MUS329G Lab Assignment One

DUE Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

Sound Library

Make a library of concrète sounds. Record 16-24 sounds in the following categories (at least one in each):

1. Natural Percussive (i.e., not from a musical instrument)
1. Pitched
2. Non-pitched
2. Complex Sustained and/or Continuous Environmental
1. Natural (e.g., wind, water, rain, leaves, gravel, etc.)
2. Man-made (i.e., mechanical, or industrial)
3. Mimetic/Referential
1. Natural human/animal sounds
2. Sounds of civilization
4. Miscellaneous musical/abstract
1. Something very high and delicate
2. Something very low and “heavy”
3. Something pure and simple, with a sustained pitch
4. Something complex and interesting, pitched (although not necessarily fixed), and with a constantly changing timbre and dynamic

Instructions:

• Record all your own source sounds from acoustic sources (i.e., nothing synthesized).
• Record in EMS I, or check out one of the minidisk recorders and microphones.
• You may work at 44.1 or 48K SR, 16bit or 24bit resolution.
• Edit, clean up, trim, and (with the exception of the “high and delicate” sound) normalize all your samples in Sound Forge. Fill in the Summary Sheet (File/Properties/Summary), listing yourself as the author, and briefly describe the sound source in the comments field. For pitched sounds, set the root pitch (Special/Edit Sample).
• Give your sounds descriptive names, save them as .wav files, and organize them into folders, according to the categories above. Turn in a copy of your library (on CD-ROM) in class on the date due.

Your grade will be based on the following elements:

• 80% - Technical Quality: clean recording (no clicks, pops, distortion, hiss, hum, or other extraneous background noise), properly trimmed and edited (no extra silence before or after the sound, no artificially abrupt attacks or decays, etc.), and normalized.
• 15% - Presentation: sounds appropriately named, commented, and organized into folders, as specified above.
• 5% - Creativity/Sound Quality. (Interesting and/or unusual sounds score higher than boring, commonplace, or otherwise lame sounds.)

Note: There are two primary goals for this assignment. One is to improve your recording and editing technique; the other is to create the basic library of sounds that you will use for all the remaining studio projects this semester. Obviously, if you don’t do a good job on this project, it will be rather difficult to excel in your future projects. Consequently, you may be required to redo portions of this assignment, in the event that they are not done adequately the first time.