Assignments, week of 9/15

Continue working in the terminal with Score11, this week with samples using the “tsamp” (transposing sampler) and “gran” instruments and examples.

Top use your own sounds, use the “mksffuncs” utility to generate functions tables for Score11/Csound, discussed and using documentation provided here.

An example, using a sound from the sound file library, glock.c6.wav and glock.c8.wav0 would look like this:

mksffuncs glock.c6.wav glock.gs7.wav

* f1 0 65536 -1 “/sflib/perc/glock.c6.wav” 0 0 0 ; < 0.918458 sec
* f2 0 131072 -1 “/sflib/perc/glock.gs7.wav” 0 0 0 ; < 2.368435 sec

“mksffuncs” knows to search for the files by name in the library and generates two functions appropriate for immediate use in Score11. See the documentation for other options available to mksffuncs.

Some readings for this week, primarily on field recording and “soundscapes”:

R. Murray Schafer’s Tuning of the World (complete book, for reference)

–> For this week, please read chapters Eight and Nine on Notation and Classification. You may wish to peruse the earlier sections, such as the Introduction, to get a better sense of the text before diving in on these more detailed sections. The book is magnificent, something to get to know better in your free time, including cools diagrams like this one that reduces Western Music into a blob within a Fletcher-Munson curve!:

Some other general resources for this week can be found here:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology field recording techniques

Cornell Lab of Ornithology recording tips 

For this week, please concentrate on two tasks:

First, create one each Score11 sampler or granular synthesis scores and sounds. You can peruse the existing examples and create variations, say using your own sound files from last week or those in the sound file library (“lsfl” to list sounds, “psfl” to play them OR “findsflib” to search and “findsflib -p” to search  and play automatically). To create functions for your soundfiles, use the “mksffuncs” command as discussed and using documentation provided here. As always, a manual for Score11 is available online here.

Second, using the binaural heads or microphone kits in B27 and one of the portable recorders (B27 or library Zoom recorder), make one or more short binaural recordings, either in studio or out. Be sure your levels are nice and hot without clipping. You can monitor the audio live through headphones, either our or your own earbuds, to which the mics can be affixed, left and right, into your ears.

Finally, get to know the MIDI controllers in the studio for use with Abelton Live. A suggestion would be to use the sounds recorded binaurally to make a short performance. The intention, for now, is to become familiar with this more direct and dynamic interaction with sounds.

To use the binural kits (head or wired mics), plug in in the 1/8″ jack of each to the rear of the H4n where it says, “ext mic”. This will disable the onboard stereo pair and use the binaural set. Finally, in the input menu you will have to turn on “plug-in power”, which provides the 2.5V power needed for the microphone.

A page from the manual explaining further is available here (click on image to expand):here

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