• Huber, David and Williams, Philip, Professional Microphone Techniques
• Pellman, Sam, An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music ML 1380 .P391 I6 1994
• Roads, Curtis, The Computer Music Tutorial ML MT56.R628 C73 1996

Recordings:

(Available for your listening pleasure on Windows computer fury and Linux computer sound in room 53:)
• Barrier, Jean-Baptists, Chreode I
• Berio, Luciano, Visage, (also available at Sibley Library: CD 7631)
• Koonce, Paul, Pins
• Morrill, Dexter, Getz Variations, (also available at Sibley Library: CD 5150 )
• Vaggione, Horacio, Agon
• Wishart, Trevor, Vox-5

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  Course materials fee of $9 covers the cost of the following items you will be given:
  • One cdr, one cd-rw and one dvd disc (format of your choice) in jewel cases
  • Copies of handouts from studio manuals and other documentation
  Pay the cashier and bring your receipt to class to receive your materials.
  Additional cd and dvd discs and other studio supplies can be purchased as needed any time during the year. Check the price sheet posted outside room 53, pay the cashier on the first floor and bring your receipt to a staff member to receive your supplies.

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  Course grading: Your semester grade will be based on three evaluations of your work:

  1. Individual test 1 on material convered in units 1 and 2, week of October 2 and 4 (20 % of semester grade)
  2. Individual test 2 on unit 3 material, week of November 6 and 8 (20 % of semester grade)
  3. Individual (mini-)test 3 on unit 4 material, December 4 and 6 (10 % of semester grade)
  4. Semester compositional (or recording/processing/mixing) project, due Monday, Dec. 17 at noon (40 % of semester grade)
  5. Class participation (10 % of semester grade)
  I have scheduled a concert of works realized in the studios this term on Monday, Dec. 17 in room 120. during the last week of classes. Your piece will be included unless you take specific measures to prevent it from being included.

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  Weekly assignments for semester 1, autumn 2007:

  [All optional assignments -- suggested but not required -- are printed below in brackets and in small type.]

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  Unit 1 : Analog and digital audio recording and mixing techniques

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  Week 1 : Sept. 4, 6 : Course overview; analog and digital signals; microphones; mic pre-amps; console mixers

  Tues: Course structure; lab times; usage of the studios ; acoustic, electronic, magnetic and digital signals and signal paths; microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers ; microphone placement; microphone and speaker fields; types of microphones; mic polar patterns; characteristics of large condenser mics; setting mic signal levels on the Focusrite Voicemaster pre-amps
  Thurs : some basic acoustical properties of sound: frequency, amplitude and timbre; distortion and noise; introduction to the Yamaha O3D mixer: input channels, preamps, faders, panning, stereo buss and monitoring; the Totalmix application on the Windows and Macintosh computers; the Blue Sky BMC controller

  Reading assignment:

  1. Pellman : the sections on The Science of Sound (pages 1 through 9, up to Phase) and on Transducers (pages 14-19)
  2. Roads, Digital Representations of Sound, pages 22-36; and Dynamic Ranges of Digital Audio Systems, pages 38-41 (up to Oversampling)
  3. Huber and Williams, pages 9 (Frequency Response) through 15
  4. Focusrite Voicemaster handout
  5. O3D handout : Introduction, pages 24 - 42

  Labs and individual studio work:

  Practice micing various types of mono acoustic signals (not just your voice) with the studio Audio Technica large condenser cardiod microphones through the Voicemaster pre-amps, monitoring these signals over headphones and, through the O3D, over the Genelec speakers. (Be careful to avoid feedback when monitoring mic signals over loudspeakers.) Strive to achieve good signal quality and hot (but never distorted) levels. This will you will get a lot of help from your TA. By the end of next week you should be able, without such assistance, to set up and control the entire signal path -- the microphone, the Voicemaster preamp and the O3D.

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  Week 2 : Sept. 11, 13: Signal paths; amplitude, levels, gain staging and compression; equalization (EQ); fundamentals of digital audio

  Tues : Amplitude compression, equalization (EQ), filtering and de-essing with the Voicemaster pre-amp and the Yamaha O3D mixer
  Thurs: Digital (computer) representation of audio signals; digital sampling rates, bit depths, signal levels, clipping points and quantization noise; digital recording procedures; creating calibration tones with the O3D oscillator; more information on micing techniques for recording specific instruments; introduction to the ECMC MIDI studio Windows workstation and the Windows desktop; the ECMC web site

  Reading assignment:

  1. O3D handout
     • Chapter 14: About the dynamics processors, pages 144 to end,
     • Chapter 5: About O3D EQ , pages 46 ff. and
     • Using the onboard oscillator, page 212
  2. Roads, Dynamic Range Processing, 390-394
  3. [Pellman : Pages 61 through the middle of page 64 (up to Digital Recorders)]
  4. [Roads, Mixing consoles, 362-367 (up to Hybrid Consoles]

  Labs and individual studio work:

  Continue to practice micing and pre-amplifying various types of acoustic signals. Practice using two mic sources and mixing these sources at the O3D. Using the Voicemaster and O3D, practice applying dynamics compression, EQ and de-essing to these mic signals. Make sure that you understand the basic operation of Totalmix, and of the BMC bass management controller for monitoring and adjusting listening levels.

  Listening assignment: Luciano Berio, Visage, CD 7631

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  Unit 2: Digital modification ("effects" processing) of signals

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  Week 3 : Sept. 18 , 20 : Introduction to Windows system igor; making and editing digital recordings; "effects" processing; delay lines

  
  Tues: full usage of the RME "TotalMix" audio signal routing application; the sflib collection; playing audio files with MediaPlayer; recording and simple editing of soundfiles with Audacity
  Thurs : routing signals to external signal processing devices with the O3D AUX SEND circuits; the Effectron digital delay line; common delay line "effects": comb filtering, flanging and phasing; spatial ambience, distance cues and reverberation; room acoustics and sound reinforcement systems; musique concrete and the early history of electronic music (1945-1960)

  Reading assignment:

  1. With the Audacity soundfile editing application open, click on Help --> Contents in the upper right corner of the Audacity window to open the quick reference manual. Read through the tutorial on various menus and tracks.
  2. From the ECMC sflib page at http://ecmc.rochester.edu/ecmc/docs/sflib/sflib.html, read through the descriptions of some of the sflib folders, including Overview of the ECMC SFLIB directories
  3. O3D handout: AUX SEND circuits, Section 9, pages 89 - 92
  4. the Effectron manual handout

  Labs and individual studio work:

  1. Learn how to use and find your way around the Windows desktop
  2. Review your RME Totalmix class handout and make sure you fully understand how to route signals through TotalMix
  3. Learn how to access the ECMC web pages (especially the MIDI Studio section of the Online DOCs page) with the Firefox browser
  4. Beginning this week, and over the next few weeks audition soundfiles in many of the folders of the sflib collection. These sound sources should prove useful to you in your work in the studios this year.
  5. With Audacity, practice recording microphone signals into soundfiles, importing sflib soundfiles, applying simple edits (e.g. trimming) to these soundfiles and saving the edited versions to your own folder.
  6. Learn how to use
     • the O3D Aux. Send circuits
     • the Effectron digital delay line

  Listening assignment: Dexter Morrill, Getz Variations, CD 5150 (Listen especially to the last movement, in which the soloist plays through a delay line.)

  Assignment for Test 1, due October 2 or 4:

  1. Record 10-20 seconds of a dry acoustic vocal signal into a Windows soundfile with Audacity
  2. Record 10-20 seconds of a dry acoustic instrumental or concrete signal into a Windows soundfile with Audacity
     These 2 soundfile recordings will be evaluated not only on technical (audio) quality, but also musical inventiveness.

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  Week 4 : Sept. 25, 27 : Reverberation and spatial ambience; modulation; (intentional) distortion techniques; O3D effects

  Tues : Reverberation, sound localization and spatial ambience; the architecture of the Lexicon PCM70 digital reverberator and "effects" processor; altering the PCM70 presets and storing your own programs; placing and "choreographing" sounds in a mix
  Thurs : distortion and ring modulation techniques using the Roland Boss GT-3 guitar effects processor; effects processing on the O3D; using processing devices in combination

  Reading assignment:

  1. the PCM70 manual handout
  2. Boss GT-3 manual handout
  3. O3D handout: About the Onboard Effects, pages 118 - 131
  4. Pellman, The Science of Sound, Part II , pages 81 through 90 (up to the bottom paragraph), and pages 108 to the top of 113
  5. [Roads, Fixed Delay Effects, 435-440]
  6. [Roads, Reverberation 472-478 (up to Unit Reverberators)]

  Labs and individual studio work: Learn how to use

  1. the PCM70
  2. the GT-3 stompbox
  3. effects processors on the O3D

  Listening assignment: Jean-Baptiste Barrier, Chreode I

  Assignment for Test 1, due October 2 or 4:

  During your appointment next week you will be asked to set up one or two mic signal paths that include common "effects" processing, such as
  • dynamics processing and EQ (O3D mixer)
  • echos (Effectron or PCM70)
  • reverberation (PCM70
  • ring modulation and distortion (Boss GT-3)

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  Week 5 : Oct. 2, 4 : TEST 1 on basic recording and signal processing techniques

  No regular classes or labs this week. Individual appointment tests covering material in units 1 and 2.
  In addition to your prepared soundfiles and effects processing (see week 4 and week 5 assignments), I also will ask you a few questions on
  • the studio equipment covered so far
  • the reading assignments
  • the Berio, Morrill and Barrier listening examples.

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  Week 6: October 9, 11 : Using external media (cds, dvds, flash drives)

  Tues. University holiday. No class.
  Thurs: Playing and ripping audio compact discs; the ECMC library of cd sound samples; burning audio and data to cd-r, cd-rw and dvd discs with Nero Burning; DVD formats; using flash drives; printing files to the HP printer in room 53.

  Reading assignment:

  Nero Burning class handout

  Labs and individual studio work:

  Learn how to create both audio and data cdr and cd-rw discs, and data DVD discs, with Nero Burning
  Throughout the rest of this course be sure to back up all of your important files promptly to cdr, cd-rw or dvd discs or to a flash drive so that you can restore these files in the event of a system disaster, or if they are inadvertently deleted or become corrupted.

  Listening assignment: Horacio Vaggione, Agon

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  Unit 3: Computer hard disk recording, editing, mixing and signal processing

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  Week 7 : Oct. 16, 18 : Introduction to Cubase SX

  Tues : Introduction to Cubase SX: the project window; recording and importing soundfiles; viewing and editing soundfiles and tracks in various Cubase windows; "destructive" and "non-destructive" editing procedures; simple track mixing in the main project window
  Thurs: Cubase: regions and markers; punch-in and punch-out recording; mixing in the mixer window; dynamics processing, EQ and "effects" processing

  Reading assignment:

  Cubase class handout, pages 5-58 through 5-67 (Introduction) and pages 7-81 through 7-94 (recording)

  Labs and individual studio work:

  1. Practice recording into microphone signals into soundfiles with Cubase, and importing soundfiles from the sflib folders
  2. Practice editing soundfile recordings in Cubase and mixing tracks in the project window. Also practice creating regions and markers and adding EQ, compression and "effects."

  Listening assignment: Trevor Wishart, Vox-5

  Assignment for Test 2, due the week of November 6, 8:

  Create two sequencing "projects" with Cubase, each about 20 seconds in duration. One of these mixes should be in stereo, the other in 5.1 surround format. Within each of these mixes:

  1. Use at least four sound sources. At least two of these sources must be soundfiles you have recorded with a mic from acoustic sound sources. If you wish, the others can be sounds from the ECMC sflib collection, from the ECMC CD sample library, or from some other pre-recorded source
  2. Apply some signal processing techniques to modify these sound sources, using DSP effects available in Cubase (e.g. EQ, noise gating, time compression and expansion, pitch shifting, room simulators, using only regions of longer soundfiles, and so on).
  Your sequences will be evaluated on musical as well as technical criteria. Use a variety of signal processing techniques, but don't go overboard. (I hope to hear some arresting musical ideas, continuity and formal shape, not merely a catalog of "special effects," and echos.) Perhaps you will be able to incorporate some of this assignment into your semester project.
  During this appointment you also will be asked to edit one of your Cubase project files, applying temporary changes.

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  Week 8 : October 23, 25 : Further work with Cubase

  Tues: Cubase automation procedures; multichannel recording and playing; "surround sound" formats; possibilities and problems with "surround sound" playback; creating 5.1 mixes in Cubase
  Thurs: Syncing video to audio in applications such as Cubase and Vegas; DVD-Video formats, DVD-Audio format and MLP encoding; burning DVD-A discs in room 52 with discWelder Chrome;
  Discussion of some possibilities for your final projects; some considerations: pacing and timing; static and goal-oriented designs; notation ; planning a composition

  Reading assignment:

  1. Cubase handout: pages 10- 124 thru 10-139
  2. In working with the Cubase topics covered this week you probably will want to refer to portions of the hardcopy or the online versions of the Cubase SX Operation Manual
     (A link to the online version of the Cubase manual is available from the ECMC web site Documentation page)
  3. [ Manuals for discWelder Chrome and SurCode MLP are available in room 52 if you need reference information on procedures for creating and burning DVD-A discs]

  Labs and individual studio work:

  1. In Cubase, practice using automation
  2. Practice making 5.1 mixes with Cubase.
  3. Learn how to prepare and burn DVD-A discs with discWelder Chrome in room 52

  Trevor Listening assignment: Paul Koonce, Pins

  Final project assignment :
  Begin planning your semester project. For most of you this will consist of a short (2-5 minute) composition, using a variety of acoustic sound sources and signal processing techniques. If you wish, these sound sources can include sounds copied from the studio CD library of sampled sound sources as well as microphone signals. Eventually you will also be able to incorporate, if you wish, some sounds from the k2000 hardware synthesizer or Kontakt software synthesizer (both to be covered in coming weeks), but you should concentrate primarily on acoustic rather than on MIDI sound sources.
  The format for your project can be either

  • Stereo, recorded to an audio compact disc, or else
  • 5.1 surround, burned to a DVD-A disc.
  We will discuss your project ideas during individual appointments in next week. next appointments then test then k2k

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  Week 9 : October 30, November 1 : Individual Appointments

  No regular classes or labs this week. Individual appointments to discuss your ideas and sketches for a semester project.
  PROJECTS ARE DUE MONDAY, DECEMBER 17 at noon. However, if your project must be copied to one of the ECMC notebook computers for live playback during the class concert, all files to be copied are due SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 at noon.

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  Week 10 : Nov. 6, 8 : TEST 2 covering Cubase sequencing

  No regular classes or labs this week.
  Class time will be devoted to individual appointments in which you will play your prepared Cubase sequences (see week 7 assignment), and to make some temporary edits and changes in these "project" files. In addition to this prepared portion of the test, I will ask you a few questions on the Vaggione, Wishart and Koonce listening examples and on reading covered in unit 3.

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  Unit 4: Introduction to MIDI ; hardware and software synthesizers, samplers and controllers

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  Week 11 : November 13, 15 : MIDI ; hardware synthesizers and samplers

  Tues : basic MIDI resources of the studio; the studio MIDI interfaces; playing preset "programs" on the Kurzweil k2000 synthesizer ; accessing K2000 "programs" (sounds) within Cubase; MIDI controllers: keyboard MIDI control messages, including velocity sensitivity, aftertouch, pitch and modulation wheels and foot pedals
  Thurs: Using sounds from the Kontakt software sampler in Cubase sequences; how hardware and software samplers and synthesizers work

  Reading assignment:

  1. k2000 class handout
  2. Kontakt class handout

  Labs and individual studio work:

  1. Play through many of the preset sounds on the K2000 synthesizer, and, while doing this, try using the various controllers on the Fatar keyboard
  2. Learn how to use Kontakt both as a standalone sampler and as a Cubase plugin

  Assignment for Test 3, due December 4 or 6 :

  Create a short (ca. 20-40 second) Cubase sequence using ONLY sound sources from the K2000, from the Marimba Lumina or from Kontakt. Include at least three different timbres.
  This mini-project doesn't have to be complicated or fancy -- just competently and musically done in terms of using sound samples from Kontakt, the K2K and/or Marimba Lumina. You should be able to do the whole thing in a couple of hours.

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  Week 12 : Nov. 20 : MIDI percussion controllers

  Tues: the dk10 MIDI percussion controller; the Marimba Lumina controller
  Thurs : No class. Happy Thanksgiving.

  Reading assignment:

  1. the dk10 manual handout
  2. the Marimba Lumina manual handout

  No labs this week. Individual studio work :

  1. Practice using the dk10 controller and the Marimba Lumina. As part of your mini-test on December 4 or 6 I will ask you to play one of these controllers.
  2. Continue work on your semester projects

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  Week 13 : Nov. 27, 29 : Acoustical and psychoacoustical properties of sound

  Tues: In preparation for our work with synthesis techniques next semester we will discuss some important acoustical and psychoacoustical principles; properties of instrumental and vocal tones: amplitude and pitch envelopes; vibrato, tremolo and beating; using the oscilloscope to display signals
  Thurs: timbre ; formants

  Recommended (but not required) reading : [Roads Tutorial, Psychoacoustics in Computer Music, 1054-1064]

  Labs and individual studio work:

  1. Go over the operation of the dk10 and Marimba Lumina
  2. Obtain help from your lab instructor with any problems or questions you have regarding your semester project

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  Week 14 : December 4, 6 : Mini-TEST

  No regular classes or labs this week. Individual appointments will include:

  1. Playing of your sequence using sounds from the K2000, Marimba Lumina and/or Kontakt.
  2. I will ask you to play the Marimba Lumina, or else to use the dk10 to play sounds from either Kontakt or from the k2000
  3. Discussion of your progress to date on your final project.

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  Week 15 : December 11, 13 : Wrappin' it up

  Tues: Preparations for our end-of-semester concert; introduction to Macintosh system wozzeck and to OSX; running Cubase, Kontakt, sflib and other familiar resources on the Mac
  Thurs: Class will not meet, but I will meet with many of you to help you finish your semester project.
  

  Labs will not meet, but the TAs will post office hours during which they will be available to help you complete your semester projects.

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  If your project is on a cd or dvd-a disc, this disc is due by noon on Monday, December 17.
  If your project is a realtime work that must be played from hard disk, make certain it is on the Windows users' partition and ready to be copied to one of our laptops by noon on Sunday, December 16.

  We will present a concert of works produced in the studios this term on Monday, December 17 at 6:00 in room 120

  Projects will be graded within a few days of their presentation on the class concert, and can be picked up in the Composition Department office anytime afterwards.

  Before leaving:

  • Back up all important soundfiles and other files you may wish to use in the future onto data cds, a data dvd or a flash drive.
  • Delete most of your soundfiles, including all large soundfile mixes, and also large Cubase "project" files, unless you will be continuing to work with some of these files during the semester break or at the very beginning of next semester. If you definitely will be using these soundfiles for further work during the next few weeks, let a staff member know of your plans. Otherwise, we likely will delete these files in late December or early January.
  Happy semester break!