pair.

For the final guitar recording I wanted to try the XY pair given the success of my AB pair previously. The XY pair is a coincidental technique as the microphones (both cardioids) occupy almost exactly the same space but are set up perpendicular to each other forming a right angle. I figured this may give the same subtle chorus effect that the AB pair did as they would both be picking up different reflections of the sound from the two sides of the room. This was primarily the result, although the mics also picked up a lot more top end than I had expected. In this case though, this did not compromise the sound, as it still sounded very full and vibrant.

This very rich, yet top heavy sound seemed perfect for use with the harmonica and so I did another XY pair recording for that. As I had expected, the sound fit perfectly and seemed far brighter than the AB pair I had used previously. 

This thought then lead me to think about using the NOS technique for my final recording as it is almost an amalgamation of the XY and AB techniques. The NOS involves two cardioids at right angles to each other, 30cm apart. The sound this technique produced was by far the warmest and fullest of the three harmonica recordings I had done. I also produced a very wide stereo image in comparison to the other techniques, probably because the mics are separated not only by distance between them, but also by the angles they are pointing at. For this recording I also placed the microphone as close to the back wall as possible to minimise the sound bouncing around the room before hitting them. This may have also helped in producing such a clear recording.

I feel overall the my slight variation on the AB pair for guitar was the most successful recording and given the need to record guitar in the future I will know exactly what to do!

Starting this task the other week has made me think so much more about links between harmony and mood, and the way in which people attribute emotion or even events to chord sequences. The main reason this came to mind was also one of the reasons I choose to do a sequence from a Terminator film. Aside from the fact that I knew the scene I chose to be very busy and exciting with alot of unusual sounds, I really wanted to work the main Terminator theme into my work. However, I think in my eagerness to do so, I overused it, particularly during the opening 30 seconds of the clip, which requires a far more tense, disjointed accompaniment. However when coming back to this, rather than starting from scratch I instead went about reharmonising the main melody. I had never fully realised before exactly how open to interpretation a melody is based on the harmony underneath. After at least 20 odd different versions I was able to settle on a version that doesn’t seem to give the game away through its heroic major chords. To do this I used alot of suspended 9ths (after discovering 4ths to still be too heroic and a bit of a cliche) and diminished chords. 

I feel this works well as the fact it is still harmonious means that the more percussion driven section just after provides a contrast. It also adds more impact to the return of the theme, in which the original “heroic” harmonisation is used.

I should be able to get a video up of the vaguely finished product by the end of the weekend.

Heres a link to what I have so far. I’ve recently added a few more orchestral instruments to brighten the texture and help to consolidate the theme, although I have not put any real time into mixing them yet so it sounds a bit midi, but you should get the idea!

Honda Advert Task <- thar she blows.