An insightful interview

From one of my favourite artists at the moment: Patrick Watson. If you’ve not heard of him/them, they’re a pop band from Quebec, Canada taking influence from debussy, bjork, steve reich and david lynch amongst others and he (the frontman) has an ethereal voice reminiscent to the late great Jeff Buckley’s.

Their latest album has seen them embrace the music and instrumentation of all the places in the world they have toured in the last three years on the lead up to the release of  ‘Wooden Arms’.

The first video is the interview, the second is a live version of the title track performed in Montréal’s outdoor Jazz festival.

Wooden Arms live

If anyone reading this has any music they’d like to share, please reply in a comment to this post!

Acousmatic polishing

This weeks Acousmatic lesson was dedicated to tutorials (in the 5.1 surround sound room) about our compositions.

I received some good criticism and advise on both of my pieces, yet it will be difficult to produce and master precisely some new spatialisation ideas because the surround sound room is so fully booked till our hand in date.

Composition one

For my industrial sounding ‘Green Music’ piece, structural intentions were the main focus of discussion. Without reading a programme of my ideas, the way the piece is formed might be wrongfully perceived as counter-intuitive, unmeasured and basically lacking any homogenous flow.

If you refer to the Green Music blog post bellow about the piece, this account should be the first point of reference to make things clearer.

I group the piece in 3 sections (A, B, A+B=C), and within those sections there is a lot of condensed varying content.

To further elaborate on this, I was encouraged to make colour markings in logic on any changes in structure, and see through visual patterning how everything relates to one another, which would not only help make explicit my motives to the listener, but also reaffirm to myself the form.

The timings of structural changes are as follows:

A.Disposing : 0 – 42 seconds (marker 1 up to marker 4)

B.Decomposition : 42 – 1 minute 40 seconds (marker 4 up to marker 7)

C.Rebuilding : 1 minute 40 seconds till the end (marker 7 to marker 30)

Taking the time to see my musical structure arranged in colour gave me a more objective perspective on my transformations and their interrelations. Even though the Rebuilding section used sounds from earlier in the piece, I neglected to exploit the previous vocal samples to their full potential (which I have amended), phrases like these often become the most memorable part of a piece as concrete as mine.

For the transitional section between the end of the Decomposition and start of the Rebuilding (refer to markers 7 to 12), I placed in a sound from the very start of the piece but with an added unsettling, ambient delay which I feel helps prepare the listener for the subsequent mash up much more effectively.

Composition two

I received a comparison to Parmegiani for my ‘Impulse Response’ piece, which I was appreciative of, as I am very fond of his soft synthetic sounds, and in particular his signature glissandi swoops; I think I was subconsciously attempting to create a similar sound world to my favourite parts from De Natura Sonorum (1990).

I was told that the main element I was missing in this piece was a substantial amount of timbrel variation.

I put my sounds through a variety of processes using tools ranging from SPEAR to my Boss 303 phrase sampler, yet I had restraint with many effects, as my main objective regarding processing was to make a soft and playfully melodius soundscape, and I was concerned that if I incorporated too many contrasting sounds, this unity would be lost.

Other apprehensions I had were that because the short percussive sounds work so well for my spatialisation theme, too many other extended or dissimilar noises would colour my piece in a less jaunty manner.

Having said that, I do feel there could be more differentiation between sections. I am currently working on different subtle granulations that come from the tail end of sounds (via a spectral gate plug in mainly), and am experimenting with bypassing effects to the entire mix on the master out track to then embellish my piece through resampling techniques.

INSOMNIA Foley and Score

Task four assignment was to write incidental music for a scene of an action film of our choice, I chose the American adaption of the thriller Insomnia (2002) because of it’s realistic gritty atmosphere and intense chase scene.

I combined the foley task (task five) with this movie segment, which required me to not only sound design my own recordings to the actors gestures, but to find suitable ambient background noises too.

I recorded all the samples to live visuals, like how a foley artist works.
Examples:
For the footsteps, I tapped my fingers on cereal packets, newspapers, rice bags and hit slippers on my kitchen floor.

The sound of climbing over the fence was achieved by dropping a grill tray on a metal container mixed with a scrapping of a bike basket up a metal chair.
This way of recording live taught me much about how it is essential to not just use preset samples and to then cue them to peoples movements, as it is impossible to get differentiation in peoples gestures: these inconsistent articulations are what help foley sounds achieve such a human character.

^^^ A few items from my foley arsenal

I was inspired by the electronic scores to A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Irreversible (2002) mainly because of their drone explorations and sweeping dark timbre usage.

I incorporated many uncomfortable cluster chords, as I knew dissonance works well to add tension to any piece of music. I also had an accelerando theme which coincided with the increased layering of instruments: this combination engages the listener in a state of expectation and helps direct their emotional involvement.
Pedal notes that were introduced later on the synthesiser helped furthermore raise the suspense.

I learnt a lot about sound designing from this excercise, and how it is possible to create a sound world of your own if you have the imagination and forethought. In addition, I experienced a new aspect to writing music to visuals with the chase scene and enjoyed trying to take my own approach. It is not quite as orchestral as one would expect for such a big-budget film, but on reflection I feel that my accompaniment fitted the visuals.

Impulse Response

Using two sampled notes from a coconut shaped kalimba, I wrote a piece based on a personal philosophy I have on sentimental intent:

I believe an external influence (for instance, a heartfelt action a loved one makes) should be reciprocated without a conscious thought (by ourselves, a ‘dynamic system’); this immediate reaction initiates emotions that form a unified bond (that evolves) over a period of time.

an example -

DYNAMIC SYSTEM : you
EXTERNAL INPUT : me giving you a hug
OUTPUT : our shared emotional change

My arrangement was influenced by various phasing ideas and call and response patterning which are at the centre of any meaningful relationship.

The sounds in my piece arrive in couples (these couples relate to various complimenting/contrasting emotions) and their gestures respond to one another through:

rhythmic responses, timbre matching, (time dependent) processing techniques and various symmetrical spatialisation ideas.

This concept is further complicated by the idea that when new inputs are added over steady states, (new sounds layered over previous established couples) deviations to that progressing output may occur.

An example of this is at the very start of the piece when the second sound that is introduced attempts to mimic the timing of the first sound, but as soon as a third sound is introduced (at 16 seconds) it displaces Sound B’s timing.
Another example of a deviation is through the gradual processing transformations that occur through the pad like sounds of the first section: they flutter in unison with more intensity till a climactic shift.

I was particularly excited by the idea of an 8 speaker pre-programmed spatialisation, because with this added dimension, sounds interact with a reinforced connection and added physicality that would not be portrayed in stereo encoding.

Once I have some time to mix at the university, I will post up an mp3 of my piece so far.

Impulse Response mp3

Stereo micing techniques

Task three for the Production and Recording for Musicians module required us to experiment, record and document three different stereo micing techniques (an AB technique was the control) on three contrasting acoustic instruments.

We decided to record a Harmonica, Acoustic guitar and a (muted) Trumpet; we settled on these mainly because we felt the characteristics of each instrument were individual enough to warrant completely different recording approaches for each set.

The workshops we had on the subject of stereo micing, introduced us not only to a wide variety of established possible recording techniques but subsequently helped our group experiment with unconventional/original mic placements which I have since found useful for even simple one mic recordings I have made.

The first instrument we recorded was the Harmonica. Listening in the control room to the Latvian musician, Rudolf playing his motif made us instantly aware of how difficult it would be to record a pure instrumental sound without any vocal nuisances or unwanted percussive noises.

Pressing on with the first AB technique, we found that the microphone’s height greatly effected how much unwanted noise we picked up from the Harmonica, and in addition effected the dynamic range of the input signal. The inclusion of pop shields also helped to reduce any excessively breathy notes that were played.

The best recording was achieved by having Rudolf play towards the ground at a 45 degree angle and placing the microphones at roughly his eye-level; also we placed the mics 40cms apart on the stereo mic holder which helped pick up the high and low frequencies in an unbiased manner rather than the thinner sound which was achieved by placing them closer together than 30cms. The sweet spot was between 60cms to 90cms apart from the mics: Any closer, the sound of his breathing was too apparent : Any further away, the sound became unpleasantly shrill.

We wanted to build upon the success of the AB recording, but wanted a larger stereo image and to see if we could get a softer organ like tone. We decided that an XY technique would be a good way to attempt this because of its identical use of microphones and we hoped the indirect positioning towards the sound source might produce a softer sound and lighter stereo image in result.

The best position was 60cms from the microphones: slightly closer than the previous recording. The mics were moved down 30cms bellow from the previous position, which in turn accentuated the higher frequencies in a more pleasant way and although the XY technique picked up more vocal nuisances, it produced an overall sharper signal than the AB recording.

The final mic placement we set-up for the Harmonica was the OCT technique, I predicted the inclusion of a large diaphragm microphone would add a warmer dimension to the middle frequencies and that the positioning of the octava microphones would produce a full and wide stereo image.

The best result was achieved by placing the mic set-up so the octava mics were at Rudolf’s neck level; then we directed him to play downwards at a 25 degree angle and stand back 80cms.

This technique produced the largest amount of unwanted percussive vocal sounds but also gave an impression that the harmonica was swimming through the speakers which I found to be completely unique to this micing technique (for the Harmonica set).

We found that if we moved the mic set-up bellow shoulder height the recordings sounded thinner, so we settled on a similar spot as the AB recording.

I feel the OCT recording produced the warmest results out of this set, yet because it caused so much unwanted vocal noise and we had a restriction against using eq effects, this technique was made second best to the clear and unbiased AB recording.

For the acoustic guitar, our objective was to find arrangements that picked up minimal fret/strumming noise yet had a well balanced resonance from the low to high frequencies.

The AB technique worked best with a 40cm spacing, (this wider distance seemed to reduce bass boom) and the left microphone pointing to the left of the sound hole, whilst the right microphone was angled towards around the tenth fret. The angling from underneath upwards was the best placement for reducing unwanted noise, but with this arrangement the lower to mid frequencies sound colder in comparison to the later recordings that I made.

The optimum distance that we placed the microphones, was 50cms from the guitar, as at this range their was a raw resonance that occurred which reminded me of 1960’s songs like ‘Girl’ from The Beatles.

Our second technique was an experiment (named the big 2.1 technique) with two large diaphragm SE electronics mics placed in separate corners of the room (90cm above and 150cms from the sound source), whilst an octava mic placed 45cms from the bottom of the fret board picked up the main detail of the signal, we then angled this slightly up from a flat 180 degrees to again reduce fret noise. All of the mics were set to cardioid in the final instance.

We hypothesised that the SE mic’s distancing would give a wide stereo impression, and pick up more of the room’s ambience, whilst the octava placement would produce a much needed clarity for the bass to high frequencies.

This recording produced warmer results than the AB set, yet I feel we may have over compensated for the bass response by placing the octava microphone slightly too close to the sound source, which resulted in some booms when the open strings were played.

Our last technique was entitled ‘The Rudolfs’ and used one octava pointing towards the top of the fret board 15cms away, and another octava pointing at the bridge of the guitar again 15cms away; they were both set to cardioid and angled at a roughly 80 degree angle. In addition, we placed a large diaphragm mic 60cms above and 75cms away from the sound hole, which we angled down at a 70 degree.

Out of all the recordings that we made, not only did this technique have the most pleasing stereo image (most likely because of the close micing at the fret board and sound hole) but the placement also resulted in a warm clarity through all the strumming, plucking and hammer-on techniques; this almost perfect balance made ‘The Rudolfs’ my favourite of all the recordings.

Although I had no prior practical experience with recording Trumpets, I had seen many live and studio recordings of jazz artists like Miles Davis and had subconsciously retained some knowledge of what different mic positions work for different aural situations.

We set the microphones 30cms apart for the AB recording and raised the mic stand to the same height as the sound hole (which was the optimum height in this situation for reducing breathing and clicking noise). The microphones were pointed completely straight forward whilst the trumpet pointed at the ground at a 30 degree angle. Standing roughly 40cms from the microphones was the best distance we settled upon because any further away the higher notes became piercing : any closer the breathing became too apparent.

The second technique we set up (named ‘The Gilbert’) used two large diaphragm SE electronic microphones facing the ground (refer to below image) with omnidirectional settings. The microphones were raised to the player’s eye level and were set 90cms apart on two different mic stands. We positioned it so that the end of his mute was in line with the tops of the microphones. This arrangement picked up a much brighter middle tone, and with the aid of the room’s reflection, the initial punch of the instrument was subdued and any vocal nuisances were far less evident in comparison to the first AB recording.

This technique was my favourite of the set due to the clear sound and traditional Latin-brass like timbre.

The last technique we did for the trumpet recording was a NOS set up. We changed the height to slightly above the sound hole, and moved the player 100cms from the mics to try and get the same room ambience as with ‘The Gilbert’; with the use of octava microphones and different spacings, I was curious as to how different the result would be.

This technique was not as dull as the AB recording and shared similar bright characteristics as ‘The Gilbert’, but unfortunately the breathing was far too evident no matter what distance or height we placed the microphone from the trumpet.

Tap In Time To Tour

The jitter task that I built for task seven was a minimalist game like environment where (using the qwerty keyboard) one has to bang in time to continue with a musical progression.

The first three levels change the timings of the Red, Green then Blue planes of the entire matrix. A counter object fades the plane’s values from 0 – 255, and utilising a gate object one must bang when the values are between 0 – 10 to progress to the next level. This banging in time gets progressively harder as the levels progress (refer to metro for specific timings).

The introductory text is triggered by a jit.gl.text2d object, so when ‘1′ is pressed on the qwerty keyboard at the start of the jitter interaction, the text ‘minimal’ pans across the matrix window.

The fourth level will only let the player continue once the third row down of set cell messages is filled on the 20 x 10 matrix (if you miss this bang you must clear the matrix to try again). This is controlled by a select 19 object that goes into a gate object which, once banged in time, toggles to an identical sequence on the 7th row (the only difference is the accompanying melody).

Once banged in time on the 7th row, not only is the third row sequence initiated again (using a multiply object in conjunction with a gate), but this change triggers a switch that enables an uzi object to clear the cell positions once they fill up to nineteen. In addition, a chord sequence correlating to a descending yellow cell message is rewarded for your persistence. These cell coordinates are connected to a line object so they fade in and out.

After you have passed all the levels, it is possible to reinitiate earlier events to create an alternative structure.

I feel the simple diatonic melodies and harmonies compliment the basic matrix transformations aptly, and that the soft synth sounds are varied enough to satisfy the listener yet are not so complex that the audio-visual relationship is diminished through a lack of association.

Green Music

My concept for the first Acousmatic composition was to highlight how wasteful the majority of westerners are when it comes to recycling. I planned to do this through not only incorporating noises that relate to various recycling processes, such as the sounds of shredders, bin men collecting rubbish and so forth, but I also wanted to arrange these sounds in a playful manner, such as mapping a rhythmic section that is reminiscent to the most recycled drum beat in sample based music: the Amen break; because we have been conditioned to this pattern through hip-hop, drum-and-bass and various other subcultures of popular electronic music, I believe it emphasises the content of the sounds used, rather than detracts from an Acousmatic mode of listening.

The structure I decided on for my piece was inspired by a processing chain of recycling:

The introduction and first section (0 – 43 seconds) used sounds relating to the disposing of rubbish (full bin bags being crushed by hand and bin men’s trucks were sampled). The main crescendo and accompanying increasement of layered sounds reflects the accumulating of waste, before it is taken away from ones home.

The piece then progresses to the decomposition of these materials, and uses sounds from the assembly lines of various recycling plants to give an insight to how our rubbish is treated. I wanted to reflect the plants cyclical nature with anticlimactic crescendos to mirror the tremendous extent of waste that these plants are required to sieve through on a day to day basis.

The succeeding section transitions into the recycle-based Amen break, where I incorporated most of the previous samples from earlier in the piece to demonstrate how one’s rubbish can be broken down and rebuilt into a completely new beneficial form.

The main aim of my processing techniques was to emphasise the break down of the various presented raw materials, so as to highlight how we should be aware of the life cycles of the products we are disposing of.

Examples:

I used a Granulation effect on the sounds of glass to replicate how they must be broken down in to tiny particles before they can be reused.

The sound of the plastic bottles on the assembly line resembled the sound of waves coming back and forth (which is categorically relative); I highlight this amassing then dispersing of material through dynamic swells from an enveloping spectral gate effect.

Here is an audio clip of my piece so far.

Bang midi

Hello guys!

I’m doing this quick little post for anybody that is doing music for digital media and would like to save some time loading up their jitter patches.

I had some problems loadbanging midi information, but hopefully if you copy the bellow screen grab, you should not need to click to initiate anything before playing audio!

Me and Julio established that the positioning of the message boxes in this situation is very important as the information read/sent in Max is deciphered from right to left: in this situation the loadbang is choosing the information on the umenu, and then a separate bang is sending that information to the noteout.

On the right of the patch is another loadbang to set the incoming midi channel that you will have chosen in an external sequencer.

I hope this has helped someone!

Ciao,

Dave

Eye-hand-ear coordination

In the week three lesson of Acousmatic Music, we were told to choose a composer and a piece of their music we would like to diffuse the following week in our designated groups. I had been listening to Dhomont’s Antichambre quite a lot and felt that it would be an interesting piece to attempt to diffuse, mainly because I had never experienced a diffusion with such pleasing ambient textures and strong pulsating rhythms, and it is a type of Acousmatic music I would be interested in composing myself.

As a group we compromised on pieces from the third movement on Normandeau’s Clair de Terre as the contrasting pieces enabled us to experiment with different types of diffusion and explore different complexities in our relative physical gestures.
These pieces were appealing to each of us because of their cinematic nature; furthermore they instigated the discussion we had about relating diffusion techniques to musical gestures and speculative thoughts on the composer’s own spatialisation intentions.

When it came to attempting some of the techniques I had planned in lesson four, I failed to keep the room ‘warm’ and my gestures were largely sloppy, which can partially be blamed upon my inexperienced visual crossfading technique, which I hopefully will have eradicated by next lesson!

P.s A few classmates have been finding it hard to get Smalley’s Spectromorphology text, so just leave me your email address and I’ll send it your way!

After the experiments

In yesterday’s Acousmatic workshop we were instructed to bring in our own samples and learn for ourselves about the different stages of acousmatic composition.

It became clear to me that a good concept that one might initially have would not necessarily translate to a quality listening experience unless time is taken to understand and learn the internal characteristics of the chosen samples thoroughly.

This process is interlinked with bringing life and a new dimension to ones sounds,  to really challenge the expectations of a listener one has to have variety, yet be consistent in the standard of their spatialisation techniques.

I shall continue to record samples and make notes of various acousmatic concepts that come to mind over this next week.