Felix Media Arts Blog

Assessment 2 Final Work + Concept Statement

My final work is based on the constructed binary of Sound versus Music (which is slightly altered from my last assessments focus which was Sound versus Silence. Through the process of creating this work, I wanted to explore whether ‘random’, ‘everyday’ sounds are inherently musical or not and also to find the delineation between sound and song. I did this through recording a multitude of everyday sounds, manipulating them in different ways (explored below) and remixing them together to create a track of music. Alongside this, I videoed myself creating and recording the sounds and created a video collage as a kind of music video to examine this idea more.

The manipulation of the recorded samples was an interesting and learning process as I have not really done a lot of it before (In my sound works, I mainly work with MIDI rather than audio samples). It involved first taking the recorded stems out of Cubase, into Ableton Live, then cutting it to the point in each sample I was going to use. I then laid these out in a row (kind of like a sound bank) so I could figure out which sounds to use where and have them quickly accessible, visible and playable. 

(The recording setup)

(Recorded Stems in Cubase) 

(Samples laid out in Ableton Live)

Next, I started off with the squeaky sound - which was me rubbing a vinyl case against the table - as I pretty much already heard a rhythm out of the sound. After this, I warped the transients of the sample (the high amplitude, short-duration sounds at the beginning of a waveform) to get it in time and launched the rest of the song off that. 

(Warping the waveforms of the vinyl squeak)

I altered each sample differently. For the more percussion based sounds (this ended up being the majority of the samples) I put filters on them and increased the resonance of a certain frequency within them. For example, for the sample which involved me flicking a tin was put into a drum rack and turned it into both a hi-hat and snare by using different filters and transposing two of the same sample in different ways. 

(Drum rack and both a Midi arrangement and audio sample in Ableton Live)

For the more melodic-sounding samples, I pulled a singular hit from the recorded rhythm and pulled that sample into a sampler. What a sampler allows me to do is basically record midi data and play the sample in different keys and lengths, depending on what values I enter. However, within this process, I am still editing the frequencies and envelope as well; it just adds an extra element to the mix.

(The advanced sampler in Ableton Live with changes to frequency, resonance, and envelope along with the Midi Arrangement for the melodic lid drop)

The video element was a little bit tricky as I am not as versed in video editing as I am in sound editing. The process for each individual video was: first finding the corresponding sample in Ableton Live, finding which part of the sample I used, and then cutting the video down to a little bit before the hit (So you can see me create the sound/impact in the video rather than just the impact itself) and a little bit after. I then marked out where in the video the sound was created and then pressed the ‘m’ key in time with that particular sample to create markers to mark out where it would go within the timeline. In addition to this, for some clips I lined up the audio that was captured on my camera (as the audio I used in the music track was captured by a different mic), to the audio from my track to make the process a little bit easier. After this, I cropped at positioned all the recordings to create the collage. 

(Markers and edits in Adobe Premiere Pro)

This process took a lot longer than I first anticipated purely due to the number of layers I ended up using. Even after finishing this task, I didn’t end up getting to include every recording I used in the video element as I just ran out of space and by the end of the video it was already a bit too cluttered.

(Editing in the DB07 Video Suite)

So after going through the process of researching what defines a sound and what defines music as well as creating a piece of music and video from said sounds, I have come to the conclusion that an everyday sound is not usually inherently musical. However, by changing the context of these noises and combining them in a rhythmic and melodic way, they can easily be considered music.

References

"3.1.3 Music vs. Noise - Digital Sound & Music". in , , 2014, <http://digitalsoundandmusic.com/3-1-3-music-vs-noise/> [accessed 15 September 2018].

"ANDREW HUANG". in , <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcemy56JtVTrsFIOoqvV8g> [accessed 14 September 2018].

Anna, P, Silence in the forest. in , , 2017, <https://freesound.org/people/13F_Panska_Petruzelova_Anna/sounds/379210/> [accessed 8 September 2018].

Ball, P, "Why dissonant music strikes the wrong chord in the brain.". in nature, , 2012, <https://www.nature.com/news/why-dissonant-music-strikes-the-wrong-chord-in-the-brain-1.11791> [accessed 15 September 2018].

"Consonance and Dissonance". in , <http://www.avatar.com.au/courses/PPofM/consonance/con1.html> [accessed 16 September 2018].

Darman, N, "Noise vs. Music: It's All in the Physics! | Fiat Physica Blog.". in Fiatphysica, , 2015, <https://www.fiatphysica.com/blog/everyday-physics/physics-of-music-vs-noise/> [accessed 14 September 2018].

Elert, G, "Music & Noise – The Physics Hypertextbook.". in Physics.info, <https://physics.info/music/> [accessed 16 September 2018].

M., E, "Difference Between Noise and Music | Difference Between.". in Differencebetween.net, , 2011, <http://www.differencebetween.net/science/nature/difference-between-noise-and-music/> [accessed 15 September 2018].

Metcalfe-Davies, S, "The Reality and Truth of Existence – by Stephen Metcalfe-Davies | The Magic Happens (TMH).". in Themagichappensnow.com, , 2016, <http://themagichappensnow.com/the-reality-and-truth-of-existence/> [accessed 16 September 2018].

"Sound and Music : Overview : How Music Works". in , <http://www.howmusicworks.org/100/Sound-and-Music> [accessed 13 September 2018].

Stanford, N, "Cymatics.". in Nigelstanford.com, , 2014, <http://nigelstanford.com/Cymatics/Behind_the_Scenes.aspx> [accessed 16 September 2018].

Stanford, N, Cymatics: Chladni Plate - Sound, Vibration and Sand. in , , 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFAcYruShow> [accessed 16 September 2018].

For assessment 2, I would like to do some sort of sound work as that is my main creative outlet, but in what exact form I’m not exactly sure yet. In my last assessment, I focused on the concept and constructed binary of sound versus silence within my poster. So in trying to continue this, I attempted to create a quick prototype soundtrack. This track uses “silence” (original soundscape can be found here: https://freesound.org/people/13F_Panska_Petruzelova_Anna/sounds/379210/) and I attempted to create instruments out of it.

As you can hear from the result, I only managed to create an extremely basic drum kit out of it and was not able to pull harmonies out to create a full piece as I had originally planned. This was done by adjusting the frequency, resonance, drive, pitch, and envelope of different parts of the soundscape above.

(Screenshot from Ableton Live 10)

Studio Activity

4. Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, soft/hard, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?

In my poster, I explore the idea of the constructed binary of silence versus sound. I was interested in how one perceives and defines silence and if there really is such a thing as silence at all; can there really ever be a “complete absence of sound”? (Definition of silence from Oxford Dictionary)

My poster depicts a model peaceful setting - an idealistic, untouched lake environment which can be seen on the left. This is then juxtaposed with the image of a jagged sound wave on the right.The two images appear in a mirrored and continuous fashion to illustrate they are actually one environment - that this alleged ‘silence’ is a part of the peaceful lakescape.

The sound wave on the right side of the poster is actually made up of sounds recorded from a ‘peaceful’ lake setting. The sound wave consists primarily of white noise - which is noise that contains many frequencies with equal intensities - coming from the softly flowing water and gentle movement of leaves rustling. What I wanted to demonstrate with this was that when one sees the lake environment, we are captivated by it visually, however this may lead us to simultaneously ignore the various quiet sounds around us and falsely perceive the environment as ‘silent’.

After deciding on the idea of the lake reflecting sound waves, I proceeded to look for an image of a lake that looked most like sound waves and that I could recreate the sound waves as a reflection for easily. So I ended up starting with the picture below.

Untitled Photo (2017) by Eberhard Grossgasteiger.

Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/conifer-daylight-environment-evergreen-454880/

After importing this into Photoshop I and roughly erasing the reflection, I looked around online to how other people had made sound wave shapes in Photoshop and came across the Stylize > Wind Command/Tool. While I originally thought this was perfect, it just ended up not really working as I was planning. They didn’t vary enough in height (There was no option to set intensity or give any numerical input) and enlarging and erasing parts of it, made them not look like sound waves anymore, due to their blocky-nature. (illustrated below)

(Screenshots from Adobe Photoshop CC 2018)

So instead I decided on using screenshots from Ableton Live. The one thing I did discover from this experiment was that I liked the idea of ‘continuing’ the environment to make it into one forest, rather than focusing on putting the sound waves in the reflection of the environment. 

Since I am focusing on the binary of sound vs silence in relation to peaceful and quiet environments, I decided to import a recorded soundscape of a lake environment into Ableton Live and use the sound waves from that to then import into Photoshop. 

Relaxing Winter Lake Soundscape (2016) by Photography Dreamscapes

Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v80BcNZjs8

(Screenshot from Ableton Live 10 with the Lake soundscape sample loaded with no gain adjustments)

(Lake soundscape sample with the gain turned up by 20.9 decibels)

Upon further research into binaries (specifically organic vs. synthetic), I came upon a multitude of images of natural objects being reflected upon lakes (illustrated in the photo below) which reminded me quite a lot of soundwaves.

Untitled Photo (2018) by Eberhard Grossgasteiger.

Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/landscape-photography-of-body-of-water-1302312/

(Screenshot of rising white noise from Ableton Live 10)

After deliberating with the four questions, I decided to go with:

4. Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, soft/hard, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights?

I found the idea of binaries interesting, especially in relation to binary code; the notion that everything must be 0 or 1. So I decided to just brainstorm a few binaries that interested me and came up with a short list:

Sound vs Silence

Organic vs Synthetic

Natural vs Man made

Seeing vs disregarding/overlooking

Passive vs Active

Black vs White

0 vs 1

I also did a google search on “binary art” which resulted in me finding https://disappearing.me/2015/11/26/binary-can-be-beautiful/ which lists some great art to do with binary code and art made out of data. However 2 of these really caught my eye. 

halninekilo - [Digital Image] (2010). 

Retrieved from: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php?t-895283.html

Ryoji Ikeda - data.tron [8K enhanced version] (2008). 

Retrieved from: http://www.ryojiikeda.com:80/project/datamatics/

I love these works as they both present an overwhelming image yet they are purely made up of just black and white data.

ADAD1001 Assessment 3 Final Work

ADAD1001 Assessment 3 Experiment #4

In this final experiment, I pulled the whole project together as well as adding a few components. During the first experiment while playing with the lighting, I talked about the idea of PWM and how it allowed me to fade my lights. While I thought this was only capable on two of my pins, I realised that only certain pins on the arduino can handle this so I slightly modified the wiring of my arduino controller setup so the pins sending signals to the lights were plugged into pins 6, 9, 10 and 11 instead of pins 6, 7, 8 and 9 (On an Arduino Uno, PWM output is possible on digital I/O pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11). 

This made it so I could now fade all of my lights in the same way. 

Also during the last experiment I talked about the problem of having the lights of the buttons have the ability to reflect the envelopes of the tracks while a button wasn’t pressed as well as completely turning off when the corresponding button was pressed. Well, I have now successfully solved this issue. Through experimentation, I realised that by soloing tracks through the solo button instead of through the speaker on button, envelopes were not sent back through tracks that were not soloed. However the issue was that you cannot automate the soloing of tracks in a default installation of Live, and therefore not link this to a parameter in the Arduino Max for Live plugin. Thankfully a user-made Max for Live plugin called Solo Automator exists so I downloaded and installed it into my live environment, linked it up to the Arduino plugin and it worked perfectly. 

By doing this, I allowed myself to keep the original method of the light signal following the envelope follower (See experiment #1) and also link each track to a different PWM pin (The video result of all of this can be seen in the Final Work). To finish up, I applied added a small amount of smoothing to the lights as well as mastering the audio tracks.

 ADAD1001 Assessment 3 Experiment #3

During this experiment I decided to get the buttons on the Arduino controller to mute their corresponding tracks within Ableton Live. To do this, I again worked with the Arduino Max for Live plugin and assigned the input pins of the buttons to turn the speaker of each channel off when it is pressed, and back on when it is depressed. Now this worked pretty well. What I didn’t figure out was how to work with my current light setup (See Experiment #1). Firstly, the light setup was setup for one track so this would need to be changed to incorporate all 4 tracks. Secondly, I found that turning the speaker off on a track did not stop the envelopes (and subsequently the envelope follower from picking up a signal). Therefore I would not be able to have the lights turn off when a button is pressed while also following the envelope and the mapping of the track through the button’s light while the button is depressed. While I was not able to completely solve this issue, I instead remapped the lights to be controlled by the speaker on parameter (The same parameter the buttons are connected to) to have them stay solidly on while the track is playing and having them completely off while the corresponding button is pressed and the track is muted. While I did finally get this all working, I had a lot of crashes and times where the arduino just did not respond at all to the commands i put through the plugin. This very much slowed down this entire process.

ADAD1001 Assessment 3 Experiment #2

ADAD1001 Assessment 3 Experimentation #1

In this video, you can that I have made the 4 buttons on the box that the arduino is connected to light up. These are in fact lighting up in time to the music (unfortunately audio wasn’t recording in this clip). How i’ve done this is pictured and detailed below.

Firstly this track was made in Ableton Live. The program I am using to bridge my arduino to Ableton live is called Max for Live (Which I have not used before) and the plugin within that is simply called Arduino. What this allows me to do is send and recieve data over a usb cable through different pins on the physical Arduino. As you can see from the screenshot above is that I am currently using pins 6 through 9. The type refers to whether it is input, output or PWM. PWM, in this case, allows me to fade the light rather than it being at either 100% or 0% (which is the case for output). The parameter is a dial or button in Live’s interface which the data is being transferred to gathered from.

In this case I am sending it to a bunch of empty Macro Dials (which are not connected to anything and don’t affect the music in anyway). Which are subsequently connected to another default plugin from Max for Live called Envelope follower.