My contribution

I felt as though I have made a large contribution to all our assignments that we have been presented with. In the first assignment I was first to come up with the structure of how we would go about  putting together the final samples. I thought it would be a great idea to turn industrial sounds into the sounds of nature to show that the environment we create as people is different in so many ways but at the same time can sound quite similar to elements of nature.For example the idea of nails falling to the ground as individual rain drops. All these elements In my section of the audio I took advantage of the microphones volume control to use Britomart trains as the sounds of waves crashing upon a beach. It sounded exactly how I wanted to to. The audience even made note that it was a soothing sound that made them feel relaxed and at ease.

In the second assignment I really decided to try and go outside the  box. We each assigned ourselves roles in the group, and I was focusing on mainly the piezoelectric microphone. I decided to bring in an array of tools four our performance including a brass shell, hair clippers, and a handmade adjustable rubber band instrument. All of which I attached a microphone to in order to record their vibrations and relay it to the audience. However, i think the most important prop I brought in was my sub. I found that the vibrations and the magnetism from the sub generated the most important sound to our presentation. It really gave it another level of depth. The best thing about it was that it was found by pure accident just before the performance.

On the third assignment I felt as though the project was not intended for group work, everyone went off on their own to create their instruments. Once again, I felt as though my instrument made our performance stand out  from the clutter rubber bands and balloon horns. I created an enlarged flute/didgeridoo. My instrument was extremely hard to hear but when placed up against a microphone it created a very interesting sound that differed from most other peoples instruments. I waved the instrument towards the mic and also away from it to enhance the droning sound  where the audio was getting closer and further away from the audience. Overall, I felt as though once again I  had pushed my musical boundaries.

On the final project I came up with the idea to use keyboard hacks and water for the conductivity. I was looking for a way to get away from using boring cliche switches and sensors and really incorporate something new. In the final project I found the recording on the water sound from a drain in Myers park. I purchased all the piping, and also helped build the prototype experiments that our group conducted. Marty and I also tested the tubing in the WT building down the stairwell to made sure we had proper water flow. It was also a huge task to install the wires and piping on the stairs which took quite a few days of hard work. I placed the keyboard hacks down the piping with the help of a pair of scissors, compass and roll of tape. This was an extremely arduous task  because  if the holes were too big water would leak out. Not only that but if the wires were too close the water would build up and conduct continuously which we did not want. If they were too far apart or not centered there would be no conductivity at all. While Matt and Lucy had the unfortunate job of assorting the 16 wires into the keyboard hack I was in charge of the sound effects added to the water sound. Using ableton I linked numerous effects together and assigned them to specific keys. This took a few days because the CPU kept overloading as we were adding too much sound over the top of each other. I  simplified it down and added Marty's samples on top and by the presentation day it was sounding exactly how I  had imagined it only better.

Check Previous blogs for audio files

The Final Presentation

Finally, we had completed all of the installation just in the nick of time. We did a few test runs and to our surprise  it actually sounded extremely good in the stairwell as it added an interesting echo effect to the sound. Everything went off without a hitch, except for the small factor of the fire alarm going off literally seconds before our presentation in front of the audience. Marty was literally centimeters away from pouring the liquid down the pipe just as it went off. A minor hiccup and a lucky save.  After a few minutes outside waiting for the alarm to stop we all re entered the building and began. The audience seemed to be quite impressed with our features true complexity. I wish we had given the audience the opportunity to pour their own water and interact with our feature. All in all, I was very  pleased with our groups performance as a whole. I think the audio could  have sounded better, but once again, it is random every time so you never know what you will hear.

Installing the keyboard Hacks.

The task of installing the keyboard hacks was extremely frustrating. We knew there would be A LOT of wires, but not this many. We literally went through 4 full rolls of wire and had to make regular trips to surplus electronics to top up. Because the power was downstairs with the speaker, it meant we had wires travelling from the top of the stairs to the very bottom. Because there were so many wires, when they were all gathered at the bottom it was very confusing, we had to label all the wires individually to their specific pairs. However when we labelled them, we didnt write down which wire belonged to which keyboard hack. This changed how our overall audio would wound, but for the better we decided. We originally had one pipe for samples and the other for effects to the water sound. But once again, we didn't want the sound to be linear. By randomly connecting the keyboard hacks to specific keys it increased the randomness of the sound.

While Lucy and Matt were connecting the wires it was my job to create the program to link the keyboard hack with ableton live. Using previously recorded combinations of wires (which made the keys) i linked each key when pressed to either a sample or an effect. The CPU on the program was being overloaded because we were playing so many sounds at once. To fix the problem I took out some samples and replaced them with effects. Overall, it sounded beautiful.. (to my ears anyway)

WT building Test

We knew the water would flow down the tube rather fast if it was at a continuous downward angle so we decided to take 25meters of the pipe and run it down the stairwell of the WT building next door to us.  Apart from getting a few strange looks from passers by we managed to conduct a very important prototype because it told us approximately how long it would take for the water to flow from one end of the pipe to the other. Unfortunately, we realised that it would take about 30 seconds to travel down the entire pipe. Since we wanted to  have 2 pipes on our project to allow the audience to play the instrument this meant we would have to cut that time in half as well. 15 seconds was not a lot of time. Hence we decided to spiral the pipe down the vertical section of the railing (top to bottom to ensure proper water flow) and then have the pipe going straight towards the top  of the next vertical section. This decreased the angle of the pipe and slowed the water down a great deal giving us a lot more time in between each keyboard hack. This also created an amazing accident. We found that with the decrease in angle, it was a solid portion of water flowing down the tube. It flowed in bits and pieces. Which  meant that the keyboard hacks would randomly turn on and off with small and large droplets of water that followed the main stream. This was perfect because it meant that the sound would never sound the same every time and generated a sense of 'randomness.'

Scoping Out the Audio Foundation

Originally we all wanted to have water features incorporated into the design using perspex plastic, but we soon came to the conclusion that incorporating these on the stairs would be next to impossible. And with all honesty, it would not have been unnecessary in conceying our idea to the audience (as awesome as it would have looked). We also had no idea on how we would go about placing the tubing on the stairwell, we took EVERYTHING into consideration including the ceiling. If we were to do this then we would have to construct a board that  would be able to support the weight on the pipes and suspend them above the audience. However, I anticipated that there would be a few drops of water falling from the tubes due to the holes of the keyboard hack. Not only was that a major con, but we also felt it neccessary that the audience be in close contact with the pipe and actually be able to see how it all worked. If we were to spiral the tubes down the railing it also gave off the idea that as people decend down the stairs, they are decending into a zone where the normalities of the outside world do not apply. We measured out the lengths and finally had a concrete idea to work off. It was only uphill from here on (or so I thought).

Testing the Waters

On the first day of conceptual development I came up with the idea that we could use water as a conductive method to interact with a set of keyboard hacks, the idea originally came from my research where I discovered a sound installation where a fungi dropped spores through a laser which caused a sound to play. I thought that we could use the same feature, but instead of spores we could use droplets of water that hit keyboard hacks to cause conductivity and sounds to occur. Together our group sifted slowly through ideas and eventually we came up with a plan to design a  system of keyboard hacks placed down different tubes. Water would flow down and trigger keyboard hacks which would feed into ableton live.

After some experimentation and prototyping to eliminate the hurdles we thought we would face we discovered that water itself from the tap was not conductive. This however did not set  us back, after a quick Google we discovered that impurities in water were what gave it its conductive property. Thus, we added salt to the water. After running it through our prototype (a 1m long pipe with 1 keyboard hack) we were successful. But we also encountered another problem.  And that was the fact that if the wires were too close then the water would get caught on the wires and it would keep printing out the same key over and over. Because of this, we knew we would have to be extremely careful on how we placed the wires down the pipe. They would have to be spaced out enough to conduct for a short  period of time but not too close to create a build up on water.

The Project is here...

Today on our 4th week into our music paper, we have been introduced to our project. However I was extremely confused as to what we were asked to do. All we have been told is that we need to perform either a performance or an installation in front of the audio foundation. I wish we were given specifics of what exactly is being asked of us, but I guess it could be a positive aspect as we are FINALLY free to dig deep into our creative side which in previous exercises was blocked from us.

We were also greeted with a guest speaker today who really gave me and insight as to how sound art could be applied and used into society. I loved her ideas of incorporating sound into areas that you would never expect to be used. The bridge that had looping sounds of creepy children whispering in the middle of the woods really impressed me. Although I thought she could have expanded on the idea by using interaction instead of just looping sounds. I'm sure it would scare countless people! By the end of the lecture I had a rough idea of what exactly an installment is. I now need to go home and brainstorm ideas for how my group can think outside the box!

Instrument Building!

On the third week were were introduced to a new temporary lecturer by the name of ________. Immediately i knew that this man knew exactly what he was talking about and from the get go provided a huge range of advice and skills that would definitively come in handy. We learnt about the foundations of what lies behind sound/music such as the uses for membranes, resonance, and how to create simple methods of amplification using things as cooking woks. We were also shown quite a few different videos on YouTube of people who had ingeniously gone about creating their own music using patchwork construction. Most interesting of these videos for me was the video which involved a man who utilized something we can all relate to from our childhoods, the tin can telephone which created a very interesting echo effect that to this day I still have not manage to understand. He had knowledge in almost every field of music all the way down to Shaolin monk throat singing. Truthfully, at the start of the week when we were shown the makeshift instruments I really just couldn't take it seriously, but by the end of the week I realized that sound is such a strange anomaly that can be explored much further than whats on TV and embedded in mainstream society. It is a subsonic realm that many are not familiar with. By having the opportunity to create my own instrument, or rather I should say MANY instruments. I realized that it is a tool that is easily molded into many different varieties and forms. I went through countless ideas ranging from a motorized wheel among many other designs but I found myself always in a desperate attempt to copy an instrument that has already been made and used before. I was always focusing on drums, or something I could hit to create pitch. However after 4 days of deliberation I decided to mix 2 instruments together including a flute and a didgeridoo to bring to life something different from the rest of the horns and balloon sounds. I wanted to create a acoustic device using my fingers and was aiming for a high pitched echo-like sound. In part i did create my intention, however I must also state this this did not entirely go to plan. In fact, i create a whole new noise. The reason being is that the placement of the 'reed' was extremely hard to nail. The sound produced was very eery but gloomy and soothing, on the downside it was very quiet so I had no idea how it would sound on the mic. During our groups jam in front of the class I was amazing to hear the sound of my instrument amplified in such a way. It truly was amazing and nothing I had ever heard before in my life. And to think that I produced this music brought about a feeling of accomplishment. Overall the exercise was fun, however since we were all creating our own instruments I felt the groups to be unnecessarily as we were off on our own most of the time either constructing or researching. However I was happy with our performance. (video to come)