música acusmática

Acousmatic Composition Two

I Had Listened To Dennis Smalley’s ‘Darkness After Times Colours’ And I Really Enjoy The Sounds That He Has Used, Mixing Long Drones With Short, Sharp Sounds. I Wanted To Include This Texture In My Composition

I First Picked A Theme Of Noises To Record And Went Into The Garden And Recorded The Natural Sounds Of The Birds And Other Random Outside Noises. I Used A Number Of Effects Like Delay Designer, Phase Distortion, Reverb, EQ And Reversing Ect. I Have Three Discreet Sections Where I Have Used A Different Drone Sound, I Tried To Keep Them Similar As My Last Piece Sounded Disjointed.  I Had Listened Through The Whole Piece Thinking Where To Place Each Audio In The Pan Mix Then I Went Back Over And Automated It, I Achieved What I Wanted.

Live Diffusion

There Are Many Different Ways To Pass A Sound Around The Room (With Four Speakers).

1. Moving The Speakers In Stereo Pairs One+Two And Thee+Four. This Can Become Very Effective If There Is Call And Response. Or Having A Pan Effect Using One+Four And Two+Three.
2. Making It Go In A Circle Motion From Speakers One-Two-Three-Four Clockwise Or Anticlockwise. I Found This Difficult To Do As The Volume Dips As It Goes To The Next Speaker, I Can Just About Do It Slowly.
3. You Can Control The Faders Individually As Well, Particularly If The Track Is In Mono, Moving Sound Diagonally Too Ie One-Three Or Vice Versa.

Acousmatic Composition One

We Had Task To Do Before Which Was To Record Or Get One Sound Only And Create A Minute Long Piece. I Chose To do The Sound Of A Washing Machine Whilst It Was In Cycle Wash. I Did A Long Recording Of It As There Are So Many Sounds Within That I Hadn’t Realized Before! I Got Stuck In With Chopping Up Sounds And Manipulating Them And I Liked The Outcome. I Had Downloaded IXIQuarks Which Is Good For Creating Different Audio. I Had A lot Of Fun With This Trying Different Settings In The Soundscratcher. I Performed The Minute Piece Using Live Diffusion And It Went Well I Thought Although I Can Always Do More With The Faders. The Next Challenge Was To Make It Last For Four Minutes. This I Found Difficult To Do As I Liked The Minute Composition The Way It Was. I Started With A Silly Mistake, I Used The Fade In Function On An Audio Track But Then Decided I Didn’t Want It But Of Course I Couldn’t Undo That Stage! This Made Me Sad As It Affected The First Bit Of Audio Which I Thought Was One Of The Best. Moving On I Did Try My Hardest To Re-create It. I Stuck With The Rule Of Only Having One Sound To Manipulate. I Had Created. I Feel That I Needed To Think More In Detail About How I Used The Faders In The Live Diffusion, I Only Did A Rough Sketch In My Notebook To Show How I Wanted The Overall Sound To Travel Round The Room To Different Speakers, I Needed To Define Where Each Sound Was Traveling To What Speaker. My Feedback Was That The Sections Of My Piece Didn’t Seem To Glue Together Very Well, Listening Back, I Agree. There I Too Much Difference Between The Sounds, The Section Sounds Like It Belongs To A Different Piece. If I Had Kept The First Section Running Throughout With Minor Changes In Timbre Etc. It Would Have Been A Lot Better. The  Automation Is What I Need To Concentrate On More With My Next Acousmatic Project.

Assignment Four – Band Recording

I Recorded ‘Jack’ By The Temptress.

My First Hurdle To Get Passed Was The Booking Of Studio Time That Everybody Could Come To, The Studio Times Were Mostly Filled And Some Of The Players Live Far Away. Eventually I Got Some Time Although I Had To Record Everything Within Four Hours As The Players Had Other Engagements Soon After.

I Set The Drums Up, Two AKG 414′s As Overheads, A Bass Mic And Two Mics On The Snare, One On Top And One Underneath At The Same Angle. I Feel That The Sound Would Be More Clearer If I Had A Mic On The Tom As Well. The Drummer Played Along With The Guitarist As It Was Plugged In To The DI. The Drummer Had To Leave An Hour Later And Many Takes. I Found A Good Take And Recorded Everybody Else Along With That.

The Guitar Sounds Were Awful, And We Tried For A While To Achieve A Decent Quality Of Sound Which Is Tricky As The Amps At Uni Are Not That Good. I Had To Swap The Bass Amps As It Had A Humming Noise That Sounded As It Was Turned On Yet The Other Amp Had A Fan Which Was Irritating. I Tried A long Time Fiddling With The Amp Settings And The Mic Positioning But Still Didn’t Sound Good So Then After I Put EQ And Compression On Guitars To Make Them Sound As Best I Could. I Did Originally Record A Feedback Audio As It Had It In The Original Song But I Deleted That As Wasn’t Doing Any Good.

The Vocalist Was Hardest To Record As I Had A Good Level But Then As He Shouts And Gets Really Into The Song So Quite A Few Times It Clipped. I Would Have Recorded It Again But I Was Running Out Of Time And The Vocalist’s Throat Was Hurting. I Sorted The Clipping Out After By Using The Compression Plug-in.

Assignment Three – Stereo Mic Technique

For This Project I Had Chosen To Record Acoustic Guitar And Flute. The Stereo Mic Placements I Used Were AB, DIN And XY.

• For The AB Technique I Used 2 AKG 414s And Spaced Them 30cms Using Omni-Directional. The Stereo Is Derived Upon The Time Of Arrival, As They Are Spread Apart So There Will Be A Small Time Difference. I Had The Guitar Playing A Meter Away And The Flute Playing About Eighty Centimeters Away. I Preferred This Positioning For The Flute As The Sound Was Clear.

• The DIN Technique Is Very Similar To AB, Spaced 30 Centimeters Apart Using Cardiod And At 90°. I kept the Players In The Same Positioning.

• XY Technique Is Where The Microphones Are Placed On Top Of One Another At 90° Using Cardiod. The Stereo Is Derived By The Positioning Of The Player. This Was My Favourite Technique For The Guitar As It Gave A Bright-ish Soft Sound Which I Thought Suited His Playing.

Francis Dhomont – Chambres D’Enfants

From The Album ‘Forêt Profonde’ Using Tape.

I Find This Composition Enjoyable To Listen To With The Inharmonious Metallic Sounds Appearing From The Silence At The Beginning To The Soft Chordal Piano And The Fragmented Children’s Voices And Croaks. If I Was To Diffuse This Work By Dhomont I Would Try And Enhance The Morphing Waves Of Sharp, Sparking Sounds. Maybe, Because It’s In Stereo, I’d Group The Front Two Speakers Together And Push The Sound Smoothly Across To The Back Two Speakers, Or From The Left To The Right And Vise Versa.  However If The Piece Was In Mono I Would Have More Choice In Where I Want To Send The Sound Around The Room.

Mike Vaughan – Crosscurrents

1990 Version For Harpsichord And Tape.

This Composition Is Manic, Discordant But Occasionally Retires With A Few Moments Of Silence Which Is Definitely Needed. The Tape Expands On What The Harpsichord Is Doing. Vaughan has Recorded The Harpsichord And Produces A Montage Of Sound Which Is Manipulated Using Synthesis And Musique Concrète Techniques, For Example Reversing, Cut And Splice, Speed Changes Etc. Played With The Original Harpsichord Material To Create Timbral Texture And Some Variety As There Is Minimal Sound Source.

Denis Smalley – Piano Nets

Composed For Piano And Electroacoustic Sounds Using Tape, 1990.

There are Three Movements Within ‘Piano Nets’ And All Produce Different Atmospheres, The Piano Almost Reacts To The Electroacoustic Sounds. This Composition Has A Dark And Eerie Feel To It. There Are Three Movements In Which All Of Them Have Similar Piano Chords Playing Amongst The Electronic Sounds. It Varies Between The Sound Sources Reacting To One Another Or Supporting To Create Larger Textures, This Can Be Enhanced Through Diffusion. Where There Are Continuous Electronic Sounds, For Example With Sliding Pitch Bends Or Waves Of Noise (3:30 Onwards), The Person Diffusing Can Move The Faders, In Pairs, Relatively Quickly Around The Room To give the Impression That The Sounds Are Flying Past The Listener (Achieving A Similar Effect When An Emergency Car Siren Goes Down In Pitch When It Passes You). At The Start Of The Second Movement (7:00 Onwards), The Sounds Are Choppy Therefore The Sound Can Be Passed Faster From Speaker To Speaker By Controlling The Faders More Rapidly Which Creates A Hectic Environment For The Listener.

Denis Smalley – Empty Vessels

Composed In 1997.

The Principle Sound Source Recorded In This Piece Is The Sound Of Air Resonating Through Garden Pots, Other Sound Materials Captured Are The Recordings Of The Surrounding Environment In The Garden (London). The Innovative Technique Of Putting The Microphones In The Pots Evolves Each Of The Sounds, For Example When The Plane Flies Past It Leaves An Airy Resonance Circling The Vessel. I Really Like This Piece As It Paints A Picture, Or Warps My Mind To A Different Outside Surrounding. Smalley Keeps ‘Empty Vessels’ Interesting By Not Changing But Enhancing Familiar Sounds So We Can Picture What The Sound Source Is And By Getting The Listener Relaxed Through The Hypnotic Raindrops And Aeroplanes, The Humming Overtones Created By The Vessels And Then Suddenly Attacking Us With Large Explosions Of Sound. Amazing.

Jonty Harrison – EQ

An Electroacoustic Composition Produced In 1980 For Soprano Saxophone And Tape.

A Fantastic Piece For Live Diffusion Techniques. I Like The Immediate Change Of Atmosphere Harrison Has Created From The Short, Harsh, Jolty Sounds To Deep Drones Aswell As The Constant Testing Of Frequencies Which Keep The Listener On Edge With Excitement. The Drones Are Hypnotic Coming In Waves, A Humongous Contrast To The Flittering Saxophone And Tape Noises (Which To Me At Some Points Sounds Like A Flock Of Birds Twittering Around =). I Also Like Harrison’s Innovative Use Of Sounds Like The Tapping On The Saxophone Keys Which Works Well For The Intro And Throughout. Harrison Adds A Smooth Chromatic Line Played By The Saxophone To The Electronic Drones, This Entices My Ears.