Computer Music Studio : Project1 - Field Recording

Format:
1) Field recording material on DAT (or CD transferred from memory card if using the Marantz recorder).

Due date: 1/26 - present in class.

Description: For the first composition, you are to create a studio composition sound "mix." The first step is to make a good field recording that will serve as your source material for the composition.

For the recording, you should check out a portable DAT or Marantz solid state recorder and a stereo condenser microphone from the Equipment Room. No matter what recorder you use, you should make a high quality recording at 44.1K samples/second in an uncompressed format such as .aif or .wav format. NOT mp3 format and not a recording from your laptop or telephone mic.

Recommended quipment from Arts equipment room:

DAT recorder Tascam DA-P1 Porta-DAT, or

Marantz solid state recorder (if you use this you will have to transfer the data to another medium to work with it)

Audio Technica AT-825 Stereo Condenser Microphone.

For the tascam dap1 DAT recorder, make sure to have the following settings:

audio input: analog
analog input: mic
sampling rate: 44.1K samples/second
phantom power: on
put in “record mode”
visually monitor levels on the meter and listen to the sound through headphones.
keep the level below “0” Db.

This can be a field recording of an environment, or a recording of an object. You should make sure that the recording is done WELL, with a good signal-to-noise ratio, and a minimum of external body noises/mic noises/etc. The length is not as important as the quality, and the characteristics of the sound. You will be working with this recording for the next several weeks so think about what you want to do and explore sound through the recorder. Ultimately, you may which to work within one of the following studio composition “genres” which we will talk more about as we go along:

* Soundscape Composition: Following Hildegard Westerkamp’s definition (see the reading on-line), a composition which uses as it’s material a recorded environment, not abstracted, making audible it’s relationship to the original source, or to a place, time, or situation.

* Musique Concrete Composition: A sound piece which makes use of a recorded object, environment, instrument, etc, as sound material for abstract composition. Here the interest is perhaps more in musical form and structure.


* Single Sound Source Composition: A sound piece made by transforming and generating material out of a single sound source, such as a drop of water, a car engine, a dog barking, etc.


* Other ideas that interest YOU. Your composition can be environmental/ ambient or be based on traditional musical structures/ chords/ rhythms etc.

Reading/Resources: