Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Rocky vs Sound - round one *ding*
A little later in the film, there’s a scene where Rocky is talking to his boss and driver. Rocky was standing outside the car leaning in through the open window and having a conversation with them but as they switched back from a wider shot to a shot a little closer in, I noticed that the sound quality, the ambiance noise, didn’t quite match between the two shots. As they switched back and forth it became more noticeable to me how different the quality was. Now, I was suppose to be watching this as a script analysis and perhaps I wouldn't have noticed it as much if I wasn’t wearing headphones, but it dawned on me how flaws in sound really can stick out like a sore thumb and detract from the ‘reality’ of film. I guess it’s like they say, good sound goes unnoticed but bad sound, whether it’s in the edit or in errors in playback, is unforgivable.
I have to mention the ultimate nondiegetic moment of Rocky running up the stairs at the end of his successful training montage. As the ‘Theme from Rocky’ plays through and all of a sudden the choir of voices starts singing “getting strong now, won’t be long now - gonna fly now, flying high now” – for a moment it felt like it was a musical – and as bizarre as it is, I couldn’t help but embrace it, after all it was Rocky – and how can you turn your back to the distinct seventies sound of blaring horns, soaring strings, vintage electro sounds and disco drums. Yo, Adrian.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Mackie mixing console manual
Mackie 8 bus manual
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Back on the topic of microphones, briefly...
This is a great resource! And it comes from the makers of some really, really high-end microphones. (If you've used DPAs or B&Ks you know what I'm talking about!).
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Joe Frank
In a lot of pieces he (or his engineers) make very skillful use of loops of music from other sources. There is something about a Joe Frank show that seductively takes you by surprise. Transitions and transformations happen frequently but, usually, gradually. He is a hypnotist. Whenever I listen to his shows, I have to make time to devote all my attention to them. They're really captivating.
He has a site where you can listen to some of his pieces for free, and where you can pay a little bit for access to more recordings. You can also follow the links to a podcast of his programs, which you can get with iTunes or whatever. WNYC's AM station (AM 820, I think) is also still playing his program on the weekends; I think on Saturday morning.
Run for your life
Here's something that gave me a huge laugh. Not something that bears repeating, maybe, but still, fun to share. I have not listened to the whole thing, because it's an hour long, but I think it's hilarious:
Run for your life is comprised of all of the Beatles' UK-released albums compressed into 1 hour!
Mark E. Smith of the Fall said that rock music (at least originally, in the 50's) was basically the abuse of instruments designed for other types of music. (He meant that, I think, in a good way.) In this case, the art work is the creative abuse of an effect that was designed for another application.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Reading Material posted
Thursday, October 23, 2008
frequency/pitches found around the apartment
The hairdryer at high was also a B flat but the low was an E flat. Ooh – an open fifth!
The electric toothbrush was a low E, the hair clipper an A and the Gillette fusion razor a B.
The phone dial tone was an F & A: The 1 button a D with an F# bass, the 2 button an E with an F# bass, 3 button F#, 4 button D with a G bass 5 button E with a G bass, 6 button F# with a G bass, 7 button D with an A bass, 8 button E with an A bass, 9 F# with an A bass, * button D with a Bb bass, 0 button E with a Bb bass, # button F# with a Bb bass.
I started thinking it might be fun to create a musical piece using pitches from unusual sources…
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Things that go beep in the night
This time, it took me about 10 minutes just to figure out where the noise was coming from. (I'd forgotten the CO detector's whereabouts.) Combined with the period of about a minute between beeps, the nature of the sound made it hard to find. Though each beep was quite loud, it had no directionality -- it seemed to be coming from all around me, even from inside my head. In this state, I wandered into the hallway, then into the kitchen, then into the living room, where I finally realized what the sound was.
Later, my wife told me about something she'd read about analog telephones. The old phones with an actual ringing bell can be easier to locate across a space because the ringing sound is harmonically more complex. The human ear can usually latch onto it more easily than a modern electronic ringer because the harmonic content of the ring tone provides more clues that our brains know how to interpret to gauge distance and orientation. The electronic ringtones tend to be harmonically simplistic.
So, this CO alarm's beep, though loud enough, was difficult to place spatially because it was probably nothing more than a single frequency, with few overtones.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Please take this WNSR web survey from the Parsons class
Here's the link:
http://www.newschoolradio.org/survey
Friday, October 10, 2008
Listening sample - Xenakis
This is "Diamorphoses II" by the composer Iannis Xenakis, from 1957. It was an early musique concrète composition using recorded sounds and various techniques of tape-based manipulation: editing, speeding and slowing of the tape, etc. He did actually use a multi-track recorder for this piece, contrary to what I said in class.
He intended to present various "ugly sounds" in interaction, to exhibit extremes of the frequency spectrum, and to create a metamorphosing change in density throughout.
None of the sounds are synthesized or generated, per se. They were all recorded sounds subjected to the phenomena of electronic manipulation. The tape recorder and the mixing console are the musical instruments.
Call for your skills!
Hope your first editing projects are wrapping nicely.
The New School Radio project (at newschoolradio.org) is looking for some people who can engineer and edit / mix podcasts in Pro Tools. Here's your chance to help out and get some credit and potential reel material.
We have some very basic editing jobs that need to be done, from two track news pieces to sequencing DJ sets, and then some more complex ones that you can get in on the ground level for. Those of you who feel comfortable with your skills should please email me at BriggsJR@newschool.edu, and I will put you on our engineering roster.
Please write for more details! - JB
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The mix
Listening to songs that are just a piano and vocalist, I wonder if the piano player decides when his sustain is going to end before moving on to the next chord, or if the engineer has cleverly cross-faded the transition to create tonal isolation. I wonder if the vocalist and the piano player are being recorded live, playing together, or separately, in isolation rooms. Or maybe piece by piece and then assembled later. It's a lot to think about.
My progress so far is as follows: I'll lay down a track, say a piano line, record it twenty different ways, sift through the raw audio, pick the version I like, and try to put something on top of it, like a digital drumbeat or a soft-synth, and it's very hard to get right. It's very hard to get things to line up and timed. I can't admit to having any real success as of yet. Trying to stay motivated.
Tal
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Our old piano.
That being said, I thought I’d try something different. I sat at the old piano and closed my eyes and began playing the first thing that came to mind. I tried listening for all the sounds that were being created by the piano, the thumping of the mallets as they fell back down after hitting the strings, the pedal mechanics clicking, a certain frequency created by one of the notes was causing a slight rattling sound, a loose screw perhaps? I always loved the sound made by pressing down on the sustain pedal firmly, from silence, and hearing the echo of all the strings creating a cavernous feel. I lowered my head closer to the keys and listened to my fingers sticking and unsticking from the them. I could hear my finger tips brushing across as I search for the next hand position, the occasional click from a finger nail hitting a key. I could hear my bench squeak beneath me as I shift my body weight jumping from extreme treble to low bass. The lowest A sounds out of tune and growls. The highest C is also out of tune and sounds less like a note and more like something metallic being hit. There is little sustain without the pedal.
I then played a chord with my head down at the keys again, and heard a wah-wah effect, the chord ringing slightly louder and softer in a cycle. In some chords it wasn’t as noticeable. For some reason I could hear this most prevalent in chords that contained C#, most noticeably in F# major.
I then tried something I had never tried before. I moved the bench back and sat on the floor. The sound reflecting off the wood floors made everything richer and when I pounded the keys they were much brighter than normal. Then I laid on my back facing the bottom of the piano and reached up with one hand to play. It was brighter still, even harsh and tinny at times but rich. How I wished I could clone myself just for a minute and have Richard #1 play my heart’s content while I, Richard #2, laid below to absorb it all in.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Reason Tutorial
I've been experimenting with Reason this week. It's under the advanced audio tab on the lab computers. An amazing electronic audio tool that interfaces with Pro Tools.
This is a good tutorial I found online that goes through Reason in layman terms from the beginning.
http://www.reasontutorial.be/
Tal
Monday, September 22, 2008
Zooming in
We were talking last class about sample rates and bit depth, and I think Jim touched on the subject of time-stretching effects...
Even a short sound event of a few seconds can have a microcosm of sound information awaiting our discovery. We've seen that certain sounds can take on new meanings when isolated and looped. There is also sound content that can be exposed when a sound is sped up or slowed down. The software available to us today can let us stretch or contract a sound source while preserving its pitch, in addition to letting us speed it up or slowing it down, as tape decks did. Time stretching can produce digital artifacts which are probably regarded negatively in most cases; however, sometimes more extreme uses of digital processing can produce interesting new content.
Here is sample of a short two or three second piece of audio that I stretched to 19 seconds. The original recording is of a radio voice actor saying the words, "America's natural fish supply." The musical pitches present in speech can fly right by without our notice. In this case, stretching the sound revealed a hidden melody, which, when looped, formed the basis of a short film soundtrack. This was done last year in Audacity — Pro Tools also has time-stretching effects. I don't mean to jump the gun on the effects-processing topic, but, rather, to submit that nature can yield up richness on a microscopic level. Sometimes it's nice to zero in on the smaller things.
PRO TOOLS session TODAY 2-8pm
Just a small reminder that I am available to introduce you to and help you with Pro Tools today. Sessions will be at the 55 West 13th St. building, 8th floor.
The workshop times are as follows: 2-4pm in Audio Suite 3 (room 821). 4-8pm in Audio Suite 1 (807).
It'd be especially helpful if you would bring any already-collected material, so that we can do some actual work together! Looking forward to seeing some of you there!
Best,
Jim
Thursday, September 18, 2008
learning to listen
To combat this passive listening, I decided to sit down with some noise-cancelling headphones and listen to some songs on my playlist. I closed my eyes and paid close attention to the arrangement of music. I’m no musician so this was a rather difficult task at first. One song began with just a simple piano arrangement, then a guitar and base was introduced at the same time as the deep male voice. At one point, the base alternated from my left to my right, then to my left to my right again, causing me to feel completely dislocated. I listened to the same song again and again, each time trying to isolate one instrument that I then followed throughout the piece. The keyboard track slipped away from me as I got distracted by the lyrics but I caught it again--faintly at first and then as a unwavering rhythm that became the only thing I could hear.
I was surprised by the clarity of all these different tones once I started listening closely enough and I appreciated how sound conveyed a sense of space depending on the way it was panned. While listening to a song may seem like the most intuitive and elementary thing, I realized that there's an instrinsic difference between hearing and listening.
Weekly Listening - Bedroom Window
A light swish is unmistakable. It is the sound of trees blowing in the wind. I am so fortunate to be able to enjoy this sound in New York City. The swish varies in volume above a deeper, constant and more distant swishing sound: fast-moving traffic on fourth avenue.
Over both of these sounds, In the distance, a roar begins and grows in intensity. Jet aircraft flying north, presumably on approach to La Guardia Airport pass overhead on a regular basis.
A mechanical exhalation and inhalation– whirring decreases, then increases as an MTA bus arrives and then departs.
And nearby a bang! My neighbor and landlord moves his barbecue out below.
Somewhere out there someone is moving something, not quite the construction that I hear sometimes, but I do hear a metallic tap.
And only occasionally do I hear the sound of human voices, such as a child talking in the street.
The roar of the road with the occasional burst of a horn, and the swish of trees are the most constant sounds here. It's peaceful for the city, almost to the point that I can forget that I'm still a part of it.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Radio Ephemera - John Biewen "Scared"
There are 72 submissions posted on the site. I want to point out #55, "Scared" by John Biewen. I took a class with John in August at CDS in North Carolina and first heard it there. It reminds me a little bit of Tony Schwartz' piece "Nancy Grows Up" in that it puts together sound collected over a long span on time.
http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/shortdocs_2008_archive_RE.asp
Friday, September 12, 2008
Heller Post
Jim Briggs III
Audio Production
Monday, September 8, 2008
Matthew Heller
Sound Write Up
A Small Park
Matthew Heller
The movement and flow of air is the most prevalent and yet most difficult sound to follow with ones ear. The city creates a sound tunnel with its immense buildings. The street is a crevasse in metropolis. There is the grinding sound of a department truck to the right side of the street. A moped buzzes then splashes through a large gutter-puddle spewing, the drops plunk to the ground. A cab door opens, and another and another. They close consecutively with a snap, clap and a whack. The ringing of squeaky breaks echoes through the roads, the sound bounces off the high walls and glass entryways and windows. A woman in high heels clip-clops along the cobblestone path like a two-legged horse. A dog scampers behind a man who wears flip-flops making flip-flop sounds. A fire truck sounds its siren roughly two blocks away. The rumble of subway below almost drowns out the sound of two men walking hard on the backs of their heels. Two women walk by and only their toes touch the pavement, they make a gliding sound. The park trees above sounds off the rustle of leaves and the clicking of branches. An S.U.V. crashes through another puddle. It’s big engine throttles forward. A man closes his umbrella with a zip, and a woman unbuttons her collar shirt by pulling it open letting the buttons all pop like packaging paper. Newspapers are shuffled and a plastic bag rattles against a construction cone. A girl slurps on an iced mocha, pigeons scatter, who Korean men haggle over business and a cell phone rings. A man pulls a suitcase and the wheels grind on the sidewalk behind him. A mother digs through her purse and a man wearing a gawdy beaded bracelet rattles as he passes by. A bicycle clicks like the winding of a grandfather clock, and a man with a broom and dustpan scoops litter from the gutter. A giant warehouse truck bumbles by bouncing on the road. A little bird chirps and another cell phone rings loudly. A worker walking by rattles his keys in his hand and they jingle-jangle as a pound of newspapers drops to the ground. Ding, Ding! Another bicycle bell sounds. A taxi honks.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
First Assignment
Sounds from CP
I closed my eyes and immediately my ears focused on sounds from the road in front: roller blades and bicycles whizzing by, depending on the speed the varying pitch and particularly with the bicycles the gears creating variations of rapid clicking. How the timbre would change as they grew nearer and farther, panning from my right ear to my left. I could hear the sound of runners as their shoes scuffed the pavement and I could hear how gritty the ground was. Similarly, the wheels on strollers going by scraping the sidewalk. I could tune in on horse drawn carriages getting closer with resonant clip clopping of the hooves and the occasional kissing sound a driver made to guide the horse. I could make out faint hissy music coming from a car stereo and hearing that the source was stationary for a bit, I assumed it was stopped waiting for the light to change.
I was fascinated with the sounds I picked up from people walking by. Keys and change jangling in pockets, rustling of plastic and shopping bags they were carrying, the kind of footwear they were wearing, whether they were high heels and dress shoes clopping and scuffing or flip flops flapping against the bare heel. I could hear pant legs from heavier fabrics (most likely denims) brushing against each other. There were bright sounds of dog tags jingling as dog owners walked their dogs.
Multiple sources of chatter in various languages and various colors of tone, the boisterous laughter coming from park employees as they drove by in their carts. Across the road I could make out clinking of glasses and plates from Tavern on the Green, perhaps they were setting up for lunch service or for some private outdoor function.
All around I could hear various birds chirping and singing, and the faint sound of leaves rustling in the wind. There were occasional plane and helicopter noises above and I wondered if the flight patterns were altered in any way because of 9/11. I could hear high pitched sirens and honking heard in the far distance. The general traffic from outside the park created a low rumble that almost sounded like waves at the beach.
I knew it was time to leave when I heard something land by my feet with a bright tapping – I opened my eyes to find an acorn cap which must have fallen from the oak tree above. I’m sure this sound, as many of the others I mentioned, would have been taken for granted otherwise but by focusing on listening I was amazed at the sounds I was able to pick out.
As I was walking back towards Columbus Circle, I noticed a loop of sound that was created as I walked. With each step as my bag bounced against my thigh, my keys in the side pocket jangled in a consistent pattern. As I focused my ears to it, I could hear it created three distinct pitches, almost like a triad in arpeggio and the rhythm and varying frequency started to sound like the chorus melody line from “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” (The carousel was playing the tune earlier and perhaps my ears were channeling it.) Once my ears were tuned to that as an anchor, all other sounds around seemed to accompany and fill around it.
Zoe Keating
www.zoekeating.com
I'll preface my impressions of her music with a quick overview. Zoe is a classically trained cellist with both a symphonic and avant-garde performance background. The sound of her solo work is accomplished through the use of foot-pedals with which she triggers a digital sampler and playback device. She builds multiple harmonies, tones, voicing, percussive sounds, and more, by playing, recording, and layering at the same time.
I was totally blown away by the complexity of her on-the-fly arrangements and the depth and tonal variety she was able to generate using a single instrument and a simple digital tool like a sampler. You can really hear the classical training in her improvisation as she tends to create multi-movement pieces and facilitates reprises, codas, crescendos, and developed themes along the way - much like a sonata.
I mentioned I was walking through the city because in her music I found a temporal relationship to my movement. It felt a lot like getting lost and then finding myself again.
Tal
Coney Island
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Freesound
The Books - "Take Time" (2003)
This one's a favorite - and an indication of the possibility of audio collage. How is time marked, and taken, here? There are varying degrees of intensity of subdivisions, layers upon layers of sources and textures. Name some of them. What sounds 'bright' to you? What sounds are more mellow? Consider our initial discussions last week of frequency/pitch/timbre and think about how they are employed here for a (successful) mix...
MP3
and a link to The Books' lovely site...
Greetings
Monday, September 8, 2008
Welcome!
Allow us to help you get started with this first guide to posting on Blogger, for those of you unfamiliar with the process.
1) Once you've logged into Blogger, look to the upper right hand corner for your Dashboard. You can also get there by visiting this blog's address and clicking "Sign In" in the upper right hand corner.We're looking forward to seeing what you can do, and always remember that the only poor question is the one not asked!
2) Once in Dashboard, you should see Audio Production FALL 08 as one of the blogs you can manage. The big blue "New Post" button is what you need. It's simple from there! Feel free to tag your entries with certain helpful identifiers (Listening, Sound Art, Exhibits, etc)!
-- The Admins...