lnadyarg

[lnadyarg]

Week 10 - 15T2 - Advert Audio, for Show reel.

This Week I started a new project for my show reel, exhibiting some skills I have acquired in Sound Design and Post-Production. The project is to completely reproduce all audio for a Jaguar advert. I’ve always liked car adverts for their sound design and musical elements, they all have a focus on a particular tone and feel to set in order to sell their product and the visuals are always very in sync with the sound, the cuts in the advert, scene changes and SFX in this particular advert, are all set to a tempo also, which makes the sound elements very effective, and vice versa, the sound really makes the the visual elements accentuated.

From working on this advert I think I have found an area that I’d really like to aim towards. I enjoy post-production and music for visuals more than anything, so it is kind of the best of both worlds for me, Adverts are short, so I’m more happy to work on 1-4 minute projects as opposed to 1-3 hours! and I always find it easy to create a musical loop that would suit an advert but start struggling when I have to stretch that out to a full song, with changes etc, that feel are just being added because in music changes are apparently the norm. With adverts I enjoy the idea that you have a mood or tone to aim for, and that you have to have to reflect and accentuate the mood of the product in a way that would make the possible consumer of the product believe that they will feel this way by owning the product, just by listening/viewing that advert. It’s kind of like emotional puppetry.. which is a bit twisted but I guess all music is emotional puppetry, in some sense.. just advertising is a bit -more- exploitative of human emotion, or is it?.. I dunno, maybe not. Music is also a product combined with a face, a gimmick, an idea, a cult mentality, an experience which are all also just selling the product. I guess what sets some music asides and tells us that the music isn’t this way inclined, is the obviousness of the artists intentions, but what if the artist is good at hiding those intentions? Also...even --not-- having those advetising-pop-gimmick to sell etc. intentions, is in itself a desirable element of the product, which aids in the selling of the product.

From a bit of reading about sound in adverts I have learned that sound in adverts is really the only element that you cannot escape from, except to leave the area where the sound source is being emitted. Even if you’re not looking at the screen, the sounds are still being processed by the brain, and sitting in the back somewhere waiting to be put to “use” at some stage in your future selves thoughts and decisions. Hopefully for the products manufacturers, and if the advertising is done right, when you’re considering to buy a product of their kind. WIP- VIDEO- TO COME.

[lnadyarg]

This was my Showreel for internship/employment opportunities.

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15T2 - 5.1 Surround Sound Mixing - Week 9

This week we got into the studio at SAE for a prac class on 5.1 Surround mixing. First of all we learnt how to calibrate the 5.1 monitors to begin mixing correctly. The method here was first to ensure all monitors were at a specific distance apart relative to the listening position.

The next step is to ensure that each monitor was emitting an exact/approximate average dB reading from our listening position. we did this by placing a decibel reader at our exact listening position, decibel reader set to show an average reading. We then turned all of the monitors to 0 on their independent volume controls. We then sent a signal of pink noise to one monitor at a time. We would gradually and precisely turn the monitors independent volume controls up until we could see on the decibel reader that the average decibel reading was as close to 79 as possible, it fluctuated slightly give or take a dB, but this is impossible to avoid in an environment that is not 100% acoustically controlled. We did this to all five monitors, then a slightly different approach for the .1, the sub-woofer. When turning the sub volume level up, we are aiming for 81dB. Once the calibration is achieved we were ready to learn some fun aspects of 5.1 mixing. Aside from the technical approach of what elements of a film should sit in which speaker placement. The only main difference from stereo, is we now have 5  directional choices in panning. Our panning control now becomes a square around us to place and pan sounds to and from each other.

After this prac session I’m pretty keen to get some sort of 5.1 setup in my studio to have a mess around with some 5.1 music.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Song Writing and Commercial Music - Week 8

This week I’ve been writing some music aiming for current commercial sound. I generally steer clear from creating anything close to commercial music but for the sake of challenging myself I thought i’d give it a try. I listen to commercial radio quite frequently in order to stay up to date with what is commercial. At the moment, a trend that sticks out to me is a minimal techno/deep house, drum and percussive bass style verse which pick up pretty simply into a more layered verse. Not too much amazing stuff going on, just a catchy rhythm, simple chord progression and some clean and basic female mostly and some male vocals and maybe an organic element in there too, there’s a lot of simple short guitar parts getting their way into commercial electronic music at the moment too. Here’s a link to a montage/showreel of a 3 WIP’s at the moment. They are far from sonically or enjoyably consistent with current commercial music.. but trying to achieve these sounds as they are so far, has been a very eye opening, grounding and learning experience. I have managed to change my perception of commercial music lately, i’ve never really enjoyed it, often overlooked the efforts in creating it and almost forced my self not to go anywhere near it. Like many of musicians 99% of the time you grow up through music around other musicians equally resenting pop/commercial music, and there is a kind of weird respect for musicians who steer clear from commercial music, because for those that delve into pop music, they are then deemed to be making rubbish and simple-dumbed-down-music, and often to only be in it for the money. This kind of peer pressure is what keeps musicians from making commercial music, or in other words -  music that the larger populous actually enjoy more.. basically music that less people like, rather than more people. So if you are looking at the situation objectively, as a musician the people who you are associating, gigging, jamming and talking to within your music circles are in some sense, peer pressuring you into creating music for a minority instead of the majority to cater to less rather than more. There is another angle here, of artistic merrit, which you could argue against commercial music, but i’d say there’d be an equal opposing argument always. This whole peer pressure stopping musicians from creating arguably “more enjoyable music”, could this be just a subconscious or conscious tactic to prevent other musicians from succeeding around you? preventing your competitors from having more people enjoy their product? It seems a bit ridiculous to sit down to write a piece of music with the motive in mind to have less rather than more people enjoying it. If you were to switch this around to any product on the planet (because as sentimental as we like to get, music is still just a product.) take cake for example or tables or furniture?!?!.. does the producer of any product succeed by creating a product purposely for less people rather than more people to enjoy? sometimes, but they would be severely decreasing their chances. It also seems a little bit selfish, to create music for yourself and a small circle of others, why not create music for as many people as possible? After a week of messing around with ideas, trying to nail some specific sonic qualities in commercial music I have discovered that there isn’t really anything easier or simpler about trying to create commercial music. If anything there are more don’t than do’s and almost caged in aspects that you must adhere to. People try to talk down about the quality all the time, with comments on how easy it is to achieve. From experience, I can now say, that it is no easier than any other genre. It’s actually easier creating a piece of music that only I would enjoy, or only I and a small circle of people in a scene will enjoy. It seems obvious that this would be the case, but it’s very easy not to think of it this way when most musicians around you don’t.

[lnadyarg]

15T2  - Gathering Assets For Portfolio- WEEK 7

This week I have been gathering examples and assets to include in my online portfolio and show reel. As next trimester consists of an internship, it is important I gather all my best work in each area of audio to showcase to ensure I become placed in my desired area for the Internship. I’ve found my most preferred area of audio would be pretty much any studio work, mainly sound design, post-production and music production for the creative aspect, and then mixing and mastering. Unfortunately I don’t find my self drawn to Live Sound at all, I prefer to be in a controlled environment experimenting and creating with details of Audio on a computer.

I have a fair amount of examples to include that I feel had great results and showcase where my current skills are. My show-reel will be in the format of video, as a couple of the examples are post-production. My show reel will consist of: The “Rocknrolla” clip From Tri 4 Complete production of Band “Soul Nana Collective” EP from Tri 2. Several music production examples of my own, including mixing and mastering. A clip of the sound design and SFX from an Audio Book, which was published not long ago. A short showcase of some miscellaneous Sound Design and Foley I’ve done throughout my studies. And a few atmos tracks throughout the show-reel. I will post my show-reel on my next blog.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - CIU Electronic Music Compilation Planning - Week 6

For my CIU Units I am involved in a group project which is a compilation album release, wherein we each have to contribute 3 songs and collaborate on another 1. This week I have focussed on the planning aspect of the album and as there a 3 of us working on our own sections independently we have settled on the theme of Sci-Fi in order to keep our sections cohesive. I decided to incorporate a concept into each of my songs. Teleportation and Communication with Extraterrestrials To take the listener in and out of certain places, and returning to others, with each musical “place” having its own designed feeling, space and soundscape. I will achieve this by  using techniques that are apparent in sound art and ambiance/atmosphere creation in post-production for film. Invoking emotions of leaving and loss, followed by new beginnings of unknown worlds will be a focus in communicating the feeling of teleportation. Along this journey I will express communication from and to extraterrestrial life, translated into experimental sounds, using detailed sound design technique which will attempt to achieve a feeling like various kinds of languages with understandings and misunderstandings along the way.

Chaos and Laws This song will be accentuating a concept of chaos, the different perspectives of chaos and bringing order to the chaos. Chaos being symbolically represented by a collage of seemingly chaotic sounds inspired by Foley and field recording. Law will be symbolized by rhythm which brings order to the chaotic collage of sounds. The song attempts to accentuate a theory that anything seemingly chaotic can actually be very organized. That repetition and pattern can be perceived, if analyzed from an overhead point of view.

Eternal Universe In this song I will communicate the concept of a never-ending universe or world. I will do this by composing and entirely progressive song structure, with nothing repeated. Every moment within the music will be completely new. The song will travel forward and not loop back or return to any section. The song will move through various keys, time signatures and feelings representing distances traveled throughout areas of the universe.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Outside SAE - WEEK 5

Mixing Separation Experiments. I have been meaning to try this out for a while.. to compose a song consisting of tracks particularly EQ’d to allow each track to have it’s own space in the stereo field, without rubbing shoulders with anyother. I started off by creating a session with 16 tracks, 1 for drums and 3 each for every section of the sound spectrum to have an EQ set to the corresponding section. The sections were divided as follows; 20hz - 200hz, 200Hz - 1kHz, 1kHz -3kHz, 3kHz - 10kHz, 10kHz - 20kHz. The EQ was set to brickwall on these dividing frequencies. Each of the 3 tracks assigned to a section of the spectrum were also allocated a space within the stereo field and so were panned at variating degrees - Left, Center and Right.

I started off with a basic drum pattern, looped it and recorded some electric bass through the appropriate track. I then proceeded to experiment with virtual synth presets to find sounds which sounded ok, whilst remaining in the confines of it’s EQ prison cell. This really was the tricky and learning part of this experiment. Most sounds don’t turn out too well after you close them in so tightly and don’t let them mingle and breathe across the spectrum. After a lot of virtual knob turning I started to understand what types of sounds sounded better in each area of the spectrum. 10kHz-20kHz was a zone for detailed percussive chime like sounds. Anything in this region variating or sustaining will get very irritating very quickly but tiny almost percussive intricacies do ok. 200Hz - 1kHz was a great area for pads, atmospheres, ambiance or drone like samples, this area takes well to long drawn out and variating sounds. Anything too staccato in this area of the spectrum conflicts rhythmically and becomes to overpowering. Most of the rest of the spectrum doesn’t take too kindly to perpetual sounds like pads and drones, but instead rhythmical SFX type sounds as well as melody work well across the remaining zones, from 1kHz- 10kHz. I ended up taking out the panned 20-1kHz tracks, as it was getting far to busy in the bottom end in the stereo field, lows really need to be centered and minimal elements emitting these low frequencies anywhere in the spectrum, preferably in the end, only one, the bass guitar.

By this stage the track was sounding listenable but the brick wall cut-off’s on the EQ were definitely a cause in the music sounding a bit too sharp, because the frequency around the cut-off points are perceivably accentuated. I then decided to give them a flat edge with a low Q value of 12. Which in turn alowed the sounds the mingle just slightly and made a slight difference to the overall music coming together. This coupled with some overall and individual reverb inserts expanded the elements even further from the EQ confines, allowing them to breath more and create a wider space. HERE IS A LINK TO THE FINISHED PRODUCT.

[lnadyarg]

Mixing.

This is a great video entirely on mixing and explains techniques to expand and place instruments inside the stereo field. It’s pretty dated, but along with the visuals, explains it all very well.

I’ve been meaning to set myself a task for a while, wherein I compose a song, and every element or track, has its own exclusive place to sit in the sound spectrum and in the stereo field. With no overlaps at all. I’ll try get to this in the week and make a blog post about this.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - AUS230 - Week 4

This week as far as SAE work goes was largely spent on some ADR, voice acting and having another crack at the music to our post production project. For the most part our group for post production was working well, most of the elements were getting done at a reasonable pace. Although there was a bit of debate over when we should set the deadline to our project. I was pretty determined to not allow it to drag on unnecessarily, as that will always make the final weeks full of stress, worry and eventually lead to parts of the project getting rushed. I was pretty keen to knuckle down and put in a lot of effort to get through it, leaving us plenty of time to review and possibly re-do any parts that we weren’t happy with. Unfortunately it seemed my philosophy here on how to manage these projects was not shared entirely by everyone in the group. I could have been a bit overconfident and pushy in the deadline that I believe is overly sufficient but coming to the final trimesters of this degree I was pretty set on taking it more seriously and work at an efficient pace so as not to waste time. At least if it wasn’t more or less done by our deadline, we still had plenty of time to override the deadline and make amendments. By this time a few of the main elements had been done. The main role I was assigned to, creating the atmos and ending music, was complete after creating 4 different versions to choose from. Here is a link to the final Atmos + Music track.

Tom done a great job at achieving the voice of the narrative, which has “radio-like” effects processing.

Here is Tom’s narrrative track

The foley session was booked for the 4th of July, just in time for our deadline on the 10th of July. However there were still a couple of crucial elements (Two ADR elements). 3 weeks into the project, with no confirmation or communication on how, where or when these elements were going to be completed,  was starting to concern me and I was anticipating that these elements would let us down in our deadline. With plenty of time on my hands, I decided to try out the ADR of the “Alien Creature” who reads “Freck” his sins. This could be used as a back up if the alternative avenue of professional voice actors does not eventuate. I achieved the desired effect by adding some reverb and pitch shifting down my voice a couple of steps. This combined with arranging a collage of other clips fading in and out, which overall replicates well, this part of the scene. Here is a link to the Voice Acting/ ADR I tried out.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 AUS230 -  Week 3 - Post-Production Project

This week as a group of Tom, Michael, Kane and I,  settled on a film clip to reproduce the sound of. We chose “Freck’s sucicide scene” from the film “A Scanner Darkly“.

We chose the scene, because it will showcase fundamental elements that appear in most films; Foley, ADR, Atmos/Ambience, Music. The scene explores each of these elements in a very focused a varied way. The foley will consist of everyday sounds, such as; walking, cupboard door opening/closing, clothes shuffling, drinking, all of which coupled with the visuals demand the viewers attention toward and are the focal point at their own time. The ADR elements consist of three voices showcasing 3 different types of common processing techniques. Radio effect coming out of a radio, a heavily reverb/pitch shifted voice coming from an Alien/goid like creature and a standard voice in a small room environment coming from the character, Charles Freck. There is an atmos/ambience track, which blends into a song played in the background towards the end of the scene. I’ve been making a few attempts this week at getting the correct feel into this scene with this song. I decided to record live drums, I took a very basic approach and only used 3 pieces to the drum kit, Snare, Bass Drum and Ride Cymbal. I wanted to go for a very 60′s/70′s Sci-Fi/Psychedelic approach. I started out by recording a basic drum pattern 4/4 110BPM, a subtle-plodding along type beat to sit behind in the mix. Lately in my home studio I have been trying to get a good drum sound from minimal use of mics. This article along with a few others had some tips, but I decided to go further minimal. With a bit of reading up on 60′s drum micing techniques I found that The Beatles recordings often consisted of predomintantly  2 mics, one overhead,  one bass drum mic and one room mic set at a certain distance to avoid phase cancellation. I recorded these drums using only two microphones; a Rode Nt-1000 as a mono overhead, which will be capturing the ride and snare mostly, with a feint thud of the kick drum. I coupled this with a Shure Beta52A right inside the bass drum facing just off where the beater head hits to reinforce the overhead on the low end. I was pleased with the results, the sound was exactly what I was going for.

I wrote 3 songs so far, with this beat, to have a few to choose from. Demo One, had the right feel, just the right amount of creepiness, but the overall mix was a bit busy and muddy. I made this one entirely from re-sampling some cuts from various synthesizers in Reason 7.5. The resampling degraded the quality of the synth samples somewhat. I also managed to include the Shepard Tone that I created earlier on in the Tri. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/demo1-one-song-paul?in=paul-gray-sae/sets/music-for-a-scanner-darkyl-clip_w_i_p Demo Two, had the right psychedelic feel and was nice and clear, but lacked a level of creepy Sci-Fi, which was necessary. I recorded this song, entirely using instruments, electric guitar and bass guitar. Electric guitar drenched in effects. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/cheeky_monkey?in=paul-gray-sae/sets/music-for-a-scanner-darkyl-clip_w_i_p Demo Three, I think I went a bit over the top with this one, in my push for more creepy. This was created using synths on Reason again. With some manipulated vocal takes. I don’t think this one will quite fit, but was a great lesson in how you can just record random vocals and process them to become musical. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/demo3-three-song-paul?in=paul-gray-sae/sets/music-for-a-scanner-darkyl-clip_w_i_p

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Week 2 - In the Studio With “Hundred Acre Wood”

This week as group with our lecturer, we went into the C24 studio to begin recording a song for the local band “Hundred Acre Wood”. A local pop-rock band with technical intermissions. Today we were predominantly tracking the drums and managed to get the bass recorded also.

To have a very accurate and technically able drummer in the studio made for a very smooth and easy listening tracking experience. The kit in use. consisted of high-end Gretsch and Brady, which combined with some suitable microphones and positioning, made for a great sound. Click here is a cut from our drum take. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/100-acre-wood_drum_demo

I hadn’t had too much experience with full drum micing, so this was a great opportunity to get involved and pick up a thing or two from a professional, our lecturer, Stephen and the others in our group who had some great tips for mic choice and placement. Team member, Rob and I were assigned the task for setting up the microphones, Rob had a fair amount of experience prior, of which yielded great results, so I came away after this session feeling alot more confident and competent to carry out these practices in the future from this experience.

This was the first recording session that I was introduced to a “Smash Mic” (Pictured top left in the photo below). The idea of the smash mic is to act as a mono overhead. The smash mic is placed over the kit, in the centre. Then to process it however you wish and raise it in the mix to add some weight in the centre of the stereo image, often heavily compressed but options with this are infinite.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Week 1 - Article

For my article of interest I chose “Awareness with Field Recording” written by Melissa Pons. The author has written about her interest and passion for field recording and soundscapes. I enjoyed reading this article as Melissa’s thoughts resonated with my own philosophies of the sounds around us. She explains how there are so many intricate details in any given environment, which are communicated via sound, and not necessarily perceived through a vision of a place alone. Melissa expresses that a focus on sound and educating children to listen, could be very beneficial for them in perceiving the world around them and that it is pretty much ignored as far as bringing children attention to the soundscape which surrounds us every moment. Melissa expressed her anger towards the fact that many films and documentaries completely discard of, or disregard a locations soundscape and plaster music over it which is intended to invoke the locations feel artificially. The article went into some detail about a particular field location of which she was recording for a documentary. She described this place as a dead and abandoned building which was still alive with sound. Train Station cables nearby are still discretely making a sound and a train is still running once in a while, yet if you were to see a photo of this location alone, you would assume that the place is completely abandoned. In this she provokes thought towards the concern of how many other instances throughout our lives do we assume something obvious due to the lack of our perception, in this case the perception of sound and paying attention to it. After reading this article it has inspired me to get out into some field recording again as I’ve been fairly studio bound for a while now.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Week 1 -  Pt 3/3 - Shepard Tone

I got around to my reattempt at creating a Shepards Tone, it was really eating away at me that I couldn’t nail it and every tutorial I walked through was missing a very important part - getting the the tone to loop seamless, which without this done properly, is not a proper Shepard Tone. So how i eventually did it, after a long time of trial and error, adjusting synth parameters, adding effects, trying a more manual approach at looping the sine waves by lining them up one after the other, instead of looping. I decided to export what I had programmed into my MIDI sequencer on Reason 7.5, in order to have a look at the sine wave’s waveforms in finer detail. I then Imported them all into Cubase, and I discovered that the stutter, that was preventing a seamless loop was because -  as one sine wave would reach it’s end point of its ascent to the next pitch, it would not line up entirely precisely as a constant waveform, in order for a smooth transition into the next sine wave. I should have guessed that from the start really. So i lined up (as pictured below) each “phrase” of the Shepard Tone Loop, as clips, and over lapped them slightly (1 beat) and cross faded them all. I then added a tiny amount of reverb, and a bit of flange and there it was, The Shepard Tone. I still find it very difficult to explain.. It feels like one of those almost hallucinogenic experiences that must be seen to understand rather than to have someone explain. But yes I screen captured a video of the spectrum in motion for greater understanding of what is going on, and why it appears to be constantly rising. As the highest Sine fades out still ascending in pitch, the lowest Sine fades in as it is ascending in pitch and the Sines inbetween ascend and catch on to the next as they reach their exact same frequency which is exactly at the start point of loop on the next sine clip which will then ascend in pitch the next, whilst the previous is simultaneously ascending to the start of that once again, so basically, every birth of a sine wave travels up the entire spectrum, fading in on the lowest initiallly, and fading out on the highest in the end. Our ears latch on to one, and follow it up and instead of our brain following it to its end of fading out, our brain latches onto to another part rising, as the higher sine disappears. and we keep latching on to previous sine waves to follow up the spectrum, giving us the illusion that it is constantly rising. It would be interesting to research which exact frequency humans commonly latch onto when following the Shepard Tone, maybe we would each have our own unique frequency which we always fall back onto and follow up. this could be our “Shepherd Frequency”.. through life, leading us through and up the stair case like a curious sound-powered sheep.

Below is a screen shot of my session, hopefully showing what I was trying to explain, if you follow the timeline across and read the titles of the clips (where the frequency rang is specified) you can get an idea of how each sine wave would blend into the next, by pitch, which, if looped, would blend into the sine wave above itself, where the visualizing of the “Barber Shop” pole would come in handy. But i think looking at it more laterally reinforces the concept.

and below further is the video i created with the tone, accompanying a visual interpretation of the sound waves in action.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Week 1 - Pt 2/3 Sound Design Tasks

Here are a link to the Sound Design tasks we were assigned for the week as a play list on soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/sets/audio-tasks_week-one I’ve tried researching better methods of posting audio examples on here, such as embedding. But it seems Tumblr is incompatible with such tasks. It allows me to create a completely dedicated post, to audio, where I can embed a Soundcloud link, but in that dedicated audio post, the option to also include photos doesn’t exist and also takes away the title bar, and within this post I’ll need to include some pictures and will be confusing maybe without a title bar. The tasks were: 1. Design “Drone” tracks for two particular environments. The first environment below is what looks like a tunnel in a fictional space ship. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/drone1-gray

The second environment was a fictional scene from a distant planet. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/drone2-gray

I achieved the drones for these entirely using raw waveforms (sine and sawtooth) and processing them in order to achieve the desired effects. I mostly adjusted the attack and release parameters on the synth so that there was no dramatic entrance or exit of each waveform. I then added effects such as reverb, dealy, modulation effects, distortion and by adjusting the bit depth of certain layers.

These two tasks were great at exercising skills needed to create drones or atmos tracks to order. This has given me the idea  to acquire more practice at this and collect all sorts of different and interesting environments on Google images and put my skills to the test in creating back ground tracks for them. 2. Impact Sounds Create 3 sounds to represent 3 different kinds of impacts which could be used in a film. I had already had a bit of experience doing this, as I apply similar techniques when creating original sounds and beats in music. The basic idea is to take a number of high attack sounds, layer, process and mix them, in order to sound realistic to the desired impact being visualized, or in a film. The 3rd I created I was pleased with, I combined the low end of a bass drum hit with a distorted snare hit low in the mix, a touch of reverb, layered with a sample of rocks falling. Which I recorded on field earlier on in my studies at SAE. I combined this impact with some sound of movement before the impact, using white noise, with a fast fade in, quick pan left to centre, to give the illusion that the impact was a reaction of something moving at high velocity from the left side of the listener. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/impact3-gray?in=paul-gray-sae/sets/audio-tasks_week-one

3. Sci-fi Vehicle Sound. To create the sound of a fictional Sc-Fi- vehicle. I started off this sound using a car ignition sample I had gained from a previous project. I figured the vehicle in question, other than the body didnt look too dissimilar to a large military vehicle today. So the sound I designed was of a large engine inside a monster truck type vehicle, skidding around recklessly and coming to a comical crash using some cartoon sound samples I had from a previous project. The rest of the sound was made up of other engine samples, low in the mix, with a distorted Saw Tooth Wave which I used along with a pitch shifting wheel to simulate the engine “revving”. It probably didn’t turn out to be most accurate to picture, but I did gain some new skills here, especially using the Saw Tooth Wave to create the sound of an engine. https://soundcloud.com/paul-gray-sae/sci-fi-vehicle-gray?in=paul-gray-sae/sets/audio-tasks_week-one

4. Sheppards Tone. This was a very interesting task for me. The Shepard's tone is an aural illusion created by a number of simultaneous Sine Waves, each ascending or descending in pitch which ever direction you choose to create your Sheppard Tone. The Waves are looped to achieve a seamless and infinite sound which appears to forever get higher and higher in pitch. The illusion is achieved because as each sine wave reaches it’s highest point set by automation (1 octave higher), the sine wave which follows, which is actually the sine wave in the track above, starts at that same point the one below ends, to give the illusion the single sine wave carries on going up in pitch (similar to a barbers red and white pole spiraling seemingly forever), meanwhile the lowest of the sine waves is fading in and also up in pitch till it reaches an octave higher where the sine wave in the track above it will pick up from its final pitch when it is looped.....This is probably really difficult to understand from my explanation.. It’s easier to draw a diagram.  I have a achieved a somewhat mediocre Sheppard's Tone, it’s sound right, until it has to loop. So I am not satisfied and will re-attempt it this week, and post it as another blog post, along with a tutorial and diagram to explain what is actually going on! In the meantime here is a similar visual experience.

[lnadyarg]

15T2 - Week One - Pt 1/3 -  Projects

This week, being the first week was mostly spent getting up to speed with the trimester ahead. It’s looking to be a nice and busy trimester with plenty of fun work to get on with. We were issued with 3 main projects to get started with, along with a hand full of minor weekly tasks to complete. The first main project, a group project, which consists of creating a promotional package for an unestablished band or artist wanting to break into the local scene. We have to organize an EP release for them, aswell as create an online presence and basic portfolio to allow the artist to gain publicity by having something to show potential promoters, In someway taking on the roles of a band manager. This should be interesting and a great learning cuve as I’ve never been involved in this kind of thing.

The second main project, as a group, is to re-create all audio assets from a 3 minute clip to a film of our choice. I’m feeling fairly confident about this project as I gained a fair amount of experience last trimester, in this area.

The third main project is to record a full band as a group and eventually across 6 weeks, mix and master the tracks recorded.

[lnadyarg]

Week 13, Final Week.

This week pretty much consisted of a few last minute edits to my post production project. I had completed it, I was pretty happy with it, but like most audio projects, I could go on and on tweaking it forever.

Here is the finished product.

This Trimester for me has taught me a huge amount of skills in a brand new area of audio, post production. Having had no experience in post production prior to this trimester, to now having a great example of my post production skills, to use in portfolio. Post production has become a new area for me to be capable in branching out into, which will hopefully lead to many other doors opening for me. Asides from post-production skills, I have also learnt a fair amount in regards to group work. Group work is very difficult when the kind of work is creative and there’s no right way, it’s all down to creativity and difference in tastes and finding a balance that ensures everyones involvement and to ensure there is an opening for anyone in the group to make suggestions. Some essential lessons I have learnt that I will strive to implement  in further group projects are; To recognise each members strong points and utilise them by each group member having a defined role and goal; Have a clear plan with schedule, wherein everyone involved has the same clear motive to follow the plan; and deadlines, make sure within the task there are mile stones, with complete communication along the way to make sure the deadlines are met.

[lnadyarg]

Week 12

This week was a fairly sparse week when it came SAE studio work. I have almost wrapped up my projects nicely a week early and really just making some fine adjustments and adding some last touches of sound design and foley. I have learnt that noise, all sorts of noise, is a very useful tool, from creating movement “swooshing” type sounds, explosions, adding some light noise to fill parts out and make some sections a bit “busier” and even just layering some noise in the mix to add some intensity or build up. I suppose a lot of what we hear throughout our day is noise, If i go around with a field recorder, a lot of what i would collect would be considered noise, from traffic to wind through trees, any time you hear any sound, there is always noise surrounding it, sounds are always just popping out of noise, and instinctively our brains focus on the sound and block out noise. Sound never comes out of silence, because silence doesn't even exist. I suppose it only makes sense that layering some noise here and there in SFX could almost bring on a more realistic illusion. I have a lot of respect for noise now.

Something a bit different that I got into this week was animation. i decided to get some software to get into some 2D animation. Mainly as a tool to get my music/audio work out there. I’m using ToonBoom studio. There is a lot in even basic 2D animation,  I now have a whole new respect for animators and animation, very time consuming and detailed work. A goal for the trimester break, is to create a short cartoon, involving music, voice acting, foley and sound design. I won’t post any WIP’s this week, as they’ll almost resemble my finished product.