For our first project, I decided to combine our knowledge of convolution and fft~ visuals. I felt that this project demonstrates the visual component of the relationship of pre-recorded and manipulated sound as one can witness the difference between the x and y axis of this visual.
Going into this project, I knew that I wanted to do something related to convolution as it truly is fascinating to me. Being a music major, the concept of taking established music or sounds and being able to hear how they sound in either obvious acoustics or abstract really interests me. I love the idea however of exploring the sound space of abstract acoustics, such as the acoustic space of a snare drum, and seeing how a pre-recorded sound interacts within this space. What I also find amazing is the ability to use fft~ within Max to help emphasize the composite relationship between sounds and music.
For this project, I used songs Lift Yourself by Kanye West and a sound effect file of a snare drum for the convolution. As the song goes on, I recorded the manipulation between both the intensity of the convoluted and dry sounds and you can see that by each component getting significantly larger and smaller; the horizontal squares is the dry sound and the vertical shape is the convoluted. As one gets louder, it is interesting to listen to the musical composite as you can hear both the “before” and “after” simultaneously. If you listen closely to the convoluted sound, you can even hear bits of the original signal of the drum.
I hope you enjoy this project as much as I have! Here is the link to my patch and sounds used:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GM3Dwmh-RBfK9_KchZaEvuHQQGsH2TSC?usp=sharing