Forum - Week 7 - Gender and Music Technology, Can you tell the difference?

In the last week several people talked about their views on gender and music technology. The discussion got quite heated at times, so I tended to stay out of it for as much as I could. I particularly noted Dougs presentation, as although he had interesting ideas which I tended to agree with, he did not portray them as soundly as he could of, and many people did not agree at all with his views. After the general talkings (without really getting anywhere I might add) about why there arent many girls in the industry (a few people tended to stay away from this all together) Stephen dropped in with the idea of also talking about gender as a more broad term, including sexuality as well. I was also left with the quote in my head from Bjork "Choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream." I think I can safely say I will never eat icecream cake the same again.....

CC1 - Week 7 - Sampling

For this week, we had to record a quote using a program called Orrator, create several short samples from it, and then load it into the NN19 sampler in Reason. Once loading it into reason we had to set up the samples so they could be played via MIDI keyboard as a live instrument.

I initially opened Orrator and wrote the quote in using the voice Bahh! After saving the sound file I opened it up in peak, then created several (about 8) short regions, then transported them out as separate wave files. After this I re-opened all the samples and embedded sample data inside, such as their root key and other things such as loop settings.

Next came the part which I had the most trouble with. I spent upwards of an hour trying to find a way to create my own sample bank in the NN19, but eventually gave up. Just when I was about to leave out of frustration, I found that I could delete the samples from the already loaded Acoustic Guitar sample bank. After deleting all these samples, I loaded mine in and automapped them all.

I tested the samples by pressing random buttons on the keyboard and all seemed to be going as planned. I also messed around quite a bit with the different LFO, filter and amp settings to create some weird and crazy sounds. For the first time round recording I had a bit of a practice, pretty much just pressing random keys and messing around with the different settings as I was playing. I would have liked to map the different filter settings onto the keyboard controls, but in the end I was content to simply use my mouse to change them while I was playing.













My result was a really crazy sounding piece, as I often had the LFO cranked. This was a useful exercise, and I can see how it will be quite handy for our major musique concrete piece.

You can listen to my final score HERE.

Christian Haines. “Creative Computing”. Tutorial at EMU, University of Adelaide, South Australia. 26th April 2007.

AA1 - Week 7 - Vox

This week we had to undertake the recording of different vocal techniques. I was originally going to enter into the studio with my friend and get him to do some death metal growls and grunts, but as he had to go away you will have to put up with my dodge punk vox instead.

I booked the studio, went in and set up a mic stand, a pop filter and a Neumann U89i. I decided to record two spoken quotes into the mic, one with the pop filter and one without. I decided to also record to singing parts into the same mic with the pop filter using both the hyper-cartoid and wide-cartoid patterns. The spoken quote was taken from the song Abysmal Depths are Flooded, by Xasthur. You can listen to the song HERE if you wish.

This is the first spoken quote with the pop filter.

This is the second spoken quote without the pop filter.

For the singing part I sang a line out of the song 'Never Sell Out', by The Exploited. Listen to it HERE.

This is the first recording with the U89i in the hyper-cartoid pattern.

This is the second recording with the U89i in the wide-cartoid pattern.

Note that all the recordings done with the U89i were recorded with the pop filter about 2 inches from the mic and my mouth about one inch from the pop filter.

Finally I did one more recording with a Shure SM58, as I figured this type of mic is more fitting with the genre being recorded. You can listen to it HERE.

Once I had recorded all of the parts into Pro Tools (via the avalon) I went through and EQ'd, Compressed and Reverbed them all to my liking.

Overall my favourite spoken recording was the one with the pop filter, and my favourite vocal recording was with the SM58, as the sound is much more consistent, as the mic can be kept close to the face at all times.

Stephen Fieldhouse. “Audio Arts”. Tutorial at EMU, University of Adelaide, South Australia. 24th April 2007.