August 26

Today was tedious. We've had a lot to do with the samples we took last week. Jordan and I spent the whole morning editing each sample, and we'll have even more to do when we want to get them all put into reason and (with a select few) looping some. The hunt for sounds was really fun, and we ended up with a ton more samples than we thought we would. In each recording, there are clips of our voices saying things that we thought were cool or funny, so we separated those and made sound files of those as well. Our hope is to create a piece that incorporates these "instrument" patches with more traditional sounds. Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6nrJ3ByzzE

This is a really somber piece about the 9/11 attacks, but the concept, musically, is very interesting. I find these sorts of musical combinations of digital sound and traditional music very interesting, and I hope that we are able to create something similar.

Such a fun week so far!

Aside from the sampling I've also skimmed through chapter 4, since it seems to be closer to completion. I still can't get on Sakai though, so I am left with not as much to do in that area.

July 22nd

For some reason today all my vocals are clicking on different microphones, at different distances, and at different volumes. I can't wait for Eric to come in and explain what the Sonar manual couldn't.

July 19th

I talked to Jordan about different sounds that we could use for the convention in October. I brainstormed a bit on the board and we watched Just For Now by Imogen Heap for inspiration.

July 26th

Today I worked on re-editing the my samples in Audition. It seems I missed a few notes and didn't edit all the dead space. I looped the samples and tried to rid the loops of the clicking noises. I realized that the higher the note the less consistent making the looping process for voice more tedious than for piano. Another problem that Erin and I both ran into is that when we try to plug the sample into Reason the samples do not show up. Troubleshooting tomorrow.

July 21st and the last few days

So the last few days I have been working on getting good loops for the sax recordings that Elizabeth did. First, I tried it with Audition, but that went poorly. I got loops, but they sounded awful and I was really unhappy when I thought I would have to use these. Then Dr. Burg brought the macs down and we got some decent loops with the software on those machines. However, a few of the samples still had pretty noticeable clicks in the loop and I was still a little unhappy about it. Then Dr. Burg brought down SoundForge and I got working on that. I really was happy with that software. After figure out how to deal with a few problems I ran into, I got a good loop for all of the sax files. I'm pretty happy with them. There is still a little "fluttery" sound to one of the files, but I think that they are about as good as I will get with them. Elizabeth also recorded some slap-tongue samples, and we got all of that into the sampler in Reason. It is a pretty decent sound, and I'm pretty happy with it. Depending on how an actual song sounds with this sampler, we might want to add a medium length set of samples to the machine, but that probably isn't a big deal.

Yesterday, I stayed home because of some back issues, and I was hoping to get some of the sakai work I need to do done, but that didn't happen like I thought it would. I plan on getting those done with tomorrow if I can.

Also, Jason brought in his recording device today, so I think we all plan on going sound hunting in the afternoon to try and get some cool sounds to use in a sampler. Early this morning, before Jason came in, a few of us were discussing some interesting ideas we had for potential pieces we could play for the showcase. I thought that it would be really cool to record a bunch of sounds that we can make vocally, like beats and whistles and hums and anything else interesting we could think of, and form that into a song that we could play at the showcase. Elizabeth jumped onto that with her own idea of recording a bunch of sounds that we run into in our daily lives here at Wake Forest, and put all of those soudns into an interesting composition with perhaps a little bit of background music to keep it interesting. I feel that something like this would be the most interesting and unique idea that we could bring to the showcase. It would clearly display the point of the class, we could add in the cello, voice, sax, and quena recordings that we have and add them into the song, and we could end up with something that is truly interesting.

Anyways, that's what I've been up to lately!

July 21

Today Jason came in and taught us how to use the mic- exciting! Now we can go out and collect sound samples! Can't wait to see what we find.

July 20

The Research Team is falling apart today! Everyone seems to be sick here, except for me. Wishing all my colleagues a speedy recovery! :/

That being said, everything is pretty quiet here. I think we're all just working on our Word documents talking about which sections/supplements we think should be on the syllabus. Hopefully we'll be doing more hands-on work tomorrow!

July 19- the afternoon

We are all super pumped to begin working on our music for Dr. Pauca! BUT we are making sure that our contributions to the iTunes app are happening IN ADDITION to our Digital Sound and Music assignments.

With that being said, while Jordan and Anqi troubleshooted a few of the loops, Elizabeth and I went to work individually on our compositions. We began by brainstorming ideas for different kinds of music that would appeal to kids. At the moment, we've each decided to work on music for glockenspiel/ kid-friendly chromatic percussion instruments. Once we come up with songs, we will be figuring out ways to play the songs on our virtual instruments. More updates later!

July 19

Today we worked on troubleshooting our loops. We're still having trouble with the loop points for the cello. But we got sound forge today, so Jordan has been trying to get the loops to sound better using that new software. I've spent most of the day going through the chapters and deciding which sections are the most useful for students to read throughout the course. I have a word document with all the text sections listed, but I haven't finished looking at the supplemental materials.

July 19th Frustrating Cello Sampler - Anqi

I have been struggling with this cello sampler since last Friday. At first I was just having trouble picking loop points, and Jason came in last week and taught us how to split and mixdown part of the audio track to make perfect loop. Somehow when I started working on my own, it didn't turn out very well at all... I am getting a little frustrated right now since I really need to have this done by today. I might take a break and work on the Sakai assessments for 45 minutes before lunch break, and work on the virtual instruments with Erica in the afternoon.

July 18

Today we got started by meeting up with Dr. Burg and talking through our goals for the week. We have a much better idea of what we need to do. Jordan and I will tighten up our sampler of saxophone sounds, which should be pretty simple. Then, the team and I are planning on working through the chapters again to provide a list of sections that students will need to read to get the most out of the course.

We've also decided that we want to write an original ballad to use our virtual instruments. I got started on the lyrics for that today, and then I'll get to work on a melody/chord progression.

I think we're all really excited for Jason to come later this week and help us go searching for new sounds. We can't wait to do something more creative!

July 18

Today's Schedule:

1) We separated into our original teams to work on/finish up our virtual instruments. Elizabeth and Jordan had to troubleshoot a few weird minor 2nds that were showing up in their samples, and Anqi is watching some video tutorials to learn more about using audition. We also discussed what type of original song we could create to use virtual instruments based on saxophone and cello and decided to write some type of ballad. Since the Harry Potter movie series has officially come to an end, many members of our generation are feeling out of place/depressed. We think that our ballad will focus on themes surrounding moving on, transitioning, the end of the magic, etc. Perhaps the song could even apply to the end of a relationship? Hopefully we'll have multiple layers going on.

2) When we get tired of the hands on work- or each other haha! - we will be working on Word documents, discussing which chapters students should read/which supplements students should have to complete.

More updates later!

Typo

Page 5 Chapter 7 Subtractive Synthesis

We don't really want a fade in on this instrument sound so we will leave the attacker slider at zero.

July 14th

I am slowly re-reading and taking notes on chapter 7. Erin and I worked on our final project once again in Audition. I sang eight notes into Audition and we are slowly finding 0 points creating loops and loading the samples into Reason. This is a tedious process but we are getting through it. We have yet to start the synthesizer, but that shouldn't take as long.

Sampler Recorder

1) I really liked the emphasis that was placed on making a copy of your sample in case something happens and you need to go back to the beginning. I feel like this is a crucial step that many digital sound and music novices can and will miss, so the tutorial does a great job in highlighting its importance!

2) Not to be rude- because I think this is a great tutorial- but Jason does say "uh" and "um" throughout the video. This can make some parts seem unprofessional.

3) Even though Elizabeth said that the recorder tuning sounded like "boiling parakeets," I enjoyed watching Jason troubleshoot. All of the student researchers have felt the pains and frustrations of needing to reboot, restart, or try another method. This section of the video proves that even professionals sometimes have to resort to plan b. It also shows just how important it is to NOT get sucked into just one way of solving a problem. Given the nature of the software, it is crucial to explore your options to create your desired result.

July 14

Yesterday we spent a lot of time working on making our virtual instruments. Jordan and I made a bunch of progress with looping the saxophone samples we made, but had a ton of trouble getting the files to open in reason. The file types are a real pain coming from Audition, and it looks like soundforge would be a better program to use. We also had trouble getting our octaves to work right, and eventually just got stuck and had to go back to watching tutorials.

THIS AFTERNOON WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dr. Burg hooked us up with two macbook pros, so we were able to use loop editor and make loops SO much easier than we could in audition. We're still having trouble getting those files to loop consistently when we bring them into reason. What. A. Pain.

In other news, Jordan and I have made significant progress on both our sampler patch and our synthesized instrument. The hope is that the two will sound similar (we figured having a goal set for our synthesized sound would be helpful). It shouldn't be hard to tweak our synthesized instrument and have it ready by tomorrow afternoon to present.

It amazes me how much progress we were able to make despite serious frustrations.

July 11th

Everyone seems to be missing this morning. I worked on the sampler programming exercises making loops etc... We worked on preparing Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory for when the group is all together. On Thursday I will take notes on Chapter 7 which I find to be a very functional chapter.

July 13th Max Expired =(

Yesterday, I went through some of the Max Demos from previous chapters and I can definitely understand what they are doing much better now. The Max on my computer expired over this past weekend and the one on my laptop just expired today =( . Apparently Cycling74 wouldn't let me re-install the trial. I am hoping that I will have it installed on my computer asap. So I am kind of taking a break from Max right now. Then at the end of yesterday I started reading the third section of Chapter 7. Today my plan is to keep reading 7.3, and hopefully in the afternoon, we can start working as a group, maybe the Edge of Glory? Looking forward!

Guitar String Tutorial

Once again, I find myself without SoundForge, which really seems to be the best tool for using the information in this tutorial.
I felt like this tutorial talks a lot more than necessary about how hard to pluck the string- it's a pretty easy concept. I thought the normalization could have been better explained.
E6 thing- which octave E it is, was really unclear
Finding the zero crosspoints here was hard- this might not have been the best example.
In audition, it is hard to tell what he is doing to zoom in and out.
Reason:
Finding the files for the samples is done REALLY quickly. It would be better to get rid of the fiddling around with processes that are the same over and over and show where to find your samples. Why is high velocity the harder plucked string? I don't understand the velocity #s.
This tutorial was a lot more helpful than the recorder tutorial, but not much more engaging.

Recorder Tutorial

This morning I watched the Recorder Flash Tutorial. I found it a little frustrating to have the whole demo on a mac interface, because everything we use in lab is on PC. I also found the tutorial to be very clearly outlined- on a program my computer doesn't have. I only have Audition, and it sounds like what I need is SoundForge. I thought the practicality of this tutorial given the final project was pretty great- it told me exactly what to do and what problems I might run into. It was also very clear how to find the zero crosspoints to create a continuous wave. This would have benefited from having a readme section with a step-by-step list as well that students could print out.
The tuning section was a serious bust though. Listening to someone tune a recorder is essentially listening to the process of boiling live parakeets. I don't know that students will learn to tune from the chapters they've read, and if there are music students in the classroom, they will be able to help with the tuning. Do not make us sit through a tutorial tuning up the pitches- fast forward through that.
I thought the recorder tutorial was a little dull- I found myself drifting in terms of attention, and I think the tutorial could benefit from some shortening.

July 11

Today I was out sick for much of the day, but I came in the evening to see what I could get done. I managed to get my lady gaga edge of glory saxophone solo recorded in at least the original key. I also sent myself my finale file via email so that it doesn't get erased again (I had to redo the transcription). Hopefully tomorrow we can work on the drum track and get some of the vocals under control.

July 11

Today I realized just how behind I am on the Sakai surveys... REALLY BEHIND! I panicked a little this morning when I saw just how many I have yet to complete. My objective for today will be to finish all of the supplement reviews.

July 8

"It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday..." sdgklhsdgakls. That song has been stuck in my head since Jordan and Beth started working on it!

Today I went off to the library in order to thoroughly complete Chapter 7. Since we've been busy with so many projects, I found myself reading a lot one day and then not coming back to the material for several days. This was not very conducive to the learning process and really slowed me down. However, now I've finished with Chapter 7. I also carefully combed for typos, but didn't find any (other than the one I previously noted from pg. 26.)

Now, I just have to finish the Sakai reviews.... I've gotten very behind on those. I actually preferred the days when we would just write about the learning supplements on this blog. I feel like the Sakai surveys make it very difficult to give quality feedback as many of the questions seem to be asking the same thing. I might start over and review each learning supplement on here in addition to the Sakai surveys. Maybe Anqi, Beth, and Jordan will be able to comment on my reviews and share their feedback as well?

This afternoon, we have two new video tutorials to work on and review. Also, Jason is coming in! I'm very excited to show him all of our new projects (and I also need some help! I was unable to properly set up the AKG mike and I can't seem to record the vocals for "All the Right Moves" without clipping.)

Starting Week 6 - Anqi Zou

We are halfway through this project so far, and we are almost done with reading the textbook. Most of us start playing with the software products extensively.

Coming in this morning, we were about to start working on the Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga, but as a couple of us weren't able to be here this morning, and we really need to work as a whole team, we didn't actually going into it. Ariella led me and Percy practicing on the vocal part (it is quite embarrassing to sing in the basement of Manchester...while I'm pretty much not on the beat most of the time...).

The two videos newly uploaded tutorials are definitely very helpful. Hopefully tomorrow when everyone is here we can choose the specific virtual instruments we will be working on, and this week is meant to be productive!

July 8

Goooooooood morning!
I'm so excited to show off all the things we've learned this week. Jason is coming in this afternoon and we have TONS to show him. We have our covers of Friday and All the Right Moves, and we also have two sample packs (one of saxophone, one of percussion sounds on cello) to show him. What we want to ask him are how to get good loops of those set up, and also how to set up a drum kit using the cello sounds we made.
When I came in this morning I started working on the saxophone solo for Edge of Glory. Since we'd like to do a cover of that song (we have the vocals worked out nicely), I want to be able to do a recording of that today or Monday. I managed to find a decent sheet music copy of the solo for alto saxophone, so I just need to transpose it down a major third (since we're taking the whole piece down for ease of vocal range). Once I get the sheet music printed, I should be able to work on the solo and get it recorded using the akg mic. We're hoping to use the drum kit we create with Erica's cello sounds to create the drum beat for this cover.

Chapter 7 MIDI and Sound Synthesis: 7.2

7.2 Application

7.2.1 DNE. B

7.2.2, Linking Controllers, Sequencers, and Synthesizers, reflects material covered earlier and talks about the advantages of using MIDI to capture a performance. Firstly there’s a typo in the 2^nd paragraph, “now suppose you want also want to…”. Then it introduces 4 different methods to link controller, sequencers, and synthesizers. In Figure 7.28, these 4 options are demonstrated. However, as when we were talking about the scenario of capturing live performance, we used the word OPTION, and it might be confusing to use OPTION again in the figure right below it, as some readers might not read very carefully. Since we were using the word CONFIGURATIONS in the content, why don’t we keep using it in the figure to keep it consistent? After that, this section gives examples of a bunch of MIDI interfaces, which I found somewhat distracting. I think ONE figure with all the examples in will be clear enough to show the whole picture.

7.2.3, Making and Loading Your Own Samples states how to make one’s own samples and the issues might occur. The last sentence of first paragraph is missing a period. First sentence on page 34 “…to do is go find…” Shouldn’t it be “..is to find..”? I don’t have much to comment about the material. Overall very practical, but it might be good to have some learning supplement to go along with this section.

7.2.4, Data Flow and Performance Issues in Audio/MIDI Recording, is very well written. It reveals the potential problems might occur in audio and MIDI recording, such as our old enemy, latency, and other memory issues. This section is shorter than any other section in 7.2. I am wondering if we need to briefly talk about some cures to these problems to balance up.

7.2.5, Non-Musical Applications for MIDI, is okay. 7.2.5.1 introduces the readers MSC, which is a very important application of MIDI, while 7.2.5.2 is fairly weak in content. On page 41, the words are bold. I am wondering if it’s a typo or whatever.

July 7th

Today I started working on a drum loop. The Research Team divided the parts of Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory and we are scheduled to sing the song on Monday. I am pretty pumped to sing When Love Takes Over by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland when everyone is gone at 4 pm!

July 7 #3!

Jordan and I busted out the saxophone this afternoon and did a recording of a series of pitches in order to cover a range of notes. We fiddled with the clips to try to make them loop without a bump, but we aren't entirely sure how to make the loops sustain cleanly. I will go back and read through the materials we have as well as asking Jason to see if we can make those work better. It would be cool if we could program the synth to play one of my recital pieces, and then compare that with the recording of my performance.

7.2

This section was quite useful, as well. From what Dr. Burg was telling us, it seems like there will be supplements for looping samples to get a good sustained sound for a MIDI sampler, and since that is one of the goals of this class this section is clearly very important. The later parts of 7.2 seemed a bit more tedious but understanding the content helps understand how MIDI works so I have no problems with those parts. Everything in chapter 7 was put together quite nicely, with the exception of a few typos and such. I think this was the most important chapter that we have gone over so far, so I think that a lot of time should be put into it during the lecture. However, it is possible that the students will be fairly confident with how MIDI works by that point (I'm not sure when in the course Dr. Burg plans to start having the students working with the machines), so maybe there won't be a need to focus as much on this chapter.

At the top of page 41, there is an error. In the sentence that talks about the possible error, an "s" is missing in what should be "source."

First part of the week

So I worked on "Friday" for the first two days of the week with Elizabeth. It took a bit of work, but we came up with a decent track that we were happy with. There are still a few clipping issues with some of the vocals, but I don't think they are bad enough to worry about and we decided to let them go. I came in early on Wednesday and recorded the rap for the song. That was fun.

After all of that was done, I Started on Chapter 7. Since we worked so much on the song, I wasn't able to finish the reading. I'm working on it and should have it done by the lunch tomorrow.

Typo

Chapter 7, pg. 26 reads "Now suppose you want also want to capture the musician’s performance." I think you meant to get rid of the first want?

July 7 Continued

Oh also... Computer issues. I don't have Audition or MATLAB on my computer, nor do I seem to have Reason without its disk (and I'm not sure where the disk is). Also Sonar dislikes both my microphone and midi keyboard. It's kind of hard, with basically no software, to work on anything on my own. I think that's why there has been so much waiting on everyone else... because I can't do much without them. At least Finale works.... but we're using that less and less often.

July 7

Still sort of waiting on people to get to the same place. Everyone is finishing their reading and whatnot this morning, and I can't really start doing a lot of recording without some collaborative help. Today Erin and I started working on Lady Gaga's The Edgy of Glory, because we want to work more with recording audio, and it would provide an opportunity to record multiple layers of harmony. The musicians and I really want to do an acoustic arrangement, which would be fun for us, but we want to be sure not to leave out the comp sci majors. What I assume is that we'll work on the musicy stuff, and then have them help us get it all recorded and mixed down. That's how Jordan and I worked for Friday, and I think it went fairly well.
This afternoon I will track down Jordan and make him take a break to help me get my saxophone samples finished. I would like to experiment with the options on how to manipulate that sound, and what my options are.
When it comes to making synthesized instruments I am a little unsure how to decide which instruments we want. It's much easier to manipulate a sound to replicate something than it is to make decisions without any inspiration. When we're talking about virtual instruments that don't necessarily exist already, there is a pretty wide gray area. I think for non musicians this is somewhat daunting, but maybe even more so for musicians because we are so accustomed to pre-existing instrumentation. Hopefully when I start recording my saxophone samples I will have a clearer picture of what I will want.
It is also sort of tough to decide on instrumentation for a piece that doesn't exist. As we're all going to be creating different instruments, it's hard to tell at this point what sort of piece we will be creating. Will we have any melodic instruments? Will we have any percussive instruments? Will they all be string-like sounds? Will any of them be decidedly synth sounds? Without knowing this, composition is tough. Hopefully when we brainstorm on these questions we will be able to come up with a few instrument sounds that would go well together, and each group can work on one or two of these instruments.
I'm also waiting on more text to read. I tend to work exclusively on the chapter material when I get it, because it's not as fun as playing with the software so I like to get through it as quickly as possible. The problem with that though, is that I finish before the rest of the team and then am without any collaborators to work on any of our projects. This is probably not an issue in a classroom setting, but is a little tricky when we are relying on having other people around to help us get moving on various projects.
All in all, things are rolling along. I'm learning a TON about the software from all the reading and especially the covers we've done, so I'm excited to see what we create next.

July 6 Continued

Today EVERYONE LEFT ME!!!!
Jordan wasn't feeling well, Erica was sick, Erin had to leave slightly early, and Anqi was out. So I was left the last hour with not a whole heck of a lot to do. I finished getting my mp3 file sent to myself so it will be added to my itunes at home. I also listened to Edge of Glory a few times in order to learn the saxophone part and vocals, because Erin and I would like to cover that song next. I have my saxophone today, but without my partner it's really hard to do sample recordings, so we'll have to do that tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to get a good idea of what we want to do with our instruments... but we need everyone to do that. In any case, I'll be working on some of my musical endeavors and fixing the fade out I messed up in All the Right Moves for the rest of the afternoon.

July 6

This morning Jordan and I completed a cover of "Friday". There's more we could add in terms of harmonies, etc., but we think for now this is a pretty solid track. We're working on trying to get it converted to an mp3, because I think having my own cover of something on my ipod would be awesome. This is kind of a tricky process, because we have a whole bunch of tracks in both sonar AND reason, so getting them to save together is a challenge.
I do think that this is an important thing to teach students. It is really fun to create something and be able to take it home and listen to it, so being able to burn discs or create sendable files is really important.
Once Jordan and I finished that, Erin and I worked on harmonies for "All the Right Moves". Erica had already recorded a vocal track (which she may want to edit later on, there's a little bit of clipping toward the end), but we added a few extra parts and also a piano ostinato that makes the orchestration sound more complete. This track is getting pretty close to being completed as well.
I learned how to do a fade-out in Reason today, with help from Jordan, so now if we have a rewire in Sonar we can do a fade of the entire song. That is a really practical skill, and I'm glad I know how to do it now.
Other than those projects, there's not much reading to be done, so I suppose I'll just find another song to work through, as this seems to be the best way to get myself familiar with the software. After lunch I might bring in my saxophone to see what we can do with those sounds, moving in the direction of a new synthesized instrument.
More updates to come later in the day!
Beth

July 5th

The first thing I did when I came in today was to finish the supplemental activity and finish the sakai evaluation. That was a pretty helpful tool, so I was pleased to have had the experience and will use the supplement as a resource later in the course. The rest of the day was spent working on finishing "Friday". For the moment I'm waiting on Jordan to learn the section that needs a male vocalist, and then we will try to hear, learn, and record the backup vocals. We should have a complete cover soon. While we're finishing that, Erica is learning the cello part to "All the Right Moves" by One Republic. Once she does that, we'll work with the Drum part Erin has put together, and I'll learn the vocals. Hopefully we'll do an entire cover of that song as well.
I really think that this part of the course is pivotal. Working on songs that we like, know, and enjoy creating is a really great way for us to get comfortable with the software. We've already essentially created our own virtual instruments, because we've had to work with the patches we have and alter them to sound more like the instrumentals we want. It's also much less intimidating than the idea of composing an original piece.

July 5th

Today Erin, Percy and I were supposed to work on When Love Takes Over but Erin's computer didn't cooperate. Erin and I recorded my voice on about 2 octaves. I did the sampling exercise and the assesment and found it to be helpful for our final project. That is it for now!

July 4th

Today was a little strange, because Erica and I were the only ones in the lab for most of the day. Before lunch, I worked on recording vocals for "Friday", but the next section of the piece requires a little more work, and I could use Jordan's help getting the instrument sounds right. I have an idea of what needs to come next, and we will probably be able to do a full cover of the song. Tomorrow I will have Jordan help me continue to work on this song, and Erica will start our next recording.

Good 4th of July!

Beth