Category: Sonic thinking and Doing

What is it?

Its a sampling technuiqe that splits up sampler into grains. Which are typically 5 to 200 miliseconds, you can sythasise new sounds.

The idea behind granular synthesis dates all the way back to 1946, when Hungarian-British engineer and physicist Dennis Gabor conceptualized the idea that you could create new sounds out of microsound particles.

Heres a sample I have brefore I used Abletons Granular 3 plug in.

And heres the same sample after I tweaked the audio with granular sythasis.

You can clearly notice the difference of granular engineering as the sample get broken up into smaller individual parts and put back together again.

Week 6

Context:

This week I missed the Monday afternoon session about extended microphones techniques which put me in a state of confusion. Yesterday I went to a friends house and started to learn about some of the hardware you can use to create sound which was productive. I am still trying to download Ableton for my Mac so I can start to do some work at home. Did a live recording DJ set and got a gig with the same people again.

I planned to:

Book about a field recorder and continue to record sounds which I’m going to do today so can record sounds over the weekend. I wanted to read something off the reading list on the Library website. Plus continue to learn Ableton at home on my Mac and start to get used to it.

Reflection:

I did well at learning some hardware techniques at my mates house and that was very progressive to my knowledge. I did all the appropriate reading for Annies lesson and was well informed own the discussion points. Did a live mixing DJ set which was super fun, I really enjoyed the live sampling aspect of it.

Next I plan to:

Listen to some pieces on phone calls and the voice over the phone as that’s what intend to use in my work. To research some Ableton techniques further. To start to make my own compositions at home with mixing and mastering. To play more hardware through my software at home and play around with it. To write my plan for the reflective writing task.

Week 4

This week we where tasked with reflecting on the spaces that mean somethings to us. I found this to be a relaxing task and it was nice to into words what a place meant to me in words. It was inspiring to talk about my personal connectoin with my own world, it was nice to share a peice of myself to my enviroment. I did find it difficult to talk so personally in a task but it was good practise.

I went to Telegraph Hill skatepark near me and took the following recording.

Week 3

What I heard:

• Birds call
• Wind in the trees
• Cars on the road behind
• My footsteps
• Squirrels chirping
• Planes over head
• My phone ringing
• Leaves falling
• Squelch of the mud
• Other people talking
• The change in my wallet
• Car doors opening and closing