Category: Porfolio

I decided to finish the pieces, the PDF containing the artwork and short description, alongside a sound walk of the area I recorded my field recordings.

I also decided to call the project Amalgamation, based on the idea that the relationship between human and nonhuman sounds in the area had combined into one.

The next step is to begin my first portfolio idea, research into radio and the Tropicalia movement. Begin thinking about how I want to present this research, do I have to conform to the views of standard ethnographic research and radio broadcasts?

After finishing the pieces I needed to do a rough mix and master, for me that meant just EQ, compression, limiting on the master and doing some more graphic EQ’ing. Checking the metering, LUFS and phasing issues that have occurred. As well as making sure all tracks have equal LUFS so when you hear one from the other there aren’t any issues with volume differences. These are things I’ve been reading from my mixing in the small studio book I purchased. I didn’t do much in terms of creating mixing as in my improvisations I did fade-ins and FX on the fly live so all this session needed was some surgical EQ and raising levels, making sure not too much compression is present.

Here is a screenshot of my final mix/master touch-ups.

And the final bounced tracks, now it’s time to create the artwork and create some track names and the overall project name.

I decided to look more into tape and cassette as a medium to critically reflect on theorists and writers further than my current readings. To take my reflections as far as possible. I found this interesting essay that discusses Tape and the ideas behind the human alike abilities of tape and how tape can be understood In different ways and what tape offers that other technology does. Here are some quotes and reflections that brought interest from reading.

The difference between analogue and digital recording resolves in a difference between a continuously varying waveform, in its various physical analogies and a discontinuously-encoded form.

Something I’ve always understood about analogue to digital recording and playback is that waveforms are what is played in analogue and digital are the same but converted into ones and zeros. There is more ease with analogue distortion due to this, as it’s not a linear one or zero. I think this does create a more human idea of tape when one understands this analogue perspective within it.

The idea that one might be able to read off sound from the scorings in a phonograph record might always have been a fantasy, but gramophone records do allow for a certain kind of quasi-legibility, sounds of greater amplitude resulting for example in visibly deeper and wider indentations; djs are able to drop the stylus very accurately on to a particular point in a piece of music using this kind of legibility. Tape offers much less opportunity for this, since the dispositions of the magnetic particles on the tape are not visible, meaning that one length of tape looks and feels pretty much identical to another. One of the reasons that magnetic recording was not adopted as quickly by editors of film sound after the War was precisely that it did not offer a visible set of undulations on the film print as the optical soundtrack did (Morton 2004, 126).

I think that the idea that tape has recordings embedded but blind to our eyesight is another interesting point. Vinyl has obvious grooves and one can easily distinguish the separations between audio and tracks. Tape is all magnetic and more difficult but it’s still there. What does this mean for the user and the experience? Ideas of letting go and giving things time to breathe become apparent in my thoughts.

Record ‘scratching’ allows one to interfere with the reproduction of a recorded signal; tape editing allows one to start again and produce a new signal entirely. As N. Katherine Hayles observes, ‘whereas the phonograph produced objects that could be consumed only in their manufactured form, magnetic tape allowed the consumer to be a producer as well’ (Hayles 1999, 210).

This is something I’ve read in other sources that tape was the first time a consumer could also become a producer and engineer all at once. Due to the nature of tape being re-recordable and erasable this created an unwanted outcome. Giving the listener control, as well as a playback device and recording device. Brian Eno also discusses this as the time when he felt that he could create music by non-musicians.

The disk is a fossil record; the tape is much more like Freud’s Wunderblock, susceptible at any point to modification and erasure. The disk lays sound out for manipulation and modification. Tape allows sound to turn back on, and in on itself. This could sometimes happen without human intervention. One of the most mysterious effects of old tapes was the phenomenon of ‘print-though’, caused by the fact that, when wound on top of one another, the magnetic patterns imprinted in one part of the tape could print themselves by induction on a neighbouring part of the tape. Normally this faint ghosting of the sound is buried by the principal signal, but it can become audible in blank passages of tape, causing a curious anticipation of the first second or so of a track before it actually begins. Tape embodies not just the stopping of time, but the spreading and thickening of the present moment.

This concept laid out here that tape embodies not just the stopping of time but the spreading and thickening is an interesting quality to give to an object such as tape. Tape being seen as possessing the qualities to control time isn’t wrong, The dynamic difference between vinyl and tape separates from the fact that vinyl is waiting to be played and manipulated. The tape wanted to be erased and re-recorded. When erased it still holds fragments of the past and ghosts within it. The thickening of the present moment is real.

In the early 1950s, Francois Poullin invented a device known as a ‘morphophone’. The morphophone played a loop of tape in a circle, in which were set an erasing head, a recording tape and ten playback heads, the positions of which could be adjusted, to allow different kinds of delays. Another technique devised by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp was called Frippertronics. This involves hooking up two tape recorders alongside each other; an input is recorded on the left hand machine, and the tape is fed to the right hand machine, which plays back the sound that has just been recorded, though with a few seconds’ delay. This signal can then be fed back to the first tape-recorder, and replaced by or mixed with whatever new sound may be being played.

These early ideas with tape and techniques have fabricated a current future we exist in, and at the time were very revolutionary. I searched for a morphophone and decided to see what it looked like. Really interesting, and the concept in itself is hilarious but also gives a sense of the technological advancement that was available at the time. The other technique of Frippertronics is also something similar I did with tape loops within my machine and within my final prototype hand-in.

Burroughs sees language itself as a kind of tape system, meaning that thinking itself is a kind of playback, or perhaps even a simultaneous recording and playback. Burroughs is not the only person to have borrowed from the tape-recorder to understand mental functioning. Recent work suggests that these kind of hallucinations may have their origin in some kind of distortion in the perception of time, for which the tape recorder has sometimes provided an apt analogy.

I think once again this idea that tape and human characteristics have similar qualities is true, and also can give us an understanding of tape as a medium and what it can offer that digital doesn’t. Being aware of similarities can help us draw conclusions and link ideas and thoughts together.

In fact, the relation between the right and left brains has often been understood in terms, not only of the circulation of recording and playback functions, but also of the difference between two different kinds of recording, namely the analogue and the digital

Again, the left and right brain relating to digital and analogue, playback and recording. The same way our brain works with retaining information. There are numerous connections within this.

I think this has been a great essay explaining some ideas about the temporality and corporeal abilities of tape, the connection with human-like qualities and the differences between vinyl and what tape offers the creator, as well as what tape did at its time.

I once again am chipping away at my proposal document, at the beginning, I discuss my current prototype and two portfolio pieces in-depth, I need to get clarification once I return on January 9th if this is correct or if I shouldn’t include my prototype within the proposal.

I saw a few spelling errors and grammar issues, as well as in general getting the order of portfolios one and two in the wrong order. Currently, the radio portfolio piece will inform the second portfolio piece so it needed to be in the correct format.

I also changed up a few sentences that didn’t make sense and added more context as I have been reading more into other frameworks and essays.

I have one refresh session on this portfolio before I receive feedback so I hope Milo has a spare 10 minutes on the 9th so that I can share my portfolio proposal with him.

I am finally set up my circle of equipment around me. Had my tape loops ready. My field recordings were edited and chopped. The right cables and equipment and began setting everything up.

It took me a bit of time to get everything working smoothly. I ended up having a few cables short and had to get creative, instead of stereo the JU-06A was going in mono, and I midi-synced the Juno to the Volca FM. I also set up effects send from the mixer to the SP404 MK2.

I decided to create three pieces, as I had three different tape loop styles, and I would have the long-form tape loop running different drones for each piece. I also selected different sounds each time.

Improvisation number one would be waves and bird sounds with the long tape loop running a drone of the Thames. I had chorus and reverb in my sp404mk2 effects send and return. As well as an effect that is generative and randomises loops and releases. I wanted to keep the core idea of minimalism and ambient as well as generative in mind. i wanted to do as little as possible and let the FX do the work and then I would slowly bring in things and out over a period of 5 minutes for each improvisation. Because it’s all going into the Zoom H5 I didn’t have to worry about production or anything else. I wanted it to be raw and afterwards require little editing. I wanted to embrace the ideas I’ve previously researched in.

Performance number two was similar but had more bird field recordings and the noise pollution resonance from the turbines on the loop form tape loop. As well as switching between playing back the tape loop on the mixer and switching to inputs and driving the FX send and master creating feedback. I was controlling the FX with one hand and sending and adjusting with the other. Again I wanted to create this parallel between non-human and human existence that I saw at Stave Hill, this performance was my reflection from consistently going to the site and experiencing this relationship that is ongoing and self-reliant on each other. Reminds me of Gaia theory and other academic works that I’ve read in the Environmental Sound Arts work.

The third performance was the best, in my opinion, I’d really learnt to let go by this point and I went over my allotted time of 5 minutes but I enjoyed it so much, I forgot I was even recording. It was complex and simple at the same time, I allowed the sounds to breathe and take time between compositional changes. I switched between tape loops and line-ins. Minimal Synth sounds, arpeggiated and sequenced. After finishing the last performance I decided to listen back as I felt perhaps they weren’t that great.

After listening back to the three performances I was blown away. Something so texturally interesting and deep could be composed improvisational with minimal editing. Again not egocentric as I wasn’t impressed by the composition as such but more the sonic of the machines altogether. It’s generative it wasn’t about me, I was blown away but what the equipment and sounds did themselves. I simply set the parameters for the machines to create, the loops would keep recording over each other adding layers and layers, I did the trick of putting masking tape on top of the erase head and this allowed for constant layering to record. I’m curious to see what others think.

Finally, before going to bed I looked up AI text to photo programs as I felt like generative art would suit this work as the composition is the same.

I typed in words related to the project and ended up generating based on this sentence. “Anthropocene, Cuthulucene, Minimalism, Cassette, Tape Loops, Field Recordings, Noise Pollution, Birds, Human, Non-Human” and these were the outcome.

In particular, I really like the second photo. I think all that is left now is to do some research into Cuthulucene and the Gaia theory. The improvisations sound like an amalgamation, can the future soundscapes of our society become something like this? Will we become a coexisting lifeform, all-knowing all breathing?

‘In the history of technology, it is not all that rare for technological inventions to gain significance long after their inception’ Theodore Adorno (1969: p. 283)

It’s a great point to make that innovation in technology is considered better after an extended duration of time. The idea is that at the moment we fail to realise how great something is due to not having the context of what things will become.

Such organisations, trade shows and discussion sites have all contributed to a technology industry where, certainly over the last 30 years, new=good. Indeed, such utopianism surrounding the ‘new’ is ever prevalent in the sound and music technology press, which is much to do with their line of income so dependent on advertising revenue. Almost no recognition is given to technological precursors or vintage systems and is only acknowledged when mentioned in recordist interviews. The only exception to this is the magazine ‘Tape Op’, which – as the name suggests – gives more prominence to past and current analogue systems being used in today’s recording workplace.

This is something I myself have learnt the hard way, the idea the new=good is something really from capitalism, the idea that something new must be better because X Y or Z that we must constantly be upgrading our equipment to fill the pockets of the industry.

by following this quest for analog sound, digital technology helps to create an acknowledgement of analog aesthetics. This must not be seen as merely an act of nostalgia, but rather as a sense that the context of its use is what really makes a particular technology novel.  (2007: p. 90)

The fact that modern digital technology has acknowledged and also create replications of analogue equipment is something that is of huge interest to me. What became the dominant hardware over analogue has become following and reproduction in a more accessible way.

eBay has become a popular and wholly viable outlet for the sale of both current and second-hand sound recording equipment.

Today, there are few means by which precursors and vintage systems are sourced amongst the UK recording industry. The BBC Redundant Store and Abbey Road’s Sale of Century were instrumental in the resale of perhaps the first ‘batch’ of vintage technologies, particularly once 16-track analogue tape recording was superceded.  Indeed, both outlets served as an important predecessor to the vintage market today. However, both outlets reinforced the perception that vintage sound recording equipment was either redundant, implying loss of meaning or function, or for collectors interest only. The use value of the second-hand equipment was largely ignored

Once again the internet due to access to communication has undoubtedly been key to the rise of analogue equipment in modern digital studios and recording spaces. Websites such as eBay have been critical to this distribution and locating. Old analogue equipment is difficult to find and tedious to fix, without such it wouldn’t be possible to even operate and maintain such equipment.

The certain ‘mentality’ Watson refers to is the wider cultural shift toward a technology-centric recording process as opposed to one driven by musical performance and/ or the influence of the recordist/ workplace. Such a shift can be traced back to the influx of affordable digital technologies of the mid to late 1980s and the rise of the music technology press. Latter-day online equipment fora such as Gearslutz focus almost entirely upon the technology itself, thus reinforcing a cultural perception that sound recording as a process is technology-driven.

the technology focuses on performance and musical influence is powerful, to think that the gear has more vice over the actual music and performance is an interesting take I hadn’t considered. Do we end up preferring the machines over the music and performances and end up doing this just to use the machines and listen to their effects. Are we more interested in the sonic palettes that these machines offer, the textures and tonalities than the recorded ideas?

Back in the early 1980s, proponents couldn’t say enough great things abut digital technology: how quiet it was compared to tape; how digital storage eliminated the problem of archiving; and how it made editing child’s play. All still valid points, a quarter-century later. However, it was easy to overlook one very noticeable shortcoming: digital didn’t always produce the most pleasing tones. (Simons: 2006: p. 14)

Similar to the last article but digital is clean, and analogue is warm. Digital is more convenient but doesn’t have flavour.

I’ve really enjoyed this short essay, I will definitely consider this for my work.

I found an article on arpjournal that seemed interesting. As I’m using tape for this prototype project and I intend to use old analogue equipment alongside modern digital for my second portfolio piece I felt this would give me some sort of critical argument for and against its usage.

Creativity doesn’t emerge out of a vacuum…creative talent requires a tradition so that it can learn how to go further within it or beyond it. Innovation should be understood by rejecting those approaches which set it squarely against tradition and established cultural practice. (Negus & Pickering: 2004, p.91)

Similar to my copyright and copywrongs book this is something I’ve heard a lot recently in texts, the sitting on shoulders of giants and considering how knowledge and ideas spread.

While some suggest that in employing the option to use older gear and processes this action can be simply explained as a form of ‘technostalgia’, a naïve longing for a better time, the reality may in fact be a little more complex.

Technostalgia is the first time I’ve heard of this, but certainly, it could be. I believe the argument that it’s just the idea could be the truth but also I agree with the end of the sentence, it’s more complex. Digital systems aren’t are natural feeling as the analogue realm, both combined are the preferred usage for me.

In becoming record producers and engineers these studio professionals acquire a habitus, a ‘feel for the game’ or practical sense of what works or what doesn’t (Johnson in Bourdieu: 1993, p.5). They immerse themselves in the traditions and conventions of recording until this knowledge becomes so naturalised for them that making a judgement call on the quality of a performance or what is the best equipment to use on a session is almost intuitive.

So one could argue that a lot of choices are based on habits and assumptions or considered as knowledge. knowledge in understanding the right application for the recording or habits as in being used to using the same equipment. Which one is better or worse is another question.

Analogue was very dirty. So everyone tried to be very clean. Then we had digital, and digital was really clean, and so it was kind of like a reverse process, you wanted to dirty it up a bit. Now, when you go to old circuitry, you’re including a lot of noise. Noise is good. Noise is not bad at all. It adds a certain character, but I think it plays with your mind, I think there’s a psycho acoustic affect to this. (Taylor: 2014)

This quote is something I’ve been discussing a lot with other engineers and you hear this a lot from older engineers who were around during the peak of analogue recording equipment when there was no DAW. They always said that it was noisy and difficult to use, always had restrictions and the budget for recording had to be huge. But I also believe that this isn’t an argument as to why digital audio sounds so clean and lifeless like this quote argues the middle ground seems the best.

Emulating the traditional use of mixing desks, the introduction of controllers such as the SSL Nucleus or the Avid C24 control surface were largely attempts to re-invent and re-purpose what was an ergonomically friendly working tool. However, Robbie Long has resisted this return to an outboard signal router not finding it necessary to use a mixing desk at all. 

Another symptom of technostalgia I agree with. We also have the Avid control surfaces at university and I find them humorous, it’s attempting to combine both worlds and if it works for the engineer then why not. But for me it’s not something that does work or makes me come alive, I find when in the digital domain the idea that the controller doesn’t represent what is on the software is confusing and not representative of what I’m doing. If the controller has 8 faders but the project has 100 tracks how can this seem ergonomic?

He believes this confluence of analogue and digital ‘is going to be the future of it…so there’s an example of using something from analogue that has now become part of the standard’ (Taylor: 2014). For Taylor this confluence of both worlds is not, at its heart, novel:

With the advent of digital technology, there are a hell of a lot of processes that are new and there are a hell of a lot of processes that are old but just made in a different way. The older processes have become more ‘amplified’ because you have so much more control over it. So yes, of course, you’re always using a lot of the old techniques but you’re having to deliver them in a different fashion. Anything to digital now is all just sort of locked in to a specific zone. (Taylor: 2014)

Similar to the first section that discusses innovation being the offshoot of tradition and that both are beneficial to each other, without tradition we wouldn’t have modern recording techniques and vice versa. It’s a process of evolution and the analogue in the digital realm is more “amplified” as Taylor (2014) says.

When you go back to sitting in front of an SSL and a tape machine, like an analogue tape machine, it’s a different world, and you engineer it completely differently. You think about it differently and luckily I have all that in my head, but the kids wouldn’t know. They’d have no idea…Whereas, you know, it was a completely different headspace. You had to think differently. It was like a chess game. You really had to think in advance. You couldn’t say ‘Well, look, that will be fixed up in the edit’…And you didn’t have half of the ability to repair…So, yes, a completely different headspace. You would engineer completely differently and you would produce differently. (Taylor: 2014)

Different working techniques and abilities come from equipment, and limitations can define our processes. If you don’t have 20 inputs how can you mix 20 different signals? That’s when getting creative has to work and this for me is what I find interesting for audio engineering and recording. If you consider the mixing desk as a tool for creative audio rather than a tool for commercial recording and production processes it can be seen in a whole different light. Similar to Eno and his views on the music studio as an instrument and production as a non-musician way of making music a new outcome can reveal itself from using these tools.

He argues that with the number of young engineers being schooled in various audio engineering colleges around the world, with Pro Tools being the prime medium, those engineers who are mainly familiar with digital are often ‘romancing about analogue and they’ve hardly ever heard it or worked on it…They’re remembering something that they’ve never had anything to do with’ (Taylor: 2014). But as an engineer-producer who has seen a number of significant changes in the recording world, as Long and Latham also have, he knows ‘exactly what it does, and I can tell you there’s limitations’ (Taylor: 2014). Taylor agrees that there does appear to be a nostalgia for a period many people have never lived through but for him ‘it’s a remembrance of stuff that works and a remembrance of stuff that doesn’t’ (Taylor: 2014).

Something I myself fall into, I’ve never used a mixing desk more than a handful of times and I long for this need and nostalgia or romanticism or owning and using one. I should consider why I have this idea of wanting to use this and what it will bring me.

I thought this text and article overall gave me new ideas to consider the usage of analogue equipment within my own work and future work. As well as critically thinking about why I did use tape loops and what cassette as a medium offered me.

I decided to read the 17 pages titled Problems of Finishing by DeSantis. This did hit home for me as I sometimes struggle with finishing when I work alone. As a group I do fine but alone I struggle to sometimes push myself to finish and actualise projects. Hopefully, this can give me some insight into how to fix these issues.

It’s tempting to think of a song as being something like unlimited physical space, and that the way to fill the space involves adding more stuff. But in reality, musical space has boundaries, like a canvas there is a limit to how much you can add before you’re simply covering something that’s already there.

I agree I tend to do the same with my own compositions. I might take it too far and consider it always able to add more but I tend to be on the opposite and require simple more basic ideas that each one takes dominance in what it’s good at. I’m going to consider this with my performance I will do it later, how can make sure that enough is enough? Do I need to use all the inputs and sounds/synths? Perhaps one synth at a time?

Modern DAWs suggest a workflow that combines loops into larger arrangements and many genres of electronic music are defined by repeating patterns. But perfectly repeated loops can become tedious after a while. Here is one technique for creating a sense of surprise within an otherwise loop-based context.

This I couldn’t be against more than anything in compositions. I dislike using the grid, it clicks everything into place. I want my sounds to have a human feeling, not everything strikes at the same time due to quantization, I want things to be different and have their own existence within the track. Not a predetermined idea of rhythm.

Although modern DAWs blur the line between editing MlDl and audio there is still a huge range of latent possibilities (and thus distraction) available just by having access to the source instruments. By rendering to audio and then removing the instruments that has made it so you’re forced to change your mode of interaction with your material. You cant change patches anymore, or adjust parameters. This forces at least the “programming synthesizers” part of the sound design process to come to an end. By closing certain doors behind you the only way you can move is forward writing, arranging, and mixing the song. This Is essentially an Arbitrary Constraint (page 42) self-imposed for the sole purpose of eliminating possibilities.

Bouncing down ideas is a great tip. I remember Gareth educating me on the resampling function on Ableton which makes it easy to do. I will also note that using sounds as audio files rather than VST also has advantages in terms of compositional uses. VST act as a trigger and read midi notes, audio is malleable and can be time stretched, pitched, chopped, and even resampled back as a new instrument.

But what most producers don’t realize is that each stage of the music-making process is itself a thing that requires practice. We get to be better sound designers by designing sounds. We get to be better drum programmers by programming drums. And we get to be better song finishers by finishing songs. Because of this, the more songs we start but don’t finish, the more opportunities we miss out on to practice finishing. And as a result, we might continually improve in various aspects of the early stages, but we’ll never improve at actually getting things done.

Another great point, I should do it myself. Finishing is another skill, such as recording, producing and engineering. The more you work on an fail the more you succeed.

I really enjoyed this PDF. It will definitely sit and brew in my thoughts.

After creating the new tape loops I did a setup test on what I’d like to use for my final improvised generative performance. I decided that perhaps I need more cables that I can borrow from a friend and how to position my setup. I have also considered how I want to play and perform within this.

I first decided to create a list of things I need.

I have 6 inputs in my mixer/tape machine with two being stereo. I decided to use one of those two stereo inputs for my return from SP404 MK2 which I will be using for FX. Channel one and two will be my Juno synth which I will perform amongst the soundscape compositions. Channel three will be a Volca FM I borrowed from university and 5/6 my Walkman with a long tape loop. Playing drones while the other sounds are more performative. I will also record the output into the ZOOM H5 and listen to the composition through the CUE function of the desk/tape machine which is the headphone output.

So far I’ve tested everything and it works well. I now will create a clean comfortable setup which allows me to perform my four pieces.

I decided to go back after my first tape loop creations as I wasn’t happy with how they came out. They weren’t sitting on the tape reader correctly or had the right tension. My tape splicing wasn’t accurate and the connections didn’t work as intended and clogged up within the machine. So it’s time to create version two.

I spent some time taking apart my previous tape loops and figuring out how to make them better and analysing with my engineer’s brain what is going on. I put them back into the tape player and kept testing with my JU-06A and going into inputs and outputs. I figured out it was the tension. I got the first tape to work and then eventually it sorted itself out! Eureka! I had figured out why it finally wasn’t working properly and it was because the tape wasn’t running at a stable rate, it was wobbling or skipping and not keeping the correct tension on the tape head. The easiest way for me to figure this out was to compare it to another tape that was working, a musical one and I saw the tension and how it was supposed to be.

After the first one worked, since I purchased four blank cassette tapes I decided to see what other alternative tape loop types there are online I had created the Single wheel Loop successfully and decided to make three others. Number two would be the Standard Loop, Number Three would be David Chandler Loop and number four would be an extended cassette loop that goes out of it which isn’t in this photo.

So after some time I successfully created all three form that photo and they worked perfectly, I’m getting the hang of creating tape loops and making them work almost flawlessly, I also found information online about putting masking tape over the erase head, which then creates tape loops that don’t stop recording, you can keep layering your compositions instead of there being a blank sound as it catches the end of the tape. So I did that and found it fascinating the relayering of sounds. something I will incorporate into my final pieces. The last step was to create the extended tape loop. I watched a video and saw a few photos and realised I had to cut the front side A and keep the back Side B in order for it to fit into the tape machine. I cut it with scissors which didn’t work exceptionally well but well enough to give me what I wanted. I installed it into my Walkman and then gave it a play. It also worked flawlessly!

I think the next step is to have a practice jam idea on what equipment and sounds I want to use for my final improvisations that I will make for my prototype hand-in. For me, I think four improvisations are best as I have 4 different tapes. So in my head one loop type for each piece, performing with different samples and having the extended tape loop playing long drone sounds.