aural-report

[aural-report]

For an assignment, we were given a folder of isolated vocal tracks that we were to implement into an Ableton session and transform them, creating an entirely new piece. Using Queen’s Somebody to Love, Lana Del Ray’s Summertime Sadness, and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, I created this spacey trap song. My process began by taking various records that I have collected throughout years of dollar-bin digging and looking for material to sample. The record that I stumbled onto was Fulfilled/Complete by the band Broken Spindles. I heard a section of ambient music that featured some modulation and realized I could chop it up. Using Maschine as a plugin within Ableton, I was able to swiftly program my sampling, drums and bass line, while still taking advantage of Ableton’s superior arranging and editing view. Then I brought in the vocal samples on different tracks within Ableton, and utilized the built-in warp function to aid me in my sampling. With some tinkering and utilization of the tuner plug-in, I was able to match up some parts of each track with the sample, and program them in. Adding in some reverb and delay, adjusting the warp settings for some vocals, and implementing a filter sweep, I feel like I was successfully able to utilize the vocals in this track without being too jarring for the listener.

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Mini Report - Psychoacoustics

In a very intriguing and immersive presentation, Brandon discussed his findings on Psychoacoustics. Specifically, he spent a majority of his time talking about binaural beats, a technique that involves utilizing 2 fundamental tones-one in each ear when listening on headphones-that are separated by only 10 Hz. Brandon explained that this would enable the brain to make up the 10 Hz frequency with it’s own vibrations. Brandon then went on to discuss the different forms of brain waves, ranging from Delta to Gamma waves. The 10 Hz binaural beats demonstration helps the brain produce Delta waves, which are emitted when the mind is in a deep state of relaxation and meditation. By utilizing the binaural beats technique, the music aids the listener achieve the desired brain wave function, in turn relaxing them, or sometimes increasing their focus. Brandon further went on to show a fantastic music video, by a band called Marconi Union called “Weightless” that is perhaps the most popular usage of these frequency techniques in order to stimulate a specific response in the listener. The link for that video is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfcAVejslrU 

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Vinyl Sampling Project

This track was created for class, as we had to rip a vinyl record and sample it. My process consisted of skimming through plenty of records that I had picked up in the dollar bin, and I stumbled across Smokey Robinson’s Flying High Together and Grasscut’s Unearth. Though these two albums shared almost nothing in common, something about the track “You Ain’t Livin til you’re lovin” and “Lights” from the respective albums resonated with me. So utilizing Maschine, I pitched both records down and split the sections up, with Smokey first and Grasscut second. As a way to bridge the gap between these two different sounds, I EQ’d vocals from Smokey Robinson’s track, reversed them, added a lo-fi effect, and added reverb on it to smoothen the transition between the old-school hip hop of part 1 and the more orchestral hip hop of part 2. In part 2 I had focused on building tension, so I added 4 different string arrangements, and included some moments to breathe as the beat keeps building up. Overall, I had a good time doing this assignment, as I do this sort of thing typically with my production workflow. Sampling vinyl isn’t new to me, however it won’t ever get old for me. 

https://soundcloud.com/korolev-ramapo/jk_vinylwav

(could not embed song here, issues with soundcloud and tumblr again.)

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Mini Report: 3D sound

Chris gave a very comprehensive report on 3D sound and its implementation across media today. Unfortunately, though it has been implemented in movies, video games, and demonstrative audio experiments, 3D sound has been absent in terms of popular contemporary music. Chris explained that a major factor to why the music industry has yet to adopt 3D sound is due to the effect requiring either a comprehensive studio space, or headphone listening. This means that most current listening spaces, from laptops, to car radios, would be ineffective in achieving the 3D sound effect. 3D sound was invented in 1980, and was coined by the term Holophonics. Today, there are quite a few plugins and applications that can be used to design and place sounds on a 3D spectrum, however they are extremely expensive due to how uncommon the implementation is. Currently, the most popular implementation of 3D audio is for a phenomenon called binaural listening, where the microphone is actually shaped in the model of a human head, to replicate the listener’s experience when using headphones. As Chris explained, many of these demonstrative videos feature whispers and even getting hair cut, and are not focused on music. Hopefully, music begins to adopt these features.

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Film Scoring Assignment II

For this assignment, we were tasked to take a scene around 1 min long and score it utilizing music and sound effects. We were given a library of over 3000 sound effect samples, and were equipped with whatever else we wanted to use. I chose the Library Fight scene because it looked pretty cool and cinematic. We were required to use three plugins in Logic for this assignment, EXS24 Sampler, Sculpture, and FM8. For most of my repeated sound effects (guns, punches, etc.) I utilized the EXS24 sampler, however the sliding door effect was just audio that I used in its own track. For the opening thump, I used FM8, as it was a sound that created tension and suspense with it’s delay on the sound itself. For the rising propeller sound and the synth guitar I used Sculpture, which was a perfect fit because I was able to modify the timbral qualities to a tee with that plug in. I decided to go with 3 different electronic drum kits because each of them provided different aesthetics that I felt went well together. The main one had a filthy 808 kick and a clanky snare sample that felt right with the tone of the scene, while the other two drum kits featured percussion and hi-hats that added texture and variation to the music. What I found to be very challenging was timing the music and the sound effects to the scene, as it did not follow a specific rhythm or tempo, forcing me to work outside of the quantized grid and follow the movie with my eyes. This was a really fun assignment, albeit very difficult, but I definitely want to keep practicing this technique moving forward.

[aural-report]

Film Scoring Assignment I

For this assignment, we had to create a score to a 30 second clip of a Tourism video. The requirements were to sample a traditional instrument from the location of the video we selected, and to make the music fit the video. I selected the video centered around Japan, and sampled a traditional Japanese guitar song for the entirety of the music in it. Bringing it into Logic, I created an EXS24 Sampler instrument comprised entirely of the first 45 seconds of the Guitar song, chopping it up by the transient markers, making each of my keystrokes a separate guitar pluck. Then, I carefully watched the video play and tried to time the notes exactly to the cuts, while making the music stay relatively on beat. This proved to be a challenge, as the tourism video did not exactly follow a specific tempo, so I was forced to refrain from using quantization. This gave my music an aspect of fluidity, as it was not so certainly locked in the grid. After laying down my sample chops, I utilized an electronic drum kit in Logic to beef up the low end and add some extra sound sources. All in all, it was a good learning experience to be able to time the music with the film, and I hope to do a better job with Film Scoring II.

[aural-report]

Pop Song Project.

https://soundcloud.com/korolev-ramapo/aint-that-funny

(EXPLICIT LYRICS WARNING) We were assigned to make a pop song that features an organized session, a comprehensive folder, and a live-instrument as a top-line for reference. Essentially, the goal was to understand the process of writing and producing a track that could then be bought by a performer to function as their song. For this assignment I chose to follow the trend of “Pop-Rap” that is heard on the radio today, and make a bouncy, braggadocios song focusing on making ‘dat money. Despite my improvised lyrical content essentially acting as a satire for the genre, the cadence of the top-line serves as an adequate representation of what rap on the radio sounds like. This, matched with my attempt at a radio-friendly rap beat, sufficiently sounds like something that one might hear on the radio, in my opinion. 

My process was centered around not trying to do too much, as music like this typically demands quality instead of quantity. This meant that instead of utilizing 20+ sound sources to compose a hit, I utilized 5. This lead to my process being more focused on editing and adjusting, rather than building and developing. It also struck me during creation, that sometimes a simple structure can be more relatable and accessible to a wider audience. Overall, my goal was to have fun while creating an uncomplicated pop-rap song, and I feel as though I achieved that and also learned more about the ‘less is more’ proverb. 

(There were issues trying to embed the Soundcloud player on this post.)

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My Graphic Score.

These visuals were created via my friend’s music visualizer, where you insert a 15 second piece of the music and it generates a procedural photograph. So by taking slices of the song, it generated different visuals, which perfectly represented how the music feels at various parts of the song. Specifically, the red photo represents the part of the song that utilizes the pitch shifter heavily, and the spiral coincidentally represents the part of the song that repeatedly says “somewhere there’s a place where the world keeps spinning round”.

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Influenced by Steve Reich and George Martin, I made this ambient electronic track entirely by sampling a very small section (15 seconds) of the song Someone in the Crowd, sung by Emma Stone for the La La Land original soundtrack. I took inspiration from George Martin’s performance for Tomorrow Never Knows, by sampling and arranging Nine different loops of varying lengths and having them all playing from the beginning to the end, while I manually adjusted the mute triggering, volume faders, and panning throughout the duration of the piece. The loops are each sampled in a way that modifies the original piece of work. In the original, Emma Stone sings “Is someone in the crowd the only thing you really see? Watching as the world keeps spinning round, somewhere there’s a place where I find who I’m gonna be, somewhere that’s just waiting to be found.” The main loops repeat the phrase “Is someone with you?” “Is someone with you the only thing with you?” “Somewhere there’s a place where the world keeps spinning round”. The rest of the noises are the result of chopping up small slices of the sample after it had been warped heavily. My recording process consisted of utilizing a random interval generator app on my phone determine when to execute my next idea. This app, typically used for exercise, would countdown seconds at random intervals which were appropriate for a workout, which I would execute the next action, which was either a volume fade-in, a mute, an un-mute, a volume fade out, or panning, in that action. Other uses of the random interval generator would be when I knew that I wanted to hit the mute and un-mute button as fast as possible, and the interval generator would give me the allotted time that I would hit it.  Essentially, I utilized this process to determine the timing and duration of the live adjustment of this piece. After the recording process, I immediately exported the track from Ableton into Reaper, where I utilized a pitch shifter intermittently to resemble similar tape effects to the contemporary artists we have been studying from the 60s. In a way, this song represents to me diving into a trance-like state, and by utilizing one source for all the sounds in the track, you can sort of find connections in the track. There is repetition, cohesion, tension, and resolution, and that, represents an elevated state of consciousness and understanding through music.

[aural-report]

Pet Sounds Review

In what Virgil Moorefield describes as one of the first attempts at a concept album, The Beach Boys pushed boundaries on their classic, Pet Sounds. Released on May 16th 1966 with Capitol Records, Pet Sounds featured some of the Beach Boys most well-known and legendary songs, including “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” opening up the record, and the gorgeous “God Only Knows” right in the heart of the tracklist. Brian Wilson, the producer for the Beach Boys, notoriously suffered from a mental breakdown prior to the release of this album as he felt the palpable pressure that came with maintaining an upward trajectory for his band. This breakdown inevitably lead to a compositional epiphany for Pet Sounds as some of the band’s most impactful and daring works reside on the record. From the beautifully bittersweet vocal harmonizations across the album, to the cunningly sharp percussive elements that are scattered throughout, Brian Wilson’s suffering paid off for this timeless and influential record.

[aural-report]

Mini Report 05 - Sampling in Hip-Hop

James discussed in a good amount of detail different examples of sampling in hip-hop music, both of popular songs now, and of classics from the 90s. He explained that there were 2 primary ways of sampling, looping, and chopping. James utilized 2 MF DOOM songs, off of his album, MM FOOD, to illustrate an example of looping. James also used this example as an opportunity to talk about the unique qualities of DOOM’s sample sources, taking from tv show interludes and theme songs. Afterwards, James showed a Kanye West track to define how chopping a sample up into pieces and rearranging them can lead to unrecognizable sounds and an interesting layout. James then showed a more modern track, by Travis Scott that utilizes newer technology to morph and transform the sample into a darker and grittier electronic sound. Throughout the presentation, there were quite a few questions and comments regarding the creativity (or lackthereof) in sampling  and I felt that James did a good job detailing his opinion and his perspective on sampling in music. 

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Mini Report 03 - FM synthesis

Jake’s report on FM synthesis was very informative and accessible to understand with his demonstrations and examples. FM synthesis was created by John Chowning while he was at Stanford University, in 1967. By 1980, he licensed the process to Yamaha to create the infamous DX7 synthesizer keyboard, which gave the power of FM Synthesis to the musician. Subsequently, this lead to a boom in specific synthesizer instrument uses such as the slap bass. 

 The essential idea behind FM synthesis is to make synthesis that required significantly less resources to create and store. What stood out to me was how Jake pointed out that many early video game developers would implement music that utilized FM synthesis because it would not take up too much space. FM synthesis is the process of taking a simple waveform and introducing it to another frequency while adjusting certain parameters to modify the resulting sound. Jake went into great detail about how this works in Native Instruments’ plugin FM8, which he utilized in conjunction with Ableton Live to create an 80s themed song. He even created drums utilizing noise in addition to his original waveform, making it hit hard and encompass all frequencies. What FM8 does especially well is visualize the different parameters and allow for a user-friendly experience. As Jake and Adam both concluded, FM synthesis is capable of producing infinite different sounds. 

[aural-report]

Gonna start posting a track of mine here every so often and writing my experiences down. Will be discussing specific techniques, themes, objectives, and any other info that stands out for the track and the creative process behind it.

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This is my most recent track, self-medication. Composed in its whole in two nights, this is a testament to my insomniac ways. With this track, I really wanted to look into how much the concept of subtlety can affect a piece. The track is split into 3 parts:

0:00-0:54 section A

0:54-2:00 section B

2:00-2:56 section C

to explore subtlety in 

section A: I decided to introduce new percussion every 4 bars without changing the core rhythm of the kick and snare. (sidestick, hi hat, scratching post sample)  I also chose not to loop any part of the bassline, opting to play it all out and utilize different variations. 

section B: utilizing a Massive preset sound called stoned robots, i added a grain delay and tuned it up 12 semitones to make it an octave higher, while adjusting the size of the delay to create the oscillating quality. Finally, I automated the output of this effect to create diversity between each of its subsections. For the final part of it, I added a beat delay to the synth and automated the output of that effect to create an echo that harshly comes in and out.

section C: adding in cymbal crashes and open hi hat hits to create a more energetic section. utilizing the lower octaves of the synth sound as a steady component of the melody, while playing the upper octave parts to accent the section. Also exploring different rhythms and automation with hi hats to add some variety for the listener.

all in all, i explored this track differently than i tend to in my others. 

usually i spread myself thinner with exploring changing ideas and rhythms, but with this piece i did my best to dive deeper into the track and create layers to fill up the audio space.

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Mini-Report 02, Physical Modeling

In short, Physical Modeling is a way of creating sound sources through adjusting parameters in a feedback loop. In this loop, the signal travels through an exciter and a resonator, both of which help adjust and manipulate the resulting sound.

Physical Modeling is commonly found in plugins in current DAWs, but the method has been developed and improved for decades. Physical Modeling gives the producer complete in-depth control of the synthesis process and can be used in a multitude of ways. One example that Theo gave us, was a video from 1961 of an IBM computer singing Daisy Bell (link below). Physical Modeling is an asset for producers and musicians today to handcraft and design their sounds from scratch, important for artists who want to diversify their sound.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk

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Week Two: Synth/Sampling

I collected nearly all of my sounds from a record player. Over the past 2 years, I’ve dug through countless dollar bins in record stores across the country to find some of the more obscure and overlooked records. Then I utilized my USB Turntable to record them onto my computer and saved them on my hard drive. I assorted my sampler instruments into 4 groups:

1. “Rando Sounds” - Random little clips of sounds that were to be used as one-shots. I ended up not really using this assortment of sounds as it didn’t fit the track.

2. “Drum arrangement” - For this track, I took all the drum samples via my record player that I could find and assign them on different midi keys. I also used some clips and samples from my voice and my cat.

3. “Play me” - For this track, instead of placing different samples over different midi keys, I used one note from a vinyl record, and spread it across various keys to play out like chords. I also adjusted the Envelope of the sample with the EXS24 sampler as well as placing the track in reverse.

4. “Lowdown Drums” - At the start of one of my records (Boz Scaggs/Lowdown) there is a drum break. So I cut the break up and put it in the Sampler and added a 1/16th slow pan delay on top of it to diversify the sound.

That is all the sampling that I utilized in this experimental track.

[aural-report]

Mini-Report 1: Compression

Not being present for Adam’s presentation of compression, I did some independent research on the history of compressors and their utilization in music over time. Originally, audio compressors were used to mitigate the dynamic range of the audio signal in radio to prevent over-modulation. This turned out to be a useful tool for in-studio purposes because it eliminated the necessity of the engineer to ride the faders for music that was too dynamic. 

The first audio compressor was created in the 1960s by Jim Lawrence. Called the Teletronix LA-2A. This device had only a few controls, but was extremely sought after for its unique audio quality. It features a peak/reduction knob which controls the gain for side-chain inputs, a Gain-Control knob which can be used for make-up gain, and a Limit/Compress controller which alters the compression ratio. This device opened the door up for what is probably considered the most common and useful, tool for producers and engineers of audio. 

sources:

 https://theproaudiofiles.com/video/a-brief-history-compression-explained/

http://www.uaudio.com/blog/la-2a-analog-obsession