The Auxperience

NEW PAGE

2009-04-26T04:21:00.001-07:00

:: I have redesigned this blog and put it under new management. Well, I'm still the manager, but the site has moved to http://chrisduncanaudio.blogspot.com. Check it out! ::

File Vault UPDATE: Intro to Audio

2009-04-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

:: The separate website I've decided to use to host all my audio files and projects has now been updated with my "Intro to Audio" catalog. Feel free to browse around if you haven't read my very early blog posts and heard my very early work at Evergreen. I did, and it was pretty trippy.

If you've forgotten the address or just can't find it on this page, it is http://musicianator.web.officelive.com/default.aspx ::

Jungle Boss - Final Mix (et al.)

2009-04-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

:: I hereby present the final mix of the song Clo-da-do' by Jungle Boss (the title is pronounced "CLOH-deh-DOH"). This is the unmastered version that will be tweaked and adjusted for the final CD, but this represents all the work I have done for it; after this, it's out of my hands. I had fun working with Jungle Boss and fully enjoyed engineering their song. Last I heard, they liked the final product, and I liked the final product, so that's a job well done in my book. As always, I would love to go back and fiddle with little bits and pieces here and there throughout the song, but I absolutely believe that this recording can hold its own without any more input. I hope Mr. Kevin Kent, audio intern and mastering engineer, agrees with me and finds this song easy to master.

On another note, the new quarter has arrived. My Music Composition class is sadly no more, but I took the opportunity to start down my own path for my education. For my first eight credits, I'll continue in Advanced Audio and finish out the year, and for the remaining eight, I have undertaken an independent learning contract which I have entitled "A Study of Film Sound". The title is self-explanatory: I'll be reading two books ("The Foley Grail" and "In the Blink of an Eye"), writing what I learned from them, and applying their discussed techniques and insight to my own projects. One such project is doing all the soundwork for an animation piece entitled "Moon Diary", the story of which is centered around the final seven days of the moon's life. It should be interesting and challenging since I have never done this sort of work before. If that gets finished in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. before the end of the spring quarter), then I will possibly be composing music and/or recording sounds for my own short piece.

Advanced Audio will be taking a lot of my time as well. We have three major project assignments this quarter: 1) The Drop-In - Take a familiar song and add a new instrument in such a way that it sounds like it was always there, or at least should have been; 2) Multitrack Mix 1 - record and mix a group in the allotted two weeks; 3) Multitrack Mix 2 - record and mix a group in the allotted four weeks. Also, in week seven, we'll be taking a field trip to Seattle to tour some professional studios.

Both these programs should be fun, but all in all, a very full quarter to round out the year ::

UPDATE: Due to some weirdness with Office Live, my .mp3 is not being uploaded correctly. I'll have the file working as soon as I can.

UPDATE: The uploading process has been fixed, so the music should play normally. Don't worry about what the player displays for the run time; it's actually over 6 1/2 minutes.

Jungle Boss - Original Cut

2009-03-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

:: So here we have the raw session of Jungle Boss, the group I'm recording for the Evergreen CD Project. I wanted to put this up not to have people critique it and say, "Oh, at this part I would do this," but to have a control in this recording experiment, so someone can go back after hearing my final mix and say, "Hey, you did this and this and this and it sounds good," or even, "I didn't hear this, that could be changed."

That being said, I do hope this sounds decent as is. It's always easiest to start with good material and just polish it instead of having to clean up parts first. We did get some magic at the end with the outro jam; that part was totally uncoordinated and spontaneous, but sounds pretty sweet. This is Austin, Colin, and Kyle with "Jungle Boss" ::

File Vault

2009-03-06T02:54:00.000-08:00

:: I'm now working on getting all my files consolidated in one easy-to-locate source. If you look at my links section in the right-hand column, you can see a new link titled File Vault. This links to another website of mine that hosts all my music and audio work in nice neat Flash players. It's a work in progress; I'll continue to post new work on here first along with my stories and descriptions about that work's creation.

Here is the link again, for redundancy's sake:
http://musicianator.Web.officelive.com/default.aspx ::

From last year

2009-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

:: Here's just another clip from a project last year in Intro to Audio. I recorded with Digital Performer and never got around to mixing or even bouncing any rough copies at all. So, here's a rough copy. I didn't do much to it, and I had to use some crappy earphones for monitoring, but at least it's not rotting away on my long lost hard drives and server folders and whatnot. Hopefully I'll soon be able to put up some clips of all my ORIGINAL sound files, just raw audio with no mixing or anything, so you can actually hear how I've changed them and mixed them to turn into the songs I've posted so far ::

When engineers attack!

2009-02-13T21:25:00.000-08:00

:: This is a truly unfortunate recording right here. This was my tenth week project from fall quarter, and it's...well, it's not something of which I'm entirely proud. But hey, it's something I've done, and I feel a certain obligation to my few loyal readers to post it on here.

So basically the band that I was going to record didn't show up. No big deal, whatever. My partner Max and I were basically forced to record ourselves. The parts you hear are the only parts there are: me on drums, me on piano, me on vocals, and Max on bass. The drums were miked with the M/S setting on a Shure Viper overhead and a spot on the kick; the piano was miked by setting the Viper to stereo and adding in a cardioid to try a real M/S stereo miking position; the bass was done with a single large diaphragm in front of the amp; and the vocals were actually achieved by me strapping on a binaural headset (Dr. Normar) and walking around as I talked. Enjoy ::

A whole new world

2009-02-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

:: No, it's not about Disney (sorry all you Aladdin fans). It's the creation of a scene in an alien world using sound alone. This was our first project of the winter quarter for AAPW and focused on using our acquired skills creatively. The idea was to have a scene in mind first, then create that scene with any sound sources available to us. If you want to listen to the clip first and figure out what I envisioned, what I used to create the effects, or just want to create your own version of what this alien environment is like, then I suggest you click play and close your eyes right now, before I explain. I encourage you to NOT read on until you have listened.

The original scene I played out in my head and later on in the computer is probably fairly obvious: a conversation between two alien creatures. To get the alien language, I wrote out a simple (and fairly strange) conversation and translated it into Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, so I had to use an online tool (freetranslation.com, very handy) to do it for me, and since you have to pay for idiomatic translation, I had to stick with a really rough literal one. I then recorded myself speaking both sides of the conversation and used a pitch-shifting tool in Pro Tools to differentiate each side and thus create two separate characters. Although they already sounded nothing like me, they still sounded human, and definitely still sounded like really bad Spanish. To overcome this, I simply reversed each segment of speech to result in the sound you hear in the recording. If you play this backwards, you will actually hear the Spanish words (although the conversation itself with be spoken chronologically backwards).

As for the ambient sounds, those were recorded in a previous session for a totally different reason. Those sounds were part of a noise composition for a student in another class who agreed that in return for recording her piece, I could use the sound clips for my project. The setting I created with these sounds for the alien dialogue was, hopefully, a spaceport bar. The bubbling and occasionally squealing sound represents some sort of drink with fuzzy creatures in it which are eaten as the liquid is drunk (like a worm in a margarita I suppose). This was originally a Dremel drilled against a pop can; a plug-in turned it into a delicious beverage. Way in the background of the noise, there is a strange reverberated squawking that was my flight announcer for the spaceport; this was simply a synth loop with some EQ and reverb used to throw it far away acoustically from the listener. The most obvious of the sounds is the spaceships themselves, swooping overhead. This was achieved by recording a bass guitar through a distortion and a wah pedal and then using simple volume and panning automation to bring it in and out of the picture. I will hopefully add some pictures of my miking setup later on when it's not midnight; for now, you'll have to just envision it all as you listen to my acoustic scifi ::

A turn for the strange

2009-01-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

:: After fall quarter, I decided to drop American Sign Language; it was a great experience, but not really what I wanted to go to school for. I needed a more focused direction for my education than that. So I talked to Terry and was lucky enough to slip into an open spot in his other program, Music Composition Intensive. Although there is plenty of music theory, this class takes more of a look at contemporary methods of composing music. Our first project was one for prepared piano (for examples, look up works by John Cage). The basic premise of this form is not to focus so much on making sound by striking the keys of the piano (although that can certainly be part of the piece) but by manipulating the strings and/or body of the piano to create weird tonality. Felt can be woven between strings, mallets can be used to strike them, small iron rods can be placed across them, whatever results in a sound that the composer likes. My first (and possibly only) prepared piano piece is entitled "Schrodinger's Cat"; if you know the term, then you may be able to figure out the meaning behind each of the four short "movements". I recorded this with a Marantz PMD660 in stereo using two EV RE15's, both about a foot away from the strings at a 20 degree angle to them, one pointing at the bass section nearer to the single-strung notes and one at the treble section by the curved indent in the body ::

Advanced Audio Production Workshop

2008-12-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

:: My new class has already gone through a whole quarter. I've been so busy with it, I had no time to write anything about it. Terry Setter is my new teacher, and I've learned a lot from him so far. With two quarters to go, I'm sure I'll be ready for the audio internship next year, which I decided was my goal earlier this school year. I just have to get really familiar with the studios so that I can teach other students how to use them; that includes the 16-track studio that I've begun using this year (see below). I'll be able to put up some of my work later on when I can pull it off the school servers ::

Lolcatz

2008-06-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

:: I saw this picture, and I just had to share ::

Another one bites the dust

2008-06-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

:: This is another rough mix that I played in class from my second recording session for my final project. It's not very good, and should probably just be scrapped, but I figured I'd put it up anyway just because. I wish I had more time to go through all my projects; unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to use the studios over the summer since I'm not enrolled in classes. I might be able to use the audio workstation in the computer center, so I plan on trying to get in there as much as possible to finish all the tracks I had recorded.

On the subject of this particular recording...I used the same setup on the drums as I had on the sample I posted just previously: AKG D112 on kick, Sennheiser 441 on snare, and Electrovoice RE16's on overheads. I did, however, turn the drums so they were facing the control booth and put them back one tier on the risers. I tried miking the bass amp with an RE20, but the mic kept popping and cracking, so eventually I just used a DI box. If that was unfortunate, it was nothing compared to the guitar and vocals. I had the guitar amp isolated in the "airlock" space between the recording space and the hallway outside, but the artist had it cranked so loud that it bled into his vocal microphone (a Shure SM7). Other than the bleed, the voice sounded very nice, but it's pretty bad with it. I might be able to do something about it in the mix, but it all comes down to bad technique to start out with; there's only so much tweaking you can do to original material. Anyway, have a listen. It's not my best work by far, but hey, I can only get better from here ::

Final project - rough cut

2008-05-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

:: This is a very early mix of a recording I did for my final Intro to Audio project. Due to gear issues, my microphone setup was pretty basic: the drum kit mic placement consisted of an AKG D112 on kick drum, Sennheiser 441 on snare, and two Electrovoice RE16's on overhead left and right. The RE16's were not my first choice for the overheads; I really wanted some condenser mikes to capture the transients and high frequencies of the cymbals. Fortunately, most of the good sound I got was due to the environment. I had the drums set up on the floor in the orchestra rehearsal room with all the curtains open, resulting in the wide open feel; I also oriented them lengthwise in the room to delay the reverberation even more. I really had no intention of getting this effect, but it worked really well anyway. I just wanted all the musicians to be able to see each other. Just goes to show that every recording has it's own special elements that make it unique and sometime unexpected.

As for the guitar and bass, the musicians didn't have amps, so I used a direct box to plug them straight into the board. I regret that any effects that I put on these instruments will be artificial, but hopefully I can get them to sound as natural as possible, especially the guitar. I realize that the bass is much too loud, and on headphones the spacing between the two instruments is a bit unnerving. More to come next week when I finish editing and mixing ::

:: 2.20.2009 UPDATE: Another version of Hey Joe ::

Just a little something extra

2008-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

:: This eerie snippet was from my very first quarter of Intro to Audio. I recorded some open chords on my guitar, and then simply reversed them. The resulting effect sounds creepily familiar.... If you want to use it for some project of your own, let me know and I'll send you a download link. Have a good Memorial Day weekend ::

A tribute to Grandma Fran

2008-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

:: For the midterm project in my spring quarter of Intro to Audio, we were assigned the task of recording a "radio drama". Simply put, we needed some dialogue, music, and perhaps sound effects. Many people did interviews, but I had no idea who to go to for something like that. I decided to go with a reading of my Grandma Fran's old children's poems in her memory. The poem "Who Will Play With Me?" seemed perfect; it was littered with animals (perfect for the sound effects) and ambiance (well suited for music).

I had my girlfriend Nadia Aikins read the poem for me since she has a much better voice than I do. It was recorded on the bed in our room with a simple Marantz PDM660 portable recorder and an AudioTechnica lavalier (lapel microphone). The music has guitar, played by myself, and piano played by my classmate Whitney Eden. I actually got the piano pieces by accident; I took a break from playing to get a bite to eat, an apparently I took too long because when I got back in the control room Whitney was in the rehearsal hall jamming away on the piano. I just sat back and listened for a while until it became clear that she was really good. I tried using the XY stereo miking technique to capture the high and low ends on the right and left respectively, but the placement was such that the effect wasn't as dramatic as I'd hoped. Still, I got some really good material to work with.

As for the editing and mixdown, we had just been introduced to the 5.1 surround sound mixing room, so I was really excited to get my hands dirty in there, especially since film sound is what I want to focus on. It was never booked, so I got a lot of time in there. I really needed it too; the room wasn't equipped with ProTools, so I had to learn Digital Performer instead. While I decided to forgo any surround mixing in favor of good old stereo, I learned a lot about this new software an discovered that while it had some flaws, it seemed a lot more intuitive than ProTools and will definitely be more useful as I become more involved in movie audio ::

Full-time programs

2008-05-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

:: This coming fall I'll be getting to know the real Evergreen through it's famously strange 16-credit program system. Basically, instead of several different classes (like math, science, philosophy, etc.) all meeting on different days of the week at different times for four or five credits each, I'll simply enroll in one class for sixteen credits, which is how many hours a week it will be. I'll be with the same people every day at the same hours learning about various subjects instead of just one subject.

My first choice is called "Music, Math, and Motion". The title (as it so often does at Evergreen) describes pretty much what we'll be studying: the relationships between music, math, and motion. If this sounds open-ended or vague, then you're somewhat correct, and that's what they want it to be. It allows for creativity in creating an educational pathway, all done by the students. For instance, I could study the mathematical formulas underlying frequency, pitch, and rhythm and break music down into numbers. Or, I could emphasize the opposite and try to create musical ideas from my own equations...sort of an auditory fractal. If my area of interest was completely different, I could incorporate that as well. For example, if I wanted to be a marine biologist, I could study the mating songs of whales and analyze them for patterns. Basically, this class sounds right up my alley; I'm really good at math, but I've never been able to enjoy it. By combining it with music, I think I'd really be motivated to put my energy into it.

Choice number two is "Mediaworks". Well, actually it's "Mediaworks In Context: Sustainability and Justice", but nobody says the whole name. This quarter is focusing on the previously mentioned themes of sustainability and justice pertaining to the environment. Again, students are encouraged to interpret this however they want and be creative with their projects. I went to the academic fair to see the faculty for this class and be interviewed for it, and it sounds interesting. It's geared more towards film students, but I figured that it's better to be well-rounded with my knowledge, especially if sound design for film is what I want to do.

Third on the list is the "Advanced Audio Production Workshop". While it's the most focused and "normal" of all my choices, it's also only eight credits. This means that I'd have to take some other evening and weekend part-time classes to get my required sixteen credits. Basically, this class continues where I leave off in Intro to Audio. I'll be honing my studio skills, learning more about microphone and speaker design, and studying acoustics in depth. It would really be nice to take this class and have room to study other things too, but I've heard that taking sixteen credits by way of multiple part-time classes instead of one full-time program is intensely hard since the workloads don't really get reduced at all. Still, it's definitely a good choice as far as my future goes, and it's a good fall-back if I don't get into the other two classes ::

My first CD

2008-05-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

:: Back in the winter of 2007, I joined the Evergreen Singers to fill my credit requirements for the quarter. The subject for performance was an old American traditional style of music called shape-note singing. It's no different from normal singing with a few exceptions: the songs are only sung in major or minor keys, and the notes on the sheet music are in four different shapes (triangle, square, circle, and diamond) according to their place in the current key, as opposed the familiar system of all circles. Also, this Sacred Harp music (from the most popular songbook that publishes shape-note music) is not really sung for an audience, but rather for personal pleasure. The sections are arranged in a square facing inwards; in the center stands the leader of the current song.

This arrangement actually led me to use a microphone right in the middle of the square. It is not a top-notch recording, especially seeing as ninety percent of the group wasn't really aware of what was going on, but it was definitely a good experience in planning and flexibility. I got a lot of good feedback from my classmates as well...many of them were surprised at the difference between the original recordings and my finished product ::

Early work

2008-05-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

:: After getting all the basics under control, this was my first real recording that I did extensive work on. I can't remember the artist's name, but as soon as I find out, I'll update this entry to give him some credit. This was recorded in one session, about an hour of takes, with six different microphones...a real experiment for sure. After recording into ProTools and doing some basic edits, I started playing with the effects plugins. I didn't want to do anything excessive (I'm all about simplicity when it comes to recording), so the most effected sound you'll hear is the voice. I moved it around so that the direct sound came out of one side and the reverb out of the other...simple, but it was fun to play with. If you have a good ear, you can tell that there's no early reflections, so you have no real sense of room space. Anyway, have a listen ::