Week 2 Blog

Hello world!

Class Notes

Resources: 

- Tech Resource for Sound Technology and Development: Soundbreaking

- Garageband for Windows: Mixcraft

HTML: Hyper-text markup language

Digital Audio and Recording History/Development

- Early Derivatives: Music box, player piano, orchestrion (see video below) 

 

 

   

- Late 1800s: Thomas Edison's invention of the gramophone was the first time sound was captured, stored, and was able to be played back.

 

- Electronic age (mid 1900s): Magnetic tape recording, A track tape, cassette tapes

-1980s: computer technology comes to the forefront, bringing CDs and personal computers into popularity

- Mid 90's: access to the internet became readily available 

- Digitized audio became easily shareable Napster, Limewire

Digital Audio and Recording

- Loops: very useful because you have the ability to do time compression/expansion and alter pitch separately from that, can be used as ostinato

- Sampling rate: taking snapshots of the sound over time (somewhat like animation)

- Bit depth: the number of bits available for each sample

Class Projects

Creating a Blues Track in Soundtrap

- Done by finding and altering loops

- Drag loop right onto track, copy and paste to fit proper bar lengths, and transpose using the edit button

-Share through Soundcloud: a social media site for sharing and uploading music and compositions. 

Listen here!

Laura Sachaczenski · Soundtrap Blues

Audacity 

- editing sounds through effects tool bar

- import sounds made in Audacity into Soundtrap

Class Reflection

This class was very helpful with learning the origins of digital audio recording and tools we and our students can use today. I think that it would excite students to be able to record and produce their own sounds, even if it is more of a Music Concrete type project instead of a structured musical composition. The use of loops in Soundtrap is a great and easy way for students to recreate styles that they are familiar and comfortable with while adding their own creativity into the mix. I also enjoyed looking back at some of the older ways sounds were mixed and manipulated manually to expand the horizons of recorded music.