Goodbye for a while...

Hello,

Unfortunately as soon as I popped back on I need to unsub. With the added Kyma
access to my schedule I am overloaded as I already had a full schedule and did
not expect access to the Kyma during the fall. I am also going through upgrade
hell woes... I have been running Windows 2000 for a while and soon XP, but I
needed to install 98 again as the Aardvark Q10 is not successfully running with
2000, etc. I tried to get 98 back installed, but of all things my Matrox G450
card is causing lots of grief (although it was working with 98 before). I have
to do the nasty with my computer today: format my 98 partition, install 98,
yank all my PCI cards except for the graphics card, and see if I can get it to
work; then install the PCI cards one by one... Grr...

Thanks for all the good words with cafe orbital; I had a difficult time
convincing my parents that it was something other than noise; don't know if I
succeeded... It was rather funny as the studio CCMIX has is not really up to
date. The fastest PC was a P2-300; so I really could not do too much; they had
an old ProTool rig (version 4), but only had the Hyperprism plugins which I
don't like. I decided to go to an internet cafe which had faster computers and
use Audiomulch and create it there. 90 minutes/90 francs. Anyone with a Mac
should check out the Pulsar Generator available from CREATE
(www.create.ucsb.edu); also Road's new book, Microsound, is available next
month. I was able to go out to coffee with him for 15 minutes; it was a strange
15 minutes.

Audiomulch is a PC only program, but it has a long free trial time period and
only costs $50 to register. I have been using it for almost two years now and I
have seen massive upgrades to functionality. By the time it reaches 1.0 it will
be a solid program. It is the first program that allowed me to break away from
midi programming and work with just sound itself. I was surprised that no one
involved with the CCMIX program knew about the program (except for Curtis
Roads).

Other books of interest that I am trying to get my hands on are:
Concert and Opera Halls: How they Sound -- Leo Beranek
The Audio Cyclopedia. 3rd edition
Audio Anecdotes published by A.K. Peters

Bob Katz is coming out with a large mastering tutorial around January. The only
other mastering book I could find is: "The Mastering Engineer's Handbook" by
Bob Owsinski. This book is ok and serves as a good intro to the topic; not much
more though. There is a good portion of the book devoted to interviews with top
mastering engineers.

Checkout the mastering web community at:
http://webbd.nls.net/webboard/wbpx.dll/~mastering

Top information available there and you get to see the engineers that you read
about in the Owsinski book discuss their work and gear. I don't post on those
lists; just lurk; though I had an interesting conversation with Bob Katz off
list...

Another awesome audio community is Tape Op (http://www.tapeop.com/). I have
started to pick up their magazine at issue #10 when it was still black and
white. It is probably one of the last honest magazines that supports the real
audio community. Most of the other commercial magazine push products and an
image; Tape Op is definitely different and is great because there is a lot of
discussion on analog recording; a topic that has long since vanished from all
the other recording magazines.

A good book for studio acoustics is the "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F.
Alten Everest.
Audio in Media by Stanley R. Alten is also used a lot for teaching.

On the composition angle I have read:
The Future of Modern Music by James McHard
Electric Sound by Joel Chadabe

Both presented at CCMIX. I have my reservations on both of the above as they
came off as pundits; IE have some knowledge and insight, but don't practice or
conceive of much output themselves.

Here is a review I wrote of McHard's book:
"The Future of Modern Music (TFMM) highlights the tradition and changing role
of modernity in classical music of the 20th century. As a student participant
of the 2001 summer CCMIX program ... I firsthand gained from the pedagogy
founded on sound based composition which is the focus of both CCMIX and
McHard's book. ....

I categorize TFMM as a book that attempts to place the compositional modernity
of the last century into a hyper modern role in the present. By hyper modernity
I posit that TFMM supports the Western assumption that the detached theoretical
viewpoint is superior to the involved practical viewpoint. Nevertheless, TFMM
succeeds in relating the important transitions that classical music has made in
the 20th century and is a worthy book to read especially for the classical
listener who is not familiar with the advances of composition in this past
century."

I was actually most amused by the CCMIX course during our lunch breaks as that
is when the guests would start real conversations. One day I happened to be
sitting across from Gerard Pape and Curtis Roads was nearby when I brought up
post modernism. Immediately Gerard offered his viewpoint on post modernism,
basically how it glorifies the fact that nothing new can be created and how the
composers just collage previous periods and create "neo Baroque" music or "neo
tonal music". I politely excused myself and then stated that his definition was
the text book definition of post modernism and only can describe the most chic
realizations from that area. When questioned on my definition I certainly could
not provide a better answer; other than I hold a lot of things in this world
with doubt and disbelief and have been doing so for only about 3 years, so I am
still working my way through the gray area. This was the first time I was
confronted with staunch modernists though. In my area very few people realize
they are subject to a philosophical outlook.

Another funny scene that developed was when during a break when Joel Chadable
started to mention these great new sound files he has been able to create; IE
taking a recording of footsteps then making then sound like metallic footsteps
then turning them into pitches. He was all excited like he stumbled across
something brilliant and was recounting it to mostly clueless people (oh, I
meant students!).. I calmly replied, "Well, if I wanted to do that I would use
GRM Tools Resonator." To which his smile faded, "yeah, that is what we used."
;)

McHard's book is interesting though I don't agree with the mild attack on post
modernism.

I am still out in question on the subject though... I have Heidegger's Being
and Time sitting here (along with the Dreyfus commentary!), so there are
several things I want to read before passing judgement on an area that is
counter to the viewpoints of most of the American (international?) science
community. When will I read it? Agh...

It was a great experience though. I was able to tour IRCAM and GRM. Wow... I
can't believe IRCAM and the cultural dominance that is asserted by this
institution.. It is amazing really; especially considering that the French
government gives them $31 million a year let alone whatever industry contracts
they fulfill. I can't think of a similar institution in the US that receives
that much support to create culture. CCMIX gets next to nothing and it was cool
to hang out with the "punk rockers" of the modern classical scene in Paris.

I am concerned that the composers involved with CCMIX (Gerard Pape) just
co-opted theories found in chaos theory and applied them to composing. IE that
is very evolutionary; not revolutionary. "Chaos theory" was very popular in the
early '90s when he applied these ideas.

I hope I am not sounding rude though... I am grateful I had that experience,
but I am just trying to make sense of that world and I hold it up to just as
much doubt and disbelief as when I attend classes at my university.

Ack. Anyway.. I hope to sub back onto this list around winter; hopefully I will
have completed something interesting audio wise.

Again get in touch off list if you are interested in mastering as I more than
willing to fit that into my schedule.

I still am just beginning my adventure into the microtonal world... I like
electronic and studio technology; it allows an individual to explore an
infinite world from the reversibility of history (IE the microtonal aspect) to
applying forward looking techniques.

Anyway.. I just wanted to pop back on here to say that I haven't forgotten
about this area of music and it is very much on my mind daily, but I just don't
have the time to dissect the volume of email on this list or the tuning list. I
could spend all day doing that!

--Mike