My Final Post
Finalizing my pieces
The past week I have been in the 5.1 room at uni a number of times, smoothing out my surround automation and tweaking bits where and there.
I added a synthesized part to Guitar Study to underlay some of the guitar sounds at the start and end of the piece. It was difficult getting these parts at the right level, as they needed to blend in with the other sounds rather then becoming its own distinct sound object.
The main problem I had when working on Kinetic was that there was allot of low-end frequencies towards the start of the piece. I really enjoy these low rumbling frequencies but it was difficult to find a compromise between allowing these frequencies to take over and removing them completely. In the end I found a balance that I was happy with, there is still allot of low end, which could be mistaken for unwanted rumble but this is exactly what I wanted from this sound.
As I have mentioned before my Kinetic piece is a study of kinetic energy through sound. The piece grew from a sample I recorded of a jack adapter rolling back and forth across a dip in a plastic chair. While I was collecting possible samples for the piece this one interested me in particular as it seemed like a pure representation of energy in sound. I explored this further by transforming the sound in supercollider. I triggered the sample a number of different times some faster then the original recording and some slower. This resulted in some awesome sounds, which I thought were really lively and interesting. The final piece explores this energy from all angles and perspectives. The piece begins and ends with obvious examples of various types of what I would consider ‘natural’ energy for example low rumbles of thunder and the light fluttering of many leaves. The middle of the piece intends to explore more synthesized forms of energy harnessed by man, channeled through circuits and wires.
I am pleased with my pieces overall, I like the contrast between the Guitar piece being drawn out and drone like (I would love to have made this piece 20-40 minutes long, however I don’t think it would ever have been marked!)And the Kinetic piece being full of little clusters of rapid movement. If I was to make them again I may have gone about it in slightly different ways or if i had more time I would like to have refined them further, I still feel certain sections are too disjointed.
