Thursday, November 24, 2011

Other Design Stuff

In this section I will give some examples of projects I have done while at Michigan Tech, all of these projects were for educational purposes only...


Creative Resonance
The purpose of this project was to try and tell a story through a sound design, and put it to a pre existing story. For this project I chose Walt Whitman's When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer. I really connected with the idea that to learn about something, a structured lecture could only go so far and at some point you will have to (in this case) just look up. Also the idea that in all of the science of the world, and all the academia, there is still pure beauty.

I put this project together by first recording me reciting the poem, then recording raw sound effects such as the chalk and crystal you hear, and also playing the basic piano part on an old upright I had access to. Then I put all of these aspects together and modified them slightly in Apple's Logic Pro.



Tim DeYoung - Midi Tik Tok
The purpose of this project was to familiarize myself with MIDI. I took a pre-existing MIDI version of KE$HA's Tik Tok and adjusted it as I saw fit. Including adding voices, choosing which part would be which voice, adjusting timing, rythm, and pitch. All of which lead to a very interesting product. I chose this song due to its insane popularity at the time of this project.

Most of this work was done in Apple's Logic Pro, while utilizing EastWest MIDI drivers.




The object of this project was to take a visual art movement from history and translate that movement into sound. For this project I chose the Expressionist movement for its darker themes and muted yet extremely vivid style. Some of the aspects in my sound design which relate to the art movement are the rhythmic machine noise in the background, symbolizing the foundation which, the industrial revolution and the way of life it brought, effected the art movement. Also the dissonance of the strings in my sound design bring to life the emotional and moral absurdities which the painters of the movement were trying to bring to light. The piano represents the brief yet very purposeful brush strokes which was the painting style of the time.

This project was put together in Apple's Logic Pro using many of the onboard synthesizers and some recorded sound effects.




The goal of this project was to compose a song entirely using the Sculpture tool in Apple's Logic Pro. This tool is a synthesizer which models a string for which you can change many parameters including but not limited to the material, how it is played, and the equalization of the instrument it is connected to. 

The jelly fish was the inspiration for this composition, their graceful movements and their fragile bodies combined with a sometimes deadly sting was a very appealing subject for a sound design.