Sonic Art & Sound Design- P20 doc

The keyboard and mouse is a useful general-purpose interface but, for sound work, it may be worth considering an additional controller.. Commenting upon the ubiquity of the computer in h

Trang 1

p95

QC Preflight Point

2nd 3 3

Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA

Scn : #150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M3 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl)

p95

2nd

p95

2nd

94 95

p95

2nd

Of equal importance is the monitor

system Small computer speakers are

rarely adequate for serious sound work

and, without high-quality monitoring, it

is difficult to make precise adjustments

Headphones too require some thought,

especially since low frequencies are

normally felt rather than heard and

headphones cannot reproduce this effect

Microphones are important too The best

quality is obtained from large condenser

microphones but these require a power

source Not all audio interfaces offer this

option so this may need to be taken into

consideration when choosing an interface

The keyboard and mouse is a useful

general-purpose interface but, for sound

work, it may be worth considering an

additional controller Especially where

performance is under consideration, a

THE COMPUTER

11 Commenting upon the ubiquity of the computer in his fascinating book Electric Sound: The Past and Promise

of Electronic Music (1997, New Jersey: Prentice Hall), Joel Chadabe observes: ‘Indeed, one could say that

by the late 1980s the age of computer music was over because everything was computer music.’

USB MIDI controller and keyboard may prove a useful and relatively inexpensive way of entering data and controlling the system Many high-end software manufacturers offer their own dedicated controllers but these are often restricted

to particular applications; in this respect

at least, the cheaper units are often more flexible

Left: Tascam workstation controller

It may be worth considering an additional controller to the general-purpose keyboard and mouse interface when working with sound.

Image courtesy of TEAC Corporation, Tokyo.

Far left: USB audio interface

A useful and relatively inexpensive way

of entering data and controlling a system.

Image courtesy of M Audio.

Trang 2

QC Preflight Point

1st 3 3

p96

1st

p96

1st

p96

PROCESS AND PRACTICE

1st

p96

Operating systems and software

At present, the two main platforms –

Macintosh and Windows – have little to

choose between them for most sound

activities Recently, applications previously

unique to one or other have become

cross-compatible, allowing the exchange of files

between the two systems and so the

choice, at present, is largely one of

individual preference rather than of

Multitrack audio recording and mixing is

one of the more demanding

computer-based activities and there are many

applications that cater for this at varying

levels The de facto commercial standard

most audio sequencers such as Logic or

Cubase will carry out many of the

intended although, almost inevitably, more slowly and with somewhat less flexibility

A major part of such applications is the M‘plugin’.The ability to handle plugins is

an increasingly important capability of audio software, especially since their functionality now extends to generating and manipulating sound by synthesis and sampling Short of using a full-scale synthesis programme, this is currently perhaps the most popular approach to creating sound in the computer and has the great advantage of being tightly integrated with the recording environment

of the audio sequencer

12 Some very high-end applications such as, for example, SuperCollider, remain platform-specific but others such as MAX/MSP are now cross-compatible (subject to some relatively minor limitations).

Right: Cubase

Created by Steinberg and originally developed to control MIDI instruments, it has expanded to include audio recording and processing as well as synthesis and sampling using ‘plugin’ software.

Image courtesy of Steinberg.

Trang 3

p97

QC Preflight Point

3rd 3 3

p97

3rd

p97

3rd

97 96

p97

THE COMPUTER

3rd

Left: Workstation controller

Digidesign® ICON workstation controller for ProTools®.

Plugins are programmes that run within a main application and add specific functionality to it For example, programmes such as Cubase and ProTools® make extensive use of plugins for specific processes such as reverberation, dynamics processing or sound synthesis.

Trang 4

QC Preflight Point

1st 3 3

p98

1st

p98

1st

p98

PROCESS AND PRACTICE

1st

p98

Above: Reason

Essentially similar to, but much simpler and less extensive in its possibilities than, MAX/MSP, it provides a versatile and user-friendly resource for sound programming.

‘THIS DANGER OF OVERKILL IS

PARTICULARLY ACUTE WITH THE

COMPUTER – PROCESSING OF

SOUND AS ANYTHING AND

EVERYTHING CAN BE DONE.’

TREVOR WISHART, ‘AUDIBLE DESIGN’

Trang 5

p99

QC Preflight Point

2nd 3 3

p99

2nd

p99

2nd

99 98

p99

1000 frequency (Hz)

amplitude envelope

filter envelope

filter envelope scale

read/write settings

Audio on/off

filter envelope base (Hz) filter Q (0.- 1.)

duration (ms) waveform sine

clear

write read play

1000.

0.3

2nd

Programming

More sophisticated and flexible forms of

synthesis (and other processes) are

offered by dedicated applications such as

Reaktor and Reason with even more

programming flexibility available from

environments such as MAX/MSP and

SuperCollider This, however, is only the

start of work with such applications that

are designed to go far beyond the

sequencer plugin in terms of offering the

user the opportunity to work with every

conceivable sonic variable Inevitably, this

is a complex and demanding process but,

as suggested above, there are several

useful levels of approach to this area

Applications such as Reason create an

on-screen environment that is reminiscent of

the physical setup of a studio and its

equipment racks, complete with jackfields,

patchcords etc and for the beginner, this

can provide a useful and familiar point of

entry Beyond a certain point, however, the

ability to provide a physical equivalent

becomes less possible and, arguably, less

useful At this point, higher-level systems

such as MAX/MSP and SuperCollider

come into their own by offering advanced

functionality and ultimately flexible

programmability Although sometimes

difficult to master, these systems allow for

a radically different approach to

computer-based creative practice

Summary

At this point, the user begins to define the nature of the technology with which she/he wishes to work rather than accepting the capabilities of a given system as a series of constraints upon what may be achieved Here the computer genuinely starts to become a creative tool that is at the service of the artist and a vast panorama of possibilities appears before us This exciting new landscape is, however, by no means an entirely safe place: there are many pitfalls that await the unwary Not the least of these is the temptation to do things simply because it

is suddenly possible to do them Trevor Wishart has made a number of cautionary

Design, warning that when we design or customise a system that can vary any possible parameters of a given process, we must carefully ensure that these are used

in a considered and purposeful fashion

We need, in short, to make judgments and decisions that are based upon what we intend for a particular work This is almost entirely at odds with the open-ended approach suggested by Brian Eno and deciding whereabouts along this spectrum our course of action will lie is perhaps one of the more difficult choices that we encounter in creating certain types of sonic art

THE COMPUTER

Above: MAX/MSP synthesis patch

A simple synthesiser created in Cycling ‘74’s MAX/MSP software.

On-screen objects are used to designate processes similar to those found in an analogue synthesiser (oscillators, filters etc.) and are even connected by virtual patchcords.

Định dạng
Số trang	5
Dung lượng	2,18 MB