Combined Media Portal: February 2016

Monday, February 29, 2016

Eisenstein 5 methods of Montage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXFSBlQOe4

Thursday, February 25, 2016

BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JANE DOCUMENTARY LINK

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

GARAGEBAND 10 TUTORIALS ( NEW VERSION) & ABLETON TUTORIALS

Six short tutorials on Garageband 10: They total around 45 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA6uhUQWZfvEkQdLT6QrXNODLzG0FrkDC

Ableton tutorials:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/ableton-live

Monday, February 22, 2016

Arduino
We will start with arduino in a few weeks.   You should order your Uno board now and get acquainted with some of the basics.      If you have a laptop,   I would reccommend downloading the arduino software and bringing this computer to class when we start.

arduino.cc- this is the the main site for arduino.   Where you can download the software and do some basic tutorials

You will each need an Arduino UNO board.   There are a lot of options and it can be overwhelming. Basically there are 'real' Arduino-made ones that should cost about $25-33 and there are knock-offs that cost anywhere from $4-20.   They are all the same, electronically but may look a little different, colors, layout, etc.   Beware of the super cheap ones.   They are usually shipped from China and can take 2 months to arrive.   It is much better to pay a little extra$ to get it from a US seller.   Here are two that I found on ebay:
Arduino UNO on ebay
Another one

If you think that arduino and/or electronics are something you would be really into and would like to explore on a deeper level, you may want to purchase an "arduino kit." Ask Charlie for recommendations.

DIY Electronic Audio and Effects
There were a few request for info on analog electronics and DIY audio effects....
Here are a few:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?board=2.0
DIY Stompboxes is user forum on all things DIY effect-related.   Can get a little deep, but there is a lot of good info here and some really brilliant member who can help you out if you are in a jam. Use the 'Search' feature first, tho' !

http://www.tonepad.com/

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/

These two site are filled with complete projects- mostly versions of classic guitar effects pedals. You can buy complete kits, pre-made circuit boards, or just get the schematics, parts list, and layout for free and make it all yourself.    Tip: Start out small.

http://www.geofex.com/
This site can be little obtuse difficult to search   (and it looks like a geocities site from the 1990's ) but it has a ton of info on audio electronics and how stuff works.

Audio Pioneers Article & Video Links

READING ASSIGNMENT: THE DEVIL FINDS WORK EXCERPTS

EXCERPTS FROM: "THE DEVIL FINDS WORK"

JAMES BALDWIN

On Lawrence Of Arabia (1962):

David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia. Image via Wikipedia.

“For, this overwhelming desert, though it exists geographically, and was actually filmed by an actual camera crew, sent there for that purpose, is put to a use which is as far from reality as are most of the people we encounter in it. The least real of these people is Lawrence himself. This is not O’Toole’s fault: but so grave an adventure can scarcely be ascribed to the vagaries and idealism of a single man. Lawrence’s courage and steadfastness are given as admirable, because hard-won — here, the film, unconsciously, rather patronizes Lawrence; his complexities are barely — or, rather, perhaps, endlessly — hinted at, that is to say never illuminated. His rapport with the Arabs is of great use to the British, whose attitude toward him, otherwise, is at best ambivalent. The film takes the view that he was a valiant, maverick, naive and headstrong, brutally broken in battle, and betrayed, less by his country than by his inability to confront — as do his superiors — the hard facts of life, in this case, referring, principally, to the limits and exigencies of power. And it would appear to be true that Lawrence’s concept of power existed almost entirely on a messianic level — indeed, on a level far more complex and painful than that — but it is almost impossible to pursue this speculation within the confines described by the film.
The film presents us with an inadvertent martyr to the cause of spreading civilization: the speeding of the light to those in darkness. One of the hazards of this endeavor is that of finding oneself in the hands of the infidels. This is what happens to Lawrence in the film (and in a far more fascinating and terrible way in his book). In the film, he is captured by the Turks, refuses the lustful attentions of a Turkish Bey, and is raped by the soldiers. The precipitates his subsequent slaughter of the fleeing Turkish Army. This slaughter destroys his soul, and, though the desert has now claimed him forever, he no longer has any role in the desert, and so must go home to England, dead, to die.
The film begins with the death of Lawrence in order to avoid, whether consciously or not, the deepest and most dangerous implications of this story. We are confronted with a fallen hero, and we trace the steps which lead him to his end. But the zeal which drove Lawrence into the desert does not begin at the point at which we meet him in the film, but farther back than that, in that complex of stratifications called England. Of this, Lawrence himself was most tormentedly aware.
The English can be said to exemplify the power of nostalgia to an uncanny degree. Nothing the world holds, from Australia to Africa, to America, India, to China, to Egypt, appears to have made the faintest imprint on the English soul: wherever the English are is — or will resist, out of perversity, or at its peril, becoming — England. (Not, on the other hand, of course, that it can ever truly be England: but it can try.) This is a powerful presumption, but why, then, the ruder recipient cannot but demand, do not the English stay in England? It would appear that this island people need endless corroboration of their worth: and the tragedy of their history has been their compulsion to make the world their mirror, and this to a degree not to be equalled in the history of any other people — and with a success, if that is the word, not to be equalled in the history of any other people. I liked the things beneath me — Lawrence, from Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, is speaking — and took my pleasures and adventures downward. There seemed a certainty in degradation, a final safety. Man could rise to any height, but there was an animal level beneath which he could not fall. It was a satisfaction on which to rest.
The necessity, then, of those “lesser breeds without the law” — those wogs, barbarians, niggers — is this: one must not become more free, nor become more base than they: must not be used as they are used, nor yet use them as their abandonment allows one to use them: therefore, they must be civilized. But, when they are civilized, they may simply “spuriously imitate [the civilizer] back again,” leaving the civilizer with “no satisfaction on which to rest.”
Thus, it may be said that the weary melancholy underlying Lawrence of Arabia stems from the stupefying apprehension that, whereas England may have been doomed to civilize the world, no power under heaven can civilize England. I am using England, at the moment, arbitrarily, simply because England is responsible for Lawrence: but the principle illustrates the dilemma of all the civilizing, or colonizing powers, particularly now, as their power begins to be, at once, more tenuous and more brutal, and their vaunted identities revealed as being dubious indeed. The greater the public power, the greater the private, inadmissible despair; the greater the danger to all human life. The camera remains on Lawrence’s face a long time before he finally cries, No prisoners! and leads his men to massacre the Turks. This pause is meant to recall to us the intolerable mortification he has endured, and to make comprehensible the savagery of this English schoolboy.
Peter O’Toole’s famed cry, as described by James Baldwin:

On The Birth Of A Nation (1915):

D.W. Griffith’s The Birth Of A Nation. Image via Wikipedia.

“For, the most striking thing about the merciless plot on which The Birth Of A Nation depends is that, although the legend of the nigger controls it the way the day may be controlled by threat of rain, there are really no niggers in it. The plot is entirely controlled by the image of the mulatto, and there are two of them, one male and one female. All of the energy of the film is siphoned off into these two dreadful and improbable creatures. It might have made sense — that is, might have made a story — if these tow mulattoes had been related to each other, or to the renegade politician, whose wards they are: but, no, he seems to have dreamed them up (they are like creatures in a nightmare someone is having) and they are related to each other only by their envy of white people…..
The idea of producing a child, on condition, and under the guarantee, that the child cannot reproduce must, after all, be relatively rare: no matter how dim a view one may take of the human race. It argues an extraordinarily spiritual condition, or an unspeakable spiritual poverty: to produce a child with the intention of using it to gain a lease on limbo, or, failing that, on purgatory: to produce a child with the extinction of the child as one’s hope of heaven. Mulatto: for that outpost of Christianity, that segment of the race which called itself white, which found itself stranded among the heathen on the North American continent, under the necessity of destroying all evidence of sin, including, if need be, those children who were proof of abandonment to savage, heathen passion, and under the absolute necessity of preserving its idea of itself by any means necessary, the use of the word, mulatto, was by no means inadvertent. It is one of the keys to American history, present, and past. Americans are still destroying their own children: and, infanticide being but a step away from genocide, not only theirs. If we do not know where the mulatto came from, we certainly know where a multitude went, dispatched by their own fathers, and we know where multitudes are, until today, plotting death, plotting life, groaning in the chains in which their fathers have bound them.”

On In The Heat Of The Night (1967):

Norman Jewison’s In The Heat Of The Night. Image via Wikipedia.

“There remains the obligatory, fade-out kiss. I am aware that men do not kiss each other in American films, nor, for the most part, in America, nor do the black detective and the white Sheriff kiss here. But the obligatory, fade-out kiss, in the classic American film, did not really speak of love, and, still less, of sex: it spoke of reconciliation, of all things now becoming possible. it was a device desperately needed among a people for whom so much had to be made possible. And, no matter how inept one must judge the film to be, in spite of its absolutely appalling distance from reality, in spite of my own helplessly sardonic tone when discussing it, and even in spite of the fact that the effect of such a film is to increase and not lessen white confusion and complacency, and black rage and despair, I still do not wish to be guilty of the gratuitous injustice of seeming to impute base motives to the people responsible for its existence. Our situation would be far more coherent if it were possible to categorize, or dismiss, In The Heat Of The Night so painlessly. No: the film helplessly conveys — without confronting — the anguish of people trapped in a legend. They cannot live within this legend; neither can they step out of it. The film gave me the impression, according to my notes the day I saw it, of “something strangling, alive, struggling to get out.” And I certainly felt this during the final scene, when the white Sheriff takes the black detective’s bag as they walk to the train. It is not that the creators of the film were inspired by base motives, but that they could not understand their motives, nor be responsible for the effect of their exceedingly complex motives, in action. (All motives are complex, and it is just as well to remember this: including, or perhaps especially, one’s own.) The history which produces such a film cannot, after all, be swiftly understood, nor can the effects of this history be easily resolved. Nor can this history be blamed on any single individual: but, at the same time, no one can be let off the hook. It is a terrible thing, simply, to be trapped in one’s history, and attempt, in the same motion (and in this, our life!) to accept, deny, reject, and redeem it — and, also, on whatever level, to profit from it. And: with one’s head in the fetid jaws of this lion’s mouth, attempt to love and be loved, and raise one’s children, and pay the rent, and wrestle with one’s mortality. In the final scene at the station, there is something choked and moving, something sensed through a thick glass, dimly, in the Sheriff’s sweet, boyish, Southern injunction, to Virgil: “take care, you hear?” and something equally choked and rigid in the black detective’s reaction. It reminded me of nothing so much as William Blake’s Little Black Boy — that remote, that romantic, and that hopeless. Virgil Tibbs goes to where they call him Mister, far away, presumably, from South Street, and the Sheriff has gone back to the niggers, who are really his only assignment. And nothing, alas, has been made possible by this obligatory, fade-out kiss, this preposterous adventure: except that white Americans have been encouraged to continue dreaming, and black Americans have been alerted to the necessity of waking up. People who cannot escape thinking of themselves as white are poorly equipped, if equipped at all, to consider the meaning of black: people who know so little about themselves can face very little in another: and one dare hope for nothing from friends like these.”

On The Autobiography Of Malcolm X (1968 screenplay, unfinished):

Malcolm X. Image via Wikipedia.

“Since both the film for which I had been hired [as the screenplay writer], and Che! were controversial, courageous, revolutionary films, being packaged for the consumer society, it was hoped that our film would beat Che! to the box office. This was not among my concerns. I had a fairly accurate idea of what Hollywood was about to do with Che!…I had no intention of betraying Malcolm, or his natives. Yet, my producer had been advised, in an inter-office memo which I, quite unscrupulously, intercepted, that the writer (me) should be advised that the tragedy of Malcolm’s life was that he had been mistreated, early, by some whites, and betrayed (later) by many blacks: emphasis in the original. The writer was also to avoid suggesting that Malcolm’s trip to Mecca could have had any political implications, or repercussions.
Well. I had never before seen this machinery at such close quarters, and I confess that I was both fascinated and challenged. Near the end of my Hollywood sentence, the studio assigned me a ‘technical’ expert, who was, in fact, to act as my collaborator. This fact was more or less disguised at first, but I was aware of it, and far from enthusiastic: still, by the time the studio and I had arrived at this impasse, there was no ground on which I could ‘reasonably’ refuse. I liked the man well enough — I had no grounds, certainly, no which to dislike him. I didn’t contest his ‘track record’ as a screenwriter, and I reassured myself that he might be helpful; he was signed, anyway, and went to work.
Each week, I would deliver two or three scenes, which he would take home, breaking them — translating them — into cinematic language, shot by shot, camera angle by camera angle. This seemed to me a somewhat strangling way to make a film. My sense of the matter was that the screenwriter delivered as clear a blueprint as possible, which then became the point of departure for all the other elements involved in the making of a film. For example, surely it was the director’s province to decide where to place the camera; and he would be guided in his decision by the dynamic of the scene. However, as the weeks wore on, and my scenes were returned to me ‘translated,’ it began to be despairingly clear (to me) that all meaning was being siphoned out of them…..
For example: there is a very short scene in my screenplay in which the central character, a young boy from the country, walks into a very quiet, very special Harlem bar, in the late afternoon. The scene is important because the ‘country’ boy is Malcolm X, the bar is Small’s Paradise, and the purpose of the scene is to dramatize Malcolm’s first meeting with West Indian Archie — the numbers man who introduced Malcolm to the rackets. The interior evidence of Malcolm’s book very strongly suggests a kind of father-son relationship between Archie and Malcolm: my problem was how to suggest this as briefly and effectively as possible.
So, in my scene, as written, Malcolm walks into the bar, dressed in the zoot-suit of the times, and orders a drink. He does not know how outrageously young and vulnerable he looks. Archie is sitting at a table with his friends, and they watch Malcolm, making jokes about him between themselves. But their jokes contain an oblique confession: they see themselves in Malcolm. They have all been Malcolm once. He does not know what is about to happen to him, but they do, because it has already happened to them. They have been seeing it happen to others, and enduring what has happened to them, for nearly as long as Malcolm has been on earth. Archie, particularly, is struck by something he sees in the boy. So, when Malcolm, stumbling back from the jukebox, stumbles over Archie’s shoes, Archie uses this as a pretext to invite the boy over to the table. And that is all there is to the scene.
My collaborator brought it back to me, translated. It was really the same scene, he explained, but he had added a little action — thus, when Malcolm stumbles over Archie’s shoes, Archie becomes furious. Malcolm, in turn, becomes furious, and the scene turns into a shoot-out from High Noon, with everybody in the bar taking bets as to who will draw first. In this way, said my collaborator (with which judgment the studio, of course, agreed) everyone in the audience could see what Archie saw in Malcolm: he admired the ‘country boy’s’ guts…..
The rewritten scene was much longer than the original scene, and, though it occurs quite early in the script, detailed the script completely. With all of my scenes being ‘translated’ in this way, the script would grow bulkier than War and Peace, and the script, therefore, would have to be cut. And I saw how that would work. Having fallen into the trap of accepting ‘technical’ assistance, I would not, at the cutting point, be able to reject it; and the script would then be cut according to the ‘action’ line, and in the interest of ‘entertainment’ values. How I got myself out of this fix doesn’t concern us here — I simply walked out, taking my original script with me — but the adventure remained very painfully in my mind, and, indeed, was to shed a certain light for me on the adventure occurring through the American looking-glass.”
James Baldwin debates Malcolm X, arguing from (and for) a far more universal set of points:

On Lady Sings The Blues (1972):

Lady Sings The Blues, or: Diana Ross’s take on Billie Holiday. Image via Wikipedia.

“The film cannot accept — because it cannot use — this simplicity. That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat.
The victim’s testimony must, therefore, be altered. But, since no one outside the victim’s situation dares imagine the victim’s situation, this testimony can be altered only after it has been delivered; and after it has become the object of some study. The purpose of this scrutiny is to emphasize certain striking details which can then be used to quite another purpose than the victim had in mind. Given the complexity of the human being, and the complexities of society, this is not difficult. (Or, it does not appear to be difficult: the endless revisions made in the victim’s testimony suggest that the endeavor may be impossible. Wounded Knee comes to mind, along with “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and we have yet to hear form My Lai.) Thus, for example, ghetto citizens have been heard to complain, very loudly, of the damage done to their homes during any ghetto uprising, and a grateful Republic fastens on this as a benevolent way of discouraging future uprisings. But the truth is, every ghetto citizen knows this, that no one trapped in the ghetto owns anything, since they certainly do not own the land. Anyone who doubts this has only to spend tomorrow walking through the ghetto nearest to his.
Once the victim’s testimony is delivered, however, there is, thereafter, forever, a witness somewhere: which is an irreducible inconvenience for the makers and shakers and accomplices of this world. These run together, in packs, and corroborate each other. They cannot bear the judgment in the eyes of the people whom they intent to hold in bondage forever, and who know more about them than their lovers. This remote, public, and, as it were, principled, bondage is the indispensable justification of their own: when the prisoner is free, the jailer faces the void of himself.”

On The Exorcist (1973)

The Exorcist, via the original poster. Guardian.

“The word ‘belief’ has nearly no meaning anymore, in the recognized languages, and ineptly approaches the reality to which I am referring: for there can be no doubt that it is a reality. The blacks had first been claimed by the Christian church, and then excluded from the company of white Christians — from the fellowship of Christians: which taught us all that we needed to know about white Christians. The blacks did not so much use Christian symbols as recognize them — recognize them for what they were before the Christians came along — and, thus, reinvested these symbols with their original energy. The proof of this, simply, is the continued existence and authority of the blacks: it is through the creation of the black church that an unwritten, dispersed, and violated inheritance has been handed down…To live in connection with a life beyond this life means, in effect — in truth — that frightened as one may be, and no matter how limited, or how lonely, and no matter how the deal, at last, goes down, no man can ever frighten you. This is why blacks can be heard to say, I ain’t got to do nothing but stay black, and die!: which, is, after all, a far more affirmative apprehension than I’m free, white, and twenty-one. The first proposition is changeless, whereas the second is at the mercy of time, weather, the dictionary, geography, fashion. The custodian of an inheritance, which is what blacks have had to be, in Western culture, must hand the inheritance down the line. so, you, the custodian, recognize, finally, that your life does not belong to you. This will not sound like freedom to Western ears, since the Western world pivots on the infantile, and, in action, criminal delusions of possession, and of property. But, just as love is the only money, as the song puts it, so this might responsibility is the only freedom…..
To encounter oneself is to encounter the other: and this is love. If I know that my soul trembles, I know that yours does, too: and, if I can respect this, both of us can live. Neither of us, truly, can live without the other: a statement which would not sound so banal if one were not endlessly compelled to repeat it, and, further, believe it, and act on that belief. My friend was quite right when he said, So, we must be careful — lest we lose our faith — and become possessed.
For, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some junkies, the yes of some preachers, the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. This devil has no need of any dogma — though he can use them all — nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention. He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do.
The mindless and hysterical banality of the evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should certainly know more about evil than that; if they pretend otherwise, they are lying, and any black man, and not only blacks — many, many others, including white children — can call them on this lie; he who has been treated as the devil recognizes the devil when they meet. At the end of The Exorcist, the demon-racked little girl murderess kisses the Holy Father, and she remembers nothing: she is departing with her mother, who will, presumably, soon make another film. The grapes of wrath are stored in the cotton fields and migrant shacks and ghettos of this nation, and in the schools and prisons, and in the eyes and hearts and perceptions of the wretched everywhere, and in the ruined earth of Vietnam, and in the orphans and the widows, and in the old men, seeing visions, and in the young men, dreaming dreams: these have already kissed the bloody cross and will not bow down before it again: and have forgotten nothing.”

In Defense of Performance Art - Guillermo Gomez Pena

http://www.pochanostra.com/antes/jazz_pocha2/mainpages/in_defense.htm

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Audio Interface - Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 - intro short video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jeENF-uBYo

EFFECTS PEDALS & HOW THEY WORK

Effects - What They Do
Before looking at the individual effects, most effects can be placed into these broad categories:

Dynamics These effects respond to your playing level and include compression to turn the volume up as your notes fade away. Also noise gates turn the volume off while your playing nothing, to silence any additional noise.
Volume These also affect volume, such as a volume pedal, or vary volume automatically such aas pulsating tremolo and panning effects.
Overdrive These are probably the most popular guitarists effect, designed to reproduce the warm sound of an overdriven valve amp, through to more severe distortion sounds.
Filters These modify your guitar tone and include pedal controlled wah effects, automatically controlled phasers, flangers and chorus, treble boosters and other preset equalisers.
Pitch These effects include pitch modified with a whammy bar on your guitar, through to electronic equivalents such as vibrato and benders, octave dividers and harmonisers.
Ambience These effects add a noticeable delayed sound to your dry sound. The most common are delay (or echo) and reverb effects. Chorus adds some ambience as well, although the delay is usually too short to be perceived as a second guitar part.

Here are the effects described on this page:

Wah

The wah effect moves a peak in the frequency response up and down the frequency spectrum. This movement is usually controlled by rocking a foot pedal, but there are also stomp-box effects which allow the peak to be triggered up or down by your playing intensity.
Wah Frequency Response

The resonant (peak) frequency is usually be moved from around 400Hz to 2Khz. One factor that makes different pedals sound special is how the resonance changes as the frequency is moved. Typical wah pedals have increasing resonance as the frequency is lowered.
Some other controls you might see are:

Resonance
A switch to select of different frequency ranges

The original Vox and Cry-Baby pedals are considered something of a benchmark. These use the same circuit that has been extensively copied by other manufacturers over the years. They use a coil & capacitor combination to provide the peak, and much fuss has been made of their special coils which apparently contain magical properties.
There are some likely reasons for this, besides plain nostalgic sentiment.

Electrical component tolerances weren't as good 40 years ago as they are today. The variation between coils in early models caused different pedals to have slightly different frequency ranges and resonances. These differences suit some players and guitar combinations better than others.
Marketing of new pedals heavily promotes the concept of capturing the essence of the vintage designs. Don't believe everything you read, folks!
There is some research that indicates that the original Fasel inductors (which we believe were just a cost effective choice at the time) were in fact flawed either from new, or with repeated use due to the circuit design. Maybe this really is the source of the magic!

Here is my schematic showing some popular wah pedal modifications.

Phasing

Phasers use an internal low frequency oscillator to automatically sweep notches in the frequency response up and down the frequency spectrum. An important difference between phasing and flanging is that phasers space these notches evenly across the frequency spectrum, while the notches in flanging and chorus are harmonically (musically) related.
You don't hear the notches as such (because they are the frequencies that are removed); what you hear is the resulting frequency peaks between these notches. Early phasers did not provide any feedback, so the original effect was quite subtle; ideal for textural rhythm playing.
Phaser Frequency Response

Phasing works by mixing the original signal with one that is phase shifted over the frequency spectrum. For example, a four stage phaser signal could be from 0 degrees at 100Hz, shifted to 720 degrees at 5Khz (these extremes are not quite possible practically, but are near enough to explain the effect). This is how the term phase shifter comes about.
Where the signal is in phase (at 0 degrees, 360 degrees and 720 degrees) the signals reinforce, providing normal output. Where the signals are out of phase (180 degrees and 540 degrees), they cancel each other, giving no output at these frequencies. Constantly varying the frequencies where these cancellations occur, gives the movement associated with phasing.
Adding resonance enhances the frequency peaks where the signals are in phase. A 4 stage phaser has 2 notches with bass response, a central peak, and treble response. By using resonance to enhance the central peak, you can get a sound similar to an automatic wah.
Each phaser stage shifts the phase by 180 degrees, so a 6 stage phaser gives a shift of 1080 degrees, providing 3 out-of-phase frequency notches along the way. Designs with 4, 6, 8 and 10 stages were common, although each stage adds noise to the final output.
Using a phaser with lots of stages and setting the resonance high can give a sound similar to flanging, although they are really quite different.
The controls common on a phaser are:

Speed and Depth to control how fast and how far the notches are moved
Resonance controls internal feedback of the effect to enhance the frequency peaks
A less common but useful control is mix (possibly called intensity or effect) to control how deep the notches are

The Univibe (made famous by Hendrix) is an early implementation of a phaser. A phaser uses matched FETs to control the changing frequency response, while the Univibe used incandescent light bulbs and light dependent resistors, giving a more erratic, somewhat pulsating phaser sound.

Compression

Compressors are commonly used in recording to control the level, by making loud passages quieter, and quiet passages louder. This is useful in allowing a vocalist to sing quiet and loud for different emphasis, and always be heard clearly in the mix.
Compression is generally applied to guitar to give clean sustain, where the start of a note is "squashed" with the gain automatically increased as the note fades away. Compressors take a short time to react to a picked note, and it can be difficult to find settings that react quickly enough to the volume change without killing the natural attack sound of your guitar. It works like someone adjusting your volume control while you play - turning volume down when you pick a note, then turning the volume up as the note fades out.
Compression Levels

This diagram shows all dynamic effects:

Compressors reduce gain above the threshold
A limiter is a compressor with a very high gain ratio: anything above the threshold is limited to that level
Expanders reduces gain below the threshold - they are rarely used because the effect is reduced sustain
A gate is an extreme expander ratio where anything below the threshold is turned off - commonly used for noise gates

The compressor drawn here shows that gain is reduced above a threshold level. In practice, overall gain is increased to make-up for the lower maximum level, so this has the effect of boosting lower levels which is perceived as longer sustain. Typical stompbox pedals implement this effect simply by applying boost that increases as signal decreases.
Common controls are:

Sensitivity sets the threshold level above which volume is cut, and below which volume is boosted. In stompboxes, this controls the gain of the level detection circuitry.
Attack controls how fast the unit responds to volume increases
Release controls how slowly the unit responds to decreasing volume
Tone is often provided to compensate for perceived treble loss, which is actually caused by the smoother volume dynamics (there is no internal treble cut)
Volume (sometimes labelled Level) to allow you to set a level to match the general loudness when the effect is bypassed.
A less common but very useful control is "Mix" which allows some unaffected signal to be combined with the compressed signal. This allows natural picking dynamics to be mixed with the sustained effect sound.

Overdrive & Distortion

I have a lot more background on these effects on my Amplifier Overdrive page. I will summarise here by saying that these effects are intended to produce the sound of an overdriven amplifier, pushed well into its clipping region.
There is an enormous array of pedals available today, tailored for different markets. The first commercial designs were fuzz boxes and produced a thin (lots of bass-cut) buzzing tone. However, later designs were aimed at a natural overdrive sound, and these are still popular, whether used for their overdrive tone, or as a relatively clean booster to push the amplifier into overdrive. Later pedals have been tailored to heavy rock, metal, blues, grunge, retro, and so on.
Smooth overdrive and distortion effects were born from the many fuzz-circuit designs of the 60's. A wide variety of methods that contorted a guitar signal were marketed under the generic description of Fuzz. One of the most popular was the Fuzz Face as used by Hendrix, while the most useless was probably a Schmidt-trigger design that only worked monophonically (one note at a time) producing a synth-like squarewave.
Towards the end of this era, the back-to-back diode pair became popular as a technique to provide soft clipping (with germanium diodes) and hard clipping (with silicon diodes).
Today, overdrive effects usually means soft clipping, where gain is reduced beyond the clipping point, while distortion usually means hard clipping, where the level is fixed beyond the clipping point. Distortion is a little harder sound, good for rock, while overdrive gives a more natural sound.
Soft & Hard Clipping

A common variation is called asymmetrical clipping, where one side of the wave is clipped more than the other. This just gives the final waveform a slightly different sound, but regardless of the method used, the more overdrive, the more they sound alike. Of course, real guitar signals are not pure sine waves - I've just used those to demonstrate how clipping works.
Soft & Hard Clipping

Usual controls are:

Gain (often labelled as Drive) controls the amount of overdrive
Tone to compensate for additional highs caused by the actual clipping process
Volume (or Level) to balance the effect volume with the bypassed level. It can also be used to boost the signal for solos.
Often there are extra tone shaping options such as bass, middle and treble.

Some companies label their controls with terms they think their customers will relate to, such as Grunt, Guts, In-Yer-Face, and so on. I'm not sure whether I'm amused or insulted. I'm definitely confused!
Some classic overdrive pedals are:

Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-9, popular for its very natural sound, achieved by not allowing heavy overdrive and cutting bass before the overdrive, and treble after resulting in an overall middle boost.
Boss OD-1 and later OD-2 (with tone control) - similar design, warm, natural sound and asymmetrical clipping

Equalisation

These effects are designed to give more tone control than is possible with the basic amplifier bass, middle and treble controls. There are 2 common varieties; graphic and parametric.
Graphic equalisers use sliders to control the level at fixed frequencies, called bands. These provide a graphic representation of the overall frequency response. The bands are usually logarithmically related, meaning that each frequency is always a fixed multiple of the next lowest frequency. This corresponds to the way our ears perceive frequencies, including notes in the scales we use.
This diagaram shows 10 bands, each of which can be boost or cut between the extremes shown:
Graphic EQ Bands

The total frequency range can be limited to suit particular instruments, such as bass or guitar, or it can cover the entire audible range from 20Hz to 20khz. Additional bands give you finer control, but require more adjustments to make broad changes.
Parametric equalisers generally provide a bass and treble control that work as normal tone controls to allow broad shaping. They have one or more middle controls, each offering:

Frequency - the frequency where boost or cut is applied
Q (or resonance) - the higher the number the narrower the band of frequencies affected
Level - the amount of boost or cut applied

This diagram shows the same type of boost and cut as a graphic equaliser, however, a parametric allows you to select the frequency you want. You can also increase the Q to affect a narrower band of frequencies. Q is sometimes labelled resonance (again higher resonance means a narrower frequency band). Q can also be labelled as bandwidth, in which case a higher setting affects a broader band of frequencies, which is probably more logical for us musicians.
Parametric Equaliser

Both equalisers often include a level control to allow you to compensate for any overall loudness changes made by the tone changes.
The graphic is probably the easiest and most intuitive to use, but if you need to fine tune problem frequencies for feedback, or acoustic guitars, a parametric is more useful.

Harmonisers

These add one or more notes to what you are already playing, and come in several variations.
The first harmonisers were octave dividers, which added a distorted signal one or more octaves below your playing. These only worked on a single note at a time, and are still interesting as a vintage effect, but I think it's fair to say that they are not going to change the world.
Modern harmonisers use digital storage and retrieval techniques that preserve the tone and timbre (character) of your playing. It is still easier to provide monophonic (single note) harmonies, so several models also offer this as an option with improved accuracy and/or quality. Monophonic mode is readily applicable to vocal and solo instrument harmonies as well. For guitar, you will sometimes want polyphonic harmonies to allow things such as pitch shift and 12 string emulation on chords.
You can set the harmonies to be fixed interval, such as up 5 semitones, or down 7 semitones. Many harmonisers now offer "intelligent" chord based harmonies, so the interval is determined by a key you set, and the note you play. You could set harmonies to be a 3rd and 5th, in the key of C major, and the harmony intervals will change to always play in C major.
Advanced options allow you to set your own chord intervals, and even apply random pitch variations or corrections to add extra realism to vocal harmonies.

Pitch Bend

This is a relatively new digital effect, designed to emulate a whammy bar. You can set how far and how fast pitch is bent, and how long it takes to return to normal.
Often these effects are combined with other pitch effects such as vibrato and some basic harmoniser options.

Vibrato

Vibrato varies the pitch smoothly between slightly flat and sharp, similar to the fingerboard technique of string bending, or wiggling the whammy bar. Of course, you can't bend a string flat!
Fender amps have an effect labelled vibrato which is actually volume modulation, or tremolo (see below). I have read that Fender originally did provide pitch modulation (true vibrato), but later changed to volume modulation to suit the "surf sound". When they changed the effect, the amp labelling remained as vibrato. I don't know if this story is true; I've never seen a Fender amp or even a Fender schematic with true vibrato.
Common controls are:

Rate and Depth - how fast and how far pitch is changed
Delay - often the effect is triggered automatically, and this sets how long it takes to reach the set depth

Flanger

Flangers mix a varying delayed signal (usually from less than 1 millisecond to a few milliseconds) with the original to produce a series of notches in the frequency response. The important difference between flanging and phasing is that a flanger produces a large number of notches, and the peaks between those notches are harmonically (musically) related. A phaser produces a small number of notches that are evenly spread across the frequency spectrum. The short delay used for flanging is usually set too short for the extra signal to be perceived as an echo.
Flangers, Phasers and Choruses each produce a series of notches in the frequency response that are modulated across the frequency spectrum. The notches correspond to no sound, so except for a little tremolo (pulsating volume), we don't really hear the notches; we hear what's left which is a series of peaks.
Flanger Frequency Response

This diagram is an actual calculated response of a 1 millisecond delay with an equal mix of dry (the chart is 20Hz to 20KHz plotted at quarter-tone intervals). Even at this resolution, the chart doesn't completely show the detail at higher frequencies, however, you can see that the notches occur at harmonic multiples instead of being evenly spread across the frequency response like a phaser.
Most flangers provide a resonance control to use internal feedback to enhance the peaks in the frequency response. Flanging got its name from a trick used in recording studios where the same track was played on 2 reel to reel tape machines, and recording engineers gently touched the flange of one tape reel to produce a small delay between the machines. Then, by touching the flange of the other reel, they would bring the machines back into synchronisation again, removing the delay.
With low resonance, the effect is similar to the original studio trick With high resonance, you get the "jet plane" effect.
Common controls are:

Rate and Depth - control how fast and far the frequency notches move
Intensity (or Effect or Mix) controls the level of the delayed signal, and consequently, the depth of the frequency notches
Resonance adds emphasis by applying internal feedback

Chorus

True vintage chorus works the same way as flanging. It mixes a varying delayed signal with the original to produce a large number of harmonically related notches in the frequency response. Chorus uses a longer delay than flanging, so there is a perception of "spaciousness". The delay is usually on the verge of a perceived echo: with some settings echo won't be noticeable while longer delay settings can make give a distinct slap-echo effect as well. There is also little or no feedback, so the effect is more subtle.

There are several variations of stereo chorus that are effective in providing a powerful "surround-sound" effect through a stereo system. The most common arrangement is to have a separate delay for each channel, and while the delay is increased in one channel, it decreases in the other, and vice-versa. These delayed signals are mixed with the original in each channel, and sometimes a small amount of delayed signal is applied in the opposite channel with bass cut.
Common controls are:

Rate and Depth - control how fast and far the frequency notches move
Pre-Delay controls the delay length (which is modulated by rate and depth)
Tone controls are sometimes available to control either the delayed signal alone, or the total effect
Intensity (or Effect or Mix) controls the level of the delayed signal, and consequently, the depth of the frequency notches and level of the delay
Mode switched can set up different delay configurations, such as the stereo one described above, a vintage single delay and triple and even quad delays for very complex and rich chorus sounds. They can also change LFO waveforms or even have LFO speeds modulated by another LFO for more random and unpredictable modulations!

The original chorus effects used BBD (bucket-brigade device) technology which moves analogue charges (representing your audio signal) though a series of steps causing the delay, when tit it then rebuilt into an analogue signal. Although these were ground breaking devices in their day, their audio quality was poor and many tricks were used to get the best from them, such compressing the signal before the device and expanding it afterwards. Also, treble response was limited, sometimes dynamically with delay times. Some players feel these measures contribute to the overall effect, but they were really just measures to get the best from the available technology.
Early digital processors produced chorus in a different way, which provides a stronger chorus effect, but also adds a small out-of-tune effect. It is produced by mixing the original signal with one that is modulated slightly flat then sharp. Personally I don't like them at all, but they've been so commonly recorded now that many people have forgotten what vintage chorus actually sounds like.

Noise Gate

Noise gates are used to electronically turn the volume down when you're not playing, so you don't hear the noise produced by other effects. Those with high gain, such as overdrive and compression can be especially noisy. So to work at all, noise gates MUST be placed after the effects producing the noise.
They work by detecting the signal level, and then slowly fading down the volume while your playing level fades away. This prevents notes that are fading naturally being cut off dead. All noise gates need to respond as quickly as possible to a new note after they have turned down, so there is rarely a control to set how fast you want the turn-on time to be.
With very noisy effects, it can be hard for the unit to separate the signal from the noise. It is usually better for the level detector to have its own input, which you would feed direct from the start of the effects chain. This feature is more common on rack multi-effects units.
There are more sophisticated noise gate units that offer additional noise reduction techniques, such as treating the bass and treble components of the signal separately, offering minimum volume and tone settings, etc.
Common controls are:

Threshold sets the level below which volume is faded out
Decay sets the time taken to fade the volume down

Limiter

These devices are used to limit the maximum volume. They have no effect on signals below the threshold level sets, but hold signals above that level at a fixed level. This effect is similar to a compressor reducing high volumes, but a limiter does not boost low level signals.
These are commonly used in PA systems to prevent overloading the power amps and/or speakers. They can be useful in guitar systems for simulating valve power amp dynamics in a solid state system, but they really are not as good as "the real thing".
Common controls are:

Threshold sets the level above which volume is limited
Level sets the master output level

Volume Pedal

Not much to explain here. The pedal controls the volume. Some pedals allow you to set a minimum volume, so you can always be assured of something, even with you heel fully down.
Something to watch for is whether you can walk away from the pedal with it set at some specific volume, without it falling on its own to maximum volume.
If you always use the pedal after some other effect that uses electronic switching (or in the send/return loop from your amplifier), you will probably be best served by a medium impedance pedal (say, 50K). On the other hand, if you need to use the pedal straight after your guitar, you will need to use a high impedance pedal (at least 500K).

Tremolo

This modulates the guitar volume, like rapidly turning the volume control up and down. When used with reverb, you can hear the surf guitar sounds of old. Fender incorrectly label this sound as Vibrato on their amps. Different effects have different wave-forms to modulate the volume level. The originals pretty much used sine waves, which gives a smooth effect. Other offer choices, such as saw wave (slightly less of a pulsating sound), square wave (which just turns the sound off and on very quickly), and other interesting variations.
Common controls are:

Speed and Depth control how fast and how much the volume varies
Sometimes a waveform selection (see above)

Panning

Panning is just like 2 tremolo effects, one for the left and one for the right channels. They are linked so that when volume is high in one channel it is low in the other, and vice-versa. When connected to a stereo system, the sound "moves" from one side to the other.
Common controls are:

Speed and Depth control how fast and how much the signal moves between channels
Sometimes a waveform selection

Speaker Simulators

A typical guitar speaker box is not designed to faithfully reproduce the sound presented by the amplifier. Unlike hi-fi systems and front of house systems that strive for a wide bandwidth and uncoloured sound, guitar speaker boxes are an important part of the sound creation process.
Without a speaker simulator, you are likely to get the best guitar sound through front of house by using one or more microphones around your guitar amp. The quality of speaker simulators varies enormously to my ears. All simulators apply a general guitar speaker response where lows are rolled off gradually while highs are cut dramatically above about 6KHz. Good speaker simulators emulate other cabinet frequency response characteristics such as general low and mid biases as well as detailed peaks and notches usually above about 1KHz.
Common options are choice of cabinet type and speakers, closed or open back, microphone types and positions, and a mix of direct vs simulator. Digital emulators offer choices between specific types of guitar cabinets and possibly specific models.

Delay

Delay is an echo effect that replays what you have played one or more times after a period of time. It's something like the echoes you might hear shouting against a canyon wall.

The original delays, like the legendary Watkins Copy Cat, were tape machines running a loop of tape that recorded your playing. The sound was replayed through one or more replay heads positioned further around the loop, then ultimately erased, ready for the next recording. By varying the mix from different replay heads and the speed of the tape, you could get a wide variety of delay effects. You could even set up different rhythm patterns in the delays! These units suffered some problems, mechanical ones with broken tapes, head alignment was important, and they were quite noisy as well.
Modern delays are digital, where your playing is stored in memory, and retrieved at some later time. Common controls are:

Delay time
Delay level
Feedback sets how much delay is fed back to the input (for repeating delays)

Other popular controls are tone, often used to cut treble response of the delay so it does not distract too much from the main playing. More sophisticated units offer multiple taps, like the multiple replay heads on older tape units, with options to position taps anywhere between left and right output channels for interesting stereo effects. One neat stereo effect is ping-pong delay where the repeat sounds as if it "bounces" from left to right as it fades out.
Using a single delay set to a short delay (say 50mS) at nearly the same level as the original gives you the doubling effect, because it sounds like two players playing the same thing in near-perfect unison. By increasing the delay a little more (say 100ms) you get a slap-back echo effect.

Reverb

Reverb is the sound you hear in a room with hard surfaces (such as your bathroom) where sound bounces around the room for a while after the initial sound stops. This effect takes a lot of computing power to reproduce well. Reverb is actually made up of a very large number of repeats, with varying levels and tones over time. Reverbs usually offer you a choice of different algorithm to simulate different environments such as different sized rooms and halls, studio effects such as plate, chamber and reverse* reverbs, and sometimes emulations of guitar spring reverbs.
These algorithms serve as a good starting point for the more basic controls:

Decay sets how long it takes the reverb to die away to nothing
Level and Tone control the overall volume and tone of the reverb

Sophisticated reverbs give you control over a large number of reverb parameters, such as:

Separate control over early and late reflections
Volume envelopes, where the reverb can swell before decaying

* Reverse reverbs were initially used by Phil Collins for his legendary gated snare sounds, where the reverb actually builds in intensity before cutting off abruptly. Almost all reverbs offer this effect, and yet none is allowed to give Phil any credit for it (otherwise they'd have to pay royalties, I guess). I don't sell reverbs, so I don't mind saying "Thanks, Phil!".

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

READING ASSIGNMENTS (2):

Pauline Oliveros

http://soundamerican.org/pauline-oliveros-on-deep-listening

Luigi Russolo
http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf

Audio

CLASS 1: INTRO TO MICS, TASCAM AND AUDIO EQUIPMENT

Hi everyone,

Below are links to help get you started and comfortable with some of what we have and will be learning in the coming weeks. Please let me know if you have any issues opening the links or files. There are two reading assignments below.

CM BLOG : Info on equipment reservations, manuals, what's available, hours that the lab is open, etc.

http://huntercmphoto.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-blog-or-cm-and-photo-area.html

The DR-40 tascam videos:

Intro 5 min:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndR5eC0DQCU

4 track recording with the DR-40, 7 min:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUVJutxxC4c

Mics tutorial 5 min:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2edewYkE_f0

Mic dynamics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cj18EQQAm8

CLASS 2: INTRO TO GARAGEBAND

Garageband Tutorial that's fairly decent if you need a refresher on creating, recording and mixing audio.

Part 1   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_VWD3rEMw
Part 2   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8TTsYd3Mns&feature=youtu.be
Part 3   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSmqZBGvKRw

Garageband Keyboard Shortcuts Reference:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH1811?locale=en_US