And Kennedy Shot Himself...

I skipped a week so that I would have a lot to blog about at one time since the last few class periods have been more about presenting projects and receiving the next few assignments. 

10.5.11

The video project coming up at the end of the semester has to demonstrate:

• Low and high density
• Contrasting instrumentation
• Contrasting dynamics
• Contrasting textures
• Key change(s)
• Percussion
• Live vocals - spoken or sung
• Live instrument - acoustic 

In order to start planning out this project, we had to make a sort of flow chart that plans out every 10-20 seconds of the video and what sounds will play when. 

<----- A little over-board on the single second increments! 

I made my chart in Excel with a lot of colors and instruments. I'm really excited and this really helped with the creative planning process. Even though I don't know what I will end up doing to the music, but I know I have ideas, which is a step in the right direction. 

So, in the next few classes of 306, Drew assigned, talked about, and presented our Lunar Landing projects! 

This was the best assignment yet! I had soooo much fun making this. 

So I used a lot of the internal sounds of my keyboard because I knew that they would come in handy one day. The truth is, I am pretty scared of Hollywood style Aliens due to a traumatic experience when I was two.... 

Thanks a lot Dad.

Anyways, I nearly jumped off my piano bench every time I played a new sound in my earphones! I got over it and made an awesome project. I'm really happy with it and I can tell that I know ProTools a lot better than I did before in just one project. There are sooo many aspects of ProTools that seriously blow my mind! 

#1. Busing audio through an Auxiliary track with a Reverb insert on it will not only clean up your project and enhance work flow, but will also use less processing and you will be able to send everything through the same reverb and achieve a more professional sound. 

#2.  F will pre and post fade all selected audio tracks!!!! Bomb. Cross fading is also useful when two different audio tracks are next to each other.

#3.  Click on the Insert will bypass the insert and you will be able to hear the track/audio with and without the effects. 

#4. In the Automation view of Volume, Panning, or any other desired automatable effect, you can switch between the hand tool and the selector tool with  Click. You can find these automation options in the Track View Selector which is waveform by default. 

#5. The pen pattern tool can create awesome designs like a square wave, triangle wave, and random wave, when you hold down the pen tool and select the desired option. I personally like the triangle design because it makes my voice sound like a Transformer :) 

Tremolo vs. Vibrato.... Tremolo is dynamic and vibrato is pitch which is shifted between semi-tones. 

#6. PitchShift = Select Audio, AudioSuite > Pitch Shift > Pitch Shift > Drag the scroll bar across to find where you want the audio to be pitch shifted to. 

#7. Plugin Automation will show up if you hold down all three modifiers and click = Ctrl Opt  Click and the option to automate the effect will pop up in the Track View Selector.

Some other side notes are that AudioSuite is permanent and so you should probably make a copy of your original audio before you go to town pitch shifting and audiosuiting it! 

You can delete automation in the Track View Selector with the selector tool, just highlight and press delete. 

Parallelism vs. Serialism

As you can see, Parallel would be two effects running side by side, not affected by each other. 

Serial would be one effect going through another effect getting a totally different sound. 

To stop the reverb tail you can automate the reverb effect and draw in a fading automation! 

Automation Key Strokes: 

Option Click will Erase a point made

Control Click will insert a point

Click and drag up will lift a section up when the half rectangle looking tool appears

Busing is for effects processing which will effect only a percentage of the incoming signal whereas Inserts are for dynamic processing which will effect all 100 percent of the incoming signal. Dynamic processing includes de-essers, compressors, gates, limiters, expanders, and (EQ). effects processing includes chorus, flanger, phaser, reverb, and delay. 

Thoughts

I told my mom that we never went to the moon. She said "And Kennedy shot himself. " 

I really am trippin out about the Lunar Landing Conspiracy! What would that mean if everything we think we know about our planet, universe, moon is a ego trip of our Country?? Wow.