Mics and Programs - what else?

Intro to Electronic Music is finally gaining some steam, in terms of how the programs are used and how the music today connects with the music from the past.  

Specifically, interactive music programs such as Reason, Logic, and RadiaL were used to manipulate specific sound files, compiling them, and then producing specific beats.  For our first project, especially, we were to manipulate completely randomized sound samples, and then use those sound clips to create some sort of rhythm.  Professor Juraj emphasized the importance of this style of Musique Concrete and how the pioneers of electronic music utilized these randomized sound samples to create some of the most fundamentally classic pieces of music.

During lab, all of the students began learning how to use the program "RadiaL," a program that simulates the disk jockeying that a DJ would do during a live performance.  Sound samples are dragged from specific folders onto the program "discs".  From here, the sound samples can be looped over and over to a unifying tempo, so that the sound samples not only match up tempo-wise, but also sound more in unison.  Additionally, the RadiaL software can be used to alter the pitches of various sound samples, and also filtering out certain frequency ranges so that only high or low values are heard.  More rudimentary sound editing techniques, such as "reverse" and "invert," can also be applied and these techniques, combined with the aforementioned editing techniques, can create great sounding samples.

In class, we are exploring the very nature of sound recording and with that, the history of sound recording and how this has affected music artists all over the world.  Juraj mentioned that there are specific types of mics that serve specific purposes.  Some mics purposefully filter out low or high frequencies, the purpose being for live performers to filter out all the ambient sound coming from the audience.  Other mics, such as professional studio mics are used to capture high-quality sound and all audible frequencies - this is possible because the environment for studio recordings is especially quiet, thus allowing the mic to capture all frequencies.

More to come soon...