Audio Cookbook

Book Ideas for a Sound Design Class?

I am excited to have the opportunity to teach an upper level sound design class to digital film students this Fall. I have several books in my collection that relate to sound design that cover very specific topics, but what I’ll need for the class is a book that covers a broad spectrum of concepts within the field. The course competencies include multi-tracking, mixing, sampling techniques, signal processing, equalization, editing, synchronization of audio and video, Foley, and ADR. Does anyone have any suggestions for a book focused on sound design, but general enough to cover all of these topics?

To give you an idea of what I’m looking for, I currently use Real World Digital Audio by Peter Kirn for an entry level audio production class that is a prerequisite for the sound design class. Peter’s book works really well because it’s current and covers exactly what I wanted for the audio production class in an illustrated, thorough, yet clear and concise way.

Exploring The Sounds of Ice

This is one of the coolest (no pun intended) sound design projects ever. Marlin Ledin rode his bike and camped around the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior covering about 150 miles on the ice recording the creaks and groans of the shifting ice plates. Listen to his recordings and checkout photos and videos of his expedition at www.bikingtheapostles.com. Marlin describes the ice sounds:

The Lake Drums, as some people call them, are an amazing phenomenon that rank right up there with Aurora Borealis. Lake drums, or drumming perhaps, occurs when a shift in the ice creates friction between sheets of ice, like tectonic plates of the earths crust. The unique sounds created come after these shifts in the ice. I ventured out and captured some of these sounds with modern recording techniques.

Generative Accident – Dripping Water

I have been re-reading articles on Generative music in Audio Culture : Readings in Modern Music again, and some unplanned generative music took me be suprise – dripping from my jumper.

I set up a few cardboard loo rolls to resonate with the sound and stood around for 5 minutes recording it all. There are some really interesting syncopated moments, all underpinned with a regular metronomic beat. I liked the intrusion of external sounds to the mix, as you listen on. A Happy accident

Tom

generative dripping clothes
rec@24/96 with rode nt5 and fostex fr2le, minimal eq

May 11th

The other night I was fretting about the fact that I had not picked up my bass guitar in two weeks because of my insanely busy schedule. I suddenly felt the urge to play after a long Lamaze class on Monday night. I was immediately back into the world of music again. I ended up creating this little heavy-hearted song. Why not post it!?

May 11th

Bobcat Jackhammer Attachment

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 was a beautifully sunny day in Minneapolis. This quarter my schedule includes a three hour break, which I usually use for catching up on curriculum, ACB entries or meeting with students, but this time I let Spring fever take hold and got on my bike a rode around one of my favorite city lakes. There’s a nice spot on the lake where I sometimes read or take an afternoon nap. Unfortunately just across the lake from my spot was a work crew using a jackhammer to break up a cement driveway. If you can’t beat ‘um, join ‘um right? Having my PCM-D50 along, I finally gave up on the idea of a few Zs and rode over to the action to make a recording. It took a minute to get the levels right, but I think they were going to be at it all day, so there was plenty of time for a good long recording. Here’s a few passes of the jackhammer engaged and splitting concrete.

Bobcat Jackhammer

MAW Kids on Bikes

Thursday was my first outing with Minneapolis Art on Wheels (MAW) and my first opportunity to project my work on the GMS in a public space. The sheer scope of the event was impressive. My friend Kevin could hardly believe all of the equipment that was transported by bicycles to the location. There was some really good work on display, some bizarre random events, and exhaustive video documentation that I expect we’ll see on MAW soon.

After the outing, on the ride back to base, everyone was giddy from the nice weather. We get a bit cooped up during the long Minnesota Winters. In not one of my finest cases of judgment I decided to dig out my PCM-D50 from its protective case and record the proceedings while riding my bike. I don’t necessarily recommend this sort of behavior, but I held on tight and threw caution to the wind. Here’s a segment of audio from the bike ride back.

MAW Kids on Bikes

Mendota Springs Sparkling Water Can Being Opened

Hi, my name is Graham O’Brien and I’m a drummer, audio engineer, and composer living in St. Paul, MN.  I play in some really fun bands around town (including Keston & Westdal!) and specialize in drumming and writing for sequenced music.  And having gotten a recording degree, I do some work recording and mixing radio commercials at Marketing Architects ad agency in Mineeapolis.  I also am building a drum recording studio in my basement that’s coming along really well and I’ll be posting plenty of really cool stuff from there.  Now, for my first post to Audio Cookbook.

This is a short but pristine recording of me opening a can of Mendota Springs Sparkling Water (Lemon flavor).  I recorded it at the radio production studio I work at, and the recording chain is amazing.  First we tuned and sound-proofed the recording booth down to -32dB of isolation.  Here’s the recording chain:

Neumann U87a  (cardiod pattern, hi pass off)> Great River Electronics MP-2NV Mercenary Edition Class A Mic Pre > Langevin Electro/Optical Compressor/limiter > Pro Tools HD via 192 i/o interface

This recording was done at 44.1Khz, 16bit.  The only processing I used is the Massey L2007 Limiter to make it louder: mendota-springs-can-loud

Mysterious Laundry Sounds

This sequence of sounds includes dragging a plastic laundry basket on a cement floor, opening and closing of the dryer, loading and unloading clothes, and so on.

Doing the Laundry

The Janitors Sink

Until now the sounds presented on ACB have included just about everything except the janitor’s sink. So here it is, recorded in the Grandpa-George building, just outside their studio space. This is the sound created by the plumbing resonating as the hot water runs through the pipes. Apparently the sound doesn’t happen with cold water, and it takes a minute for it to happen with the hot water turned on. For some reason the pipes don’t resonate unless they have hot water running through them. Derrin played the sink while I recorded the results on the Sony PCM-D50.

Janitor’s Sink

Giant Light Bulb Tone

I’ll have to do another session down at Grandpa-George sometime soon, because I have gotten a lot of mileage out the the sound possibilities in their space.

They didn’t know it, but their office is virtually a Foley studio. I doubt they’d let me lay down some sod, sand, and gravel to record footsteps though.

Douglas, Matthew, and Derrin all tend to collect interesting objects including a pair of giant light bulbs, probably for street lamps. This is the tone produced by flicking one of the bulbs.

Giant Light Bulb Tone