Caution. Moving Walk is Nearing its End.

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One of the nine forms of transportation I did not include in the compilation from a couple of entries ago was the moving walkway. On the way home from Seattle last Sunday I had a little extra time due to a delayed flight, so I used it to capture some more airport ambiance including the moving walkway. This one is located in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The best part of the recording is the automated pre-recorded warning as passengers near the end of the walkway. The exact wording is, “Caution. moving walk is nearing its end. Please watch your step. Thank You.”

Moving Walkway

Video Game Music Remixes: Tetris

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As I have mentioned in previous entries I give an assignment in my audio production class on importing MIDI files and producing music using Propellerheads Reason. The goal of the assignment is to learn about MIDI as an interface, protocol, and file format, and to learn some of the basics of Reason.

Usually I demonstrate how to do this with a MIDI file from Classical Archives, but I also use popular music examples from mididb.com, and I always get an enthusiastic response when using a MIDI file from a video game. A great site for video game MIDI files is vgmusic.com.

Consequently, many of the projects turned in are remixes of video game music. This quarter I have a student who is planning on submitting his work to Overclocked Remix, a site dedicated entirely to remixes of video game music. Another talented student named Ben Siegel produced this excellent version of the theme from Tetris that starts out with piano and then builds into a disco classic.

Tetris Remix by Ben Siegel

Nine Forms of Transportation in One Day

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My first method of transportation was cycling to a meeting at my work in downtown Minneapolis. After cycling home and packing for my trip I walked to the bus stop, caught a bus to the light rail and took that to the Hubert H. Humphrey airport. I walked, took an elevator and an escalator to get to the terminal. After meeting my wife, we took at plane to Seattle and used the moving walkway to get to the bag claim area where her parents picked us up and drove us to their home in Gig Harbor, Washington. So the complete list is cycling, walking, bus, rail, elevator, escalator, plane, moving walkway, and automobile.

Here’s a compilation of excerpts from six of the methods of transportation that I managed to get the recorder out in time to capture. The sequence is bus, rail, walking, elevator, airplane (take off and landing), and automobile. I hastily transitioned them all together with cross fades in Audacity on my mother-in-law’s PC because I foolishly decided to leave my laptop at home. Thanks, Julie!

Six Forms of Transportation

Flash Player Version 10.0.12.36 Audio Playback Bug

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Windows users who have upgraded their Adobe Flash players to version 10.0.12.36 will hear warping and distortion in most of the audio examples on ACB. The problem is a documented bug in the Flash player that only manifests while playing audio that is rendered at either 22kHz or 48kHz. Since most of my mixes are at 48kHz before I convert them to mp3s this problem will effect a lot of ACB readers. Hopefully Adobe will have a fix out soon, but until then please click on the title of the audio rather than the player button to listen if you are experiencing playback issues. If you have an older version of the player, or use a Mac you will not be effected by this bug. Update: apparently Mac users with the new version of the plugin have the problem as well. The problem is described here with an AS2 workaround. I’m still looking at solutions, in the meantime, other than clicking on the title versus the play button, the only other solution is to downgrade your Flash player.

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-862

Hamamatsu No. G210

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Here’s a rough mix of a track that I’m working on for an upcoming album of material that I’ve been producing since August, 2008. I have committed to a release date of March 24, 2009 on Unearthed Music and I’m probably a bit more than half finished. Hopefully I’m on schedule. This piece was based on a simple loop of acoustic guitar that I played on an old Kawai with a missing string and a broken tuning peg. In fact I only used the low E and the A string on the instrument. The synth bass, pads, and melody are all made up of captured MIDI clips played on a keyboard controller and directed to VSTs of one kind or another. It’s close to being final, but still a bit of a rough mix, so comments are welcome.

Hamamatsu No. G210