Sounds from the Undeveloped Nature of the Human Distortion Box: Volume III
06.14.2001Experiments in Computer Generated Noise
The third 'Volume' in the SFTUNOTHDB series I began taking 'found' sounds and manipulating them on the computer. I was really interesting in this volume in understanding what the computer could do and how audio could be manipulated in different forms. The program 'pure-data' was used in conjunction with audio samples to create this entire recording.
SFTUNOTHDB: Volume III
right click each track and save
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
11 12
Description
An unreleased recording from 1968 of a Ugandan children’s choir was digitized from reel-to-reel into the computer. The program 'Pure Data (pd)' was used to manipulate the audio with granular synthesis.
"PD (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. " (from the Pure Data website)
"Granular synthesis is a sound synthesis method that operates on the micro-sound time scale. It is often based on the same principles as sampling but often includes analog technology. The samples are not used directly however, they are split in small pieces of around 1 to 50 ms (milliseconds) in length, or the synthesized sounds are very short. These small pieces are called grains. Multiple grains may be layered on top of each other all playing at different speed, phase and volume." (from the Wikipedia entry on grandular synthesis)
With this content and these tools I was really interested in understanding the concept of time within the framework. There is a 'time' or a history of the original recording of those sounds. There is a history to the sounds that are recorded. There is a history to the individuals and groups that those sounds were created by. With this in mind I could understand the complicated networks and relationships between the sounds I had obtained and where they are historically placed.
Manipulations of these sounds brought the concepts of time and history to another level. Micro-samples of sounds became mixed. Ghostly appearances of Ugandan children began to emerge. Time itself became blurred. Sounds folded and unfolded. Sounds became textures instead of images.
No trackback:
Trackback link:
Please enable javascript to generate a trackback url