This sound was made by manipulating the frequency and panning of a sine wave using the Minim sound library in Processing. I found that adjusting the portamento parameter has some strange and interesting results. Certain values for portamento seem to cause the sine wave to degrade into noise when manipulating the frequency of the waveform. I captured several minutes of this noise and then selected a small segment that has some unusual modulation going on.
Minim Sine Wave Experiment
Some people collect vials of sand from beaches they have visited, but I collect the sounds of the waves breaking on the shore. Well, it’s not much of a collection all I have so far is the Caribbean Sea while in Mexico and this example of Kitsap Peninsula surf recorded recently near the dock at the Port of Indianola in Washington. It’s a start, right?
I made several recordings at this location, but I particularly like this one that captures a sharp clicking sound made by palm sized rocks tumbling in the waves as they break on the shoreline. It was a very windy day, but despite a few bits in this example I managed to shield the wind from the PCM-50 by using a wind screen and putting my back to the wind behind the unit.
Port of Indianola Surf
I have been using my Sequential Circuits Pro-One in the studio pretty often recently, so I decided to use it instead of of a newer keyboard for a recent performance. Unfortunately it did not work the way I had planned. Although I crave unpredictable behavior to stimulate the creative process, it is not exactly as pleasing during a live performance. The aging instrument did not stay in tune for very long and I was having trouble with the keyboard action. I imagine that it’s time for a thorough cleaning of the potentiometers and keyboard contacts. Despite these troubles, while scanning through clips recorded during the set, I came across this nice low frequency filter sweep and ran it through a ping pong delay.
Pro-One Filter Sweep
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
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