Assignment 3- Tanushree Mediratta

I decided to use one of my favorite songs – We No Speak Americano (by Yolanda), as my original signal. In addition to convolution, I also periodically varied the amplitude of the convolved signal which added an interesting “twisted” effect to the resulting signal.

The original version of the song sounds like this:

(you could also hear this on youtube)

 

The first IR I used was a recording of the popping of the balloon in the CFA hallway, which sounded like this:

 

After convolving my first IR with my original signal, the resulting music sounded like it was coming from a distance or getting reverberated in a large room:

 

The second IR was a recording of the popping of the balloon near the stairwell in Baker Hall:

 

The convolution of Papa Americano with IR2 was less muffled since the ‘pop’ of the balloon was more defined and the sound was contained within a short span of time:

 

For my third IR, I recorded myself clapping twice- the first clap being louder then the second one:

 

When I convolved my original signal with the third IR, it produced an effect of an echo because I was essentially convolving my signal with two claps (impulses) at different times:

 

My fourth IR was created by extracting a piano piece from another song in my playlist- a mashup created by Conor Maynard:

 

On convolving this piano piece with my song, I got an abstract sound that was pleasing to the ear:

 

Lastly, for fun, I decided to convolve a convolved signal with my original signal. So, I decided to use the signal which was produced by convolving my original song with my claps, as my IR. The end product was surprisingly good:

 

Below is my Max code:

 

Project 1 Proposal – Matthew Xie

For my Project 1, I am thinking of creating a patch that could detect the different audio effects from an audio file (reverb, delay, high/low frequencies etc) and would trigger the proportional amount of effects visually, manipulating a video input. If I have the ability, I would also like to include other features such as generating certain patterns across the video also being dependent on the audio changes.

An inspiration source I am having for this project is as follows:

This is a lot more advanced than what I’m hoping to achieve, but definitely includes certain artistic styles that I’d like to imitate in my project as well.

Assignment 3 – Matthew Xie (Kalimba Project)

For this project, I used a recording of a Kalimba riff from a friend.

  1. Recorded IR1 (Maggie Mo Hallway), IR2 (WestWing staircase, balloon pop at top recorded at bottom). Recorded IR3 (myself saying “Kalimba”. Used a sample for IR4 (a water drip sound effect)
  2. Ran the kalimba riff in Max through all 4 convolution effects and recorded through ‘sfrecord~’ Code: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/978888ce9c3f36fe2fdfb96b659bee4f

Here are the results:

I really liked the sound of this, and decided to make a track through Ableton Live.

Track explanation as follows:

  1. Percussions (kick, clap, claves, woodenruffle, drip, underwater-twirl-sound, chimes): except for kick, and chimes, all other reverb effects were used by running the original sample through the Max patch with IR1 as the convolution effect.

Kalimbas:

  1. Starts off with the original riff, adding the IR1 IR2 IR3 IR4 riffs each loop. IR3 is pitched down two octaves to provide a bass-ier feel.
  2. Once all are included, the oiginal riff IR1 IR2 IR4 fades away in order each loop. IR3 is kept at the very end (wanted to end the track with the distant “kalimba” voice within the kalimba reverb.

Apart from a tiny bit of compression (Ableton built-in) and limiter (George Yohng’s W1) added, not much else mixing is done (my apologies).

Project Proposal 1 – Will Walters

I’d like to make a playable 3x Oscillator in Max. The basic functionality will be three separate oscillators with switchable waveforms which can be (de)tuned and volume adjusted separately. On top of hooking this up to a keyboard (and maybe functionality to have it read from USB Midi input?) I could also implement a bunch of user-customizable options like hi/lo pass filters, panning, reverb, and EQ options. I could also add some visualizations of the resulting waveform.

Assignment 3 – A TV Theme Song in Different Spaces

For this assignment I took a midi mapping of the Gravity Falls theme song and ran it through a electric piano instrument in Ableton to create a totally reverb-less audio track. I think fed it through the convolution reverb with a IR taken from my bedroom, an IR taken from popping a balloon in my backpack while recording from the outside, a church bell, and an accordion. I then took each of these tracks and cross-faded between them to create a piece. The IRs and individual tracks can be downloaded here.

 

 

Assignment 3 — Jonathan Cavell

For this assignment, I made patch utilizing a sample from the intro vamp of an old radio play narrated by Vincent Price.

The recording I provided uses all four convolutions at once — 3 of which are only played once and the fourth, which is a simple IR from a stairwell is offset from the others and then put through a large set of delays to generate a cascade of sound — as if it is coming from multiple sources placed close together in the same room.

The two impulse recordings which are not actual impulses were chosen by how the fit together and were edited for length so that they could be played simultaneously and build to a wall of sound before tapering off.

The end result is below.

I think even further narrative content could be developed by carefully made audio cues. However, I think these may be better triggered using a launchpad rather than programming each in — so there is a greater element of indeterminacy.

Assignment 3 – Will Walters

My original signal is a demo version of the song ‘You or your Memory’ by The Mountain Goats.

The original:

 

My first two signals were created by popping a balloon from the other side of a door as the recorder, and by recording the sound through Snapchat, then playing it back.

Here’s the IR and the song from the other side of a door:

 

And here’s the IR and the song through Snapchat:

 

Next, I used as my IR the sound of me knocking on my desk with my recorder pressed to the desk. There was a plate on my desk, and the sound of a fork rattling on the plate creates a pitch.

Here are the IR and the song convolved with this IR:

I was a bit disappointed to see that it sounded similar to the first two, but it is cool to note that the frequency from the fork and plate cause a resonance in the song.

 

Finally, I recorded a short clip of myself eating yogurt and used that as the IR. I’d like to thank my roommate for donating his yogurt for the sake of art. Here’s that IR and the resulting song:

 

Sorry that the IR for this is so gross. But, the different spikes in the yogurt IR do create a cool preverb effect in the song.

Assignment 3 – Supposition of Eggs in D♭ Minor, alternate title: Eggs Over my Guitar

I was cooking eggs and really liked the sound it was making in the pan. I then recorded my brother asking me if I’m cooking eggs and decided to use that as my original signal.

This is the original signal:

For the two “normal” IRs, I decided to convolute my eggs using a recording of knocking my hand on my ceramic bathtub and clapping my hands in my basement.
The eggs in my bathtub sound like this:

The eggs in my basement sound like this:

I had recorded the actual sound of eggs frying in a pan, so I decided to use this as my IR. It created a nutritious soundscape.
This is the IR:

This is the soundscape:

Here is an ambient piece called Eggs Over my Guitar. The IR is a recording of me playing this aimless twinkly guitar noodle:

Eggs Over my Guitar:

Here is a bonus track called Playing the Guitar with my Dead, Dried Flowers.  I had originally recorded myself caressing a vase of dead flowers to use as my IR for the eggs, but it sounded much cooler over this cheesy guitar phrase I played:

This is the IR of the dead flowers:

And finally the bonus track:

Assignment 3 – Sarika Bajaj

For my assignment 3, I convolved a series of impulse recordings with the quintessential audio clip of Dobby (the house elf from the Harry Potter series) being freed from his master (which I obtained a twenty second clip of from SoundBoard.com).

Original Audio Clip (Dobby is Free):

My two acoustic space IR recordings were taken by recording the audio of a balloon popping (with its accompanying reverb). The locations I chose to record were the women’s bathroom in the basement of Baker hall and the overlook present on the second floor of Baker Hall.

IR from Women’s Bathroom in Baker Basement:

Convolution of Dobby and Women’s Bathroom IR:

IR from Overlook in Baker:

Convolution of Dobby and Overlook in Baker:

I then explored a little bit of what the Dobby recording would sound like when convolved with common soundtrack noises that might be present in a bad movie. Specifically, I chose gurgling water, seagulls cawing, applause, and crickets soundtracks that I downloaded from SoundBible.com.

Gurgling Water IR:

Convolution of Dobby and Gurgling Water:

Seagulls IR:

Convolution of Dobby and Seagulls:

Applause IR:

Convolution of Dobby and Applause:

Crickets IR:

Convolution of Dobby and Crickets:

After making these samples, I started exploring some of the built-in Max examples and ran into one named “convolution workshop.” A bit curious about what it would do, I merged our original convolution reverb patch this patch. Specifically, I pushed the “Dobby is free” audio and the “applause” IR through the original convolution and then pushed the result into a source filter convolution with the “Dobby is free” audio again. The result sounds significantly more noisey than the previous results.

Further convoluted Dobby and Applause:

The final Max patched used to create the last audio piece can be found here: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/37367ee3fca07b4a057610ee7ff6630d

 

Project 1 Proposal – Kevin Darr

I would like to make a project involving the use of a MIDI Fighter 3D to control lights in the media lab as well trigger samples. This project is inspired by the work of Shawn Wasabi, an electronic artist and performer known for his work with MIDI Fighter controllers. Here is a link to one of his works using the MIDI Fighter 64.