Summarizing Week 8 - Anqi Zou

Earlier last week I re-edited all the cello samples using SoundForge and after checking with Erica, we think this is the best we can do for now without rerecording the samples again. We have one octave of Erica's vocal recorded, but after listening to Ariella's vocal, I think we need at least to rerecord since it might sound very artificial and robot-like.

I finished all the Sakai assessments except the 3 Max practical exercises in section 3 by Tuesday. Wednesday I was curious how the cello samples sound like when actually played, so I randomly picked a song and keyed in the notes into Reason using my mouse (this is really the best I can do), and played it. It does sound artificial, but not too bad. Meanwhile Beth and Jordan were sorting out the sounds we collected the week before. I am very excited to see how we can put those sounds together.

Also starting on Wednesday I started watching video tutorials for Max again. I have to say one needs really good imagination in order to master Max. However, since we have not done much Max programming in this textbook, these exercises are not easy to finish. They are not difficult in nature, but do require the readers to have a better base. I actually was wondering whether it would be necessary to do these exercises at all or maybe we can add more basic exercises in earlier chapters so the readers would have a better transition.

I did not come in on Friday because I was stuck in Greensboro on Thursday night and couldn't find a ride back until Friday afternoon, so I spent some time over the weekend working on the word document and at the same time reviewing previous chapters. I will wait until later to post them, maybe after Chapter 4 and 6 are completed. As many of us already started reading Chapter 4, I am wondering if I should skim it through as well or wait until the post-test for Chapter 7 and pre-test for Chapter 4 are posted. I really hope I could read the complete version of this textbook in the next 2 weeks to have a better view of the whole structure, even with some chapters being draft.