luke crawford - digital audio & computer music

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some new, good songs:

stomping daisies and flowers (working draft) - (5:15)
pete and rebekah - (7:40)
decompressing - (3:20)
night cloud chamber (live) - (4:03)

song: p
P (1:43)	words will go here when i get around to it. i just wanted to get the music up, for now.

cool self-standing experiment: string progression minor
String Progression Minor (0:36)	this is one of my favorite things i've written. though it briefly builds somewhat tediously, it has some incredible, compelling moments that make it easy to listen to again.

post-class: no date yet
Wood Stack (0:41)	words will go here when i get around to it. i just wanted to get the music up, for now.

song: synth strings
Synth Strings (2:18)	words will go here when i get around to it. i just wanted to get the music up, for now.

song: static philip glass (talent show remix) - 11 april 2003
Static Philip Glass (Talent Show Remix) (2:52)	so i got convinced by a good friend to participate in a talent show (which ended up being pretty good overall, actually), but didn't want to play the original for a bunch of people that aren't into electronic music (and thus not as 'forgiving'). it just has less straight up boring parts, though i did mess up one totally cool part accidentally (only slightly), but this is what got played.

song: static glass - 2 april 2003
Static Glass (2:51)	this was made by slowly staring off with a plucked! generator melody that is quite annoying, actually. but by knob twiddling it gets quite interesting. halfway through is where it gets really sweet.

weeks 8-10 - recital piece

A Kid Tomorrow
(4:07)

so after learning a lot through all the previous work and exercises it was finally time to work on the full piece i would use for the recital. this piece was written in fruityloops. the drums are both sampled and synthesized. the tones are created with an analog bassline synth. various effects processors are used. the entire mix is put through a compressor and a stereo enhancer that performs spatialization. a flanger, chorus effect, reverb, and bass boost are used variously to enhance and create timbres. an lfo is used for panning effects.

week 7 - further into effects

original
(0:03)

delay
(0:03)

reverb
(0:04)

spatialization (cathedral)
(0:07)

flanger
(0:03)

ultra flanger
(0:03)

chorus
(0:03)

turntable
(0:17)

here are my results with various types of signal processors. the sounds in the last set of manipulations were technically processed audio files, though the algorithms were of a more rudimentary type. these manipulations are more along the lines of actual "effects" done to the audio, but represent techniques as useful and vital as the other set of sounds.

original

the same björk clip that was used last week

delay

input	feedback	cutoff	tempo	steps	mode
40%	85%	65%	280 bpm	3 notes	inverse stereo

reverb

low cut	predelay	diffusion	decay	dry	high cut	room size	color	high damping	reverb
100 Hz	0 ms	100	.6 sec	100%	3.6 kHz	35	flat	3.6 kHz	30%

spatialization (cathedral)

low cut	predelay	diffusion	decay	dry	high cut	room size	color	high damping	reverb
34 Hz	70 ms	100	4.5 sec	100%	2.1 kHz	90	warm	3.1 kHz	40%

flanger

delay	phase	feed	dry	depth	damp	invert feedback	wet	rate	shape	invert wet	cross
0.128205 ms	0 degrees	85%	0.0 dB	20.0 ms	0.802080	off	(-) 4.43696 dB	0.454545 Hz	95% triangle / 5% sine	off	(-) 6.02059

ultra flanger

these settings were, before recording, hybridized in fruityloops. this is a randomizing process it uses to create interesting variations on effects processors. what this means is that, unfortunately, these settings will not produce an exact replica of the sound presented here (which i have not been able to precisely duplicate since).

delay	phase	feed	dry	depth	damp	invert feedback	wet	rate	shape	invert wet	cross
20.0 ms	179 degrees	90%	(-) 8.76411 dB	20.0 ms	0.109375	off	0.0 dB	5.0 Hz	95% triangle / 5% sine	on	(-) ∞

chorus

delay	lfo 1 frequency	lfo 1 wave	cross type	depth	lfo 2 frequency	lfo 2 wave	cross cutoff	stereo	lfo 3 frequency	lfo 3 wave	wet only
30.0 ms	5.0 Hz	multi-sin³	process lf	5.0 ms	5.0 Hz	multi-sin³	12543.85 Hz	180 degrees	5.0 Hz	multi-sin³	off

turntable

transport	turntable speed	acceleration	sensitivity	smooth 1	smooth 2	smooth 3	smooth 4
		100%	85%	0.50	0.908	0.999	0.40

week 6 - downwards techno

Downwards Techno
(1:50)

ok, so i liked the drums from the last 'techno' piece, but i found the 'melody' a little lacking, so i started over a little bit. this time i kept the arpeggiator, but made it a more interesting melody. i also made a second rhythm track. it starts of rather simple, but as it goes on the extra drums get pretty jumbled up. also, though somewhat gratuitous, i went ahead and used the "100x overdrive" just to "rock out" or something (even though it does overpower the drums somewhat towards the end).

week 5 - upwards techno

Upwards Techno
(1:49)

so i came up with a fun little drum beat and an arpeggiated melody. i was finally able to get playlist-level automation working in fruityloops thanks to this page (which, sorry, they won't let you see unless you're a registered fruityloops user...), so i employed it by continuously, but slightly increasing the delay on the drum track. this has the cool effect of making the drum track seem to become ever so gradually more complicated as the song goes on. the style is sort of 'techno-ish' and the melody goes up, so this is 'upwards techno'.

week 4 - into effects processing

original
(0:03)

pan (with lfo)
(0:03)

time stretching
(0:06)

pitch shift
(0:03)

high pass
(0:03)

low pass
(0:03)

so this is the first venture into effects processing. various techniques were used and the parameter settings for each sound are recorded. i messed with the settings until i got what sound i liked the most. this set of processing represents the most fundamental techniques of digital audio manipulation.

original

björk saying "the story goes, this woman, she worked at the farm"

pan (with lfo)

lfo type	amount	speed
square	100%	100%

time stretching

time	fft size	overlap	oscillator synthesis
2.0	12	95%	on

pitch shift

scale	preserve length	fft size	overlap
2.0	on	8	75%

high pass

cutoff frequency	resonance	high pass	x2
45%	100%	100%	on

low pass

cutoff frequency	resonance	high pass	x2
15%	100%	85%	off

week 3 - near clichéd strings (i still like it)

Too "Moby-eqsue"
(0:23)

B Strings
(0:03)

D Strings
(0:03)

E Strings
(0:03)

i found these really great samples online that i just needed to throw together. i wanted the notes to go from one to the next by cutting the previous off, so what i did is cut them all down to the same length, just trimming away the decay part of the sound, in goldwave (as an aside - goldwave is an incredible program. it's only problem is that it's as ugly as it is useful...). then i threw them together in a multi-track editor even though i really didn't need too - i'm trying to get a handle on all this kind-of difficult software here - and saved the mix-down. i'm not really sure what to do from here exactly, but i dig it so far.

week 2 - using the live samples
Static Loop (0:10) Texture Loop (0:08)	here are two of my favorite sounds from the minidisc recording i made last week. 'static_loop' is repeated 3 times in the file so you can get a feel for the loop-y-ness of it. i like that it has a beat in it's current form. 'texture_loop' is speeded up 20% and trimmed so it too has a form of 'beat'.

week 1 - live recording exercise

Live Recording
(43:30)

for my first exercise, i wanted to get some live sounds to work with. i checked out the minidisc recorder and a condenser mic, and did some recording. the minidisc player was cool, i'd oggled them before but never used one, and the condenser mic, being battery-powered, was extremely sensitive. cars rolling by outside could ruin a recording. i did some 'covert' crowd recording, just to see what i would come up with, recorded conversation over dinner (with lots of cool food-eating sounds), and then just did experimentation with banging stuff in the attic. this is the whole original field recording unedited. all in all it's 43 minutes of sound.