Kyma Ambiences [USO003]
is the third sound effects bundle created by Matteo Milani (U.S.O.
Project). The generation of these "Artificial Reality Ambiences" starts
entirely in Symbolic Sound Kyma - during the development of projectgenesismovie.com
- from the processing of white and pink noise by filtering - in the
time/spectral domains - and convolving these sources with custom FM,
additive, formant and granular synthesis.
The
composition’s resource of sound material is drawn solely from these
processed stochastic sound elements: coloured noise is a raw material
already full of life and can be sculpted into a variety of temporal
forms, movements and textures. The interaction with Kyma was typical of a
composer who explored a device’s potential for sound transformation
like a musical instrument. The goal was to obtain an organic and
acoustic quality using only a restricted sound source, in order to evoke
real spatial characteristics attached to each invented sound.
The sound effects collection is published @ 96kHz (native), plus a budget version @ 48kHz (resampled). “Kyma Ambiences vol.1” is not only available in these two packages, but also as dual-layer separated “Elements”,
suitable for recombinant stratification, varispeed and spatial
positioning in the surround field (for a total of 112 files @ 96kHz).
Unseen Noises is the second sound effects bundle created by sound designers and electronic composers Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi (aka Unidentified Sound Object - U.S.O. Project).
Electromagnetic informations are invisible and omnipresent. In every city, especially the big ones, an infinite number of electromagnetic waves is hidden: we can't hear them, but they're everywhere! We explored this invisible noise pollution transducing electromagnetic fields into audio signals with a telephone pickup: it acts like a radio antenna for hum and weird electromagnetic noises.
We plugged it into a SONOSAX SX-R4 recorder, moving it close to electrical devices - like a stethoscope - to locate interesting and curious sounds, just like LCD television, internet antennas, lighting systems, transformers, game consoles, tablet, electronic security systems, scanners, computer monitors and hard-drives, printers, navigation systems, fax machines...
All of the audio files have been embedded with metadata for detailed and accurate searches in your asset management software.
As the previous library, this collection has not been peak normalized, but loudness normalized. Through loudness normalization, the gain of a signal is modified so that the signal’s loudness level equals -23 LUFS. Loudness normalization helps us solve the problem where we wish to balance the loudness level of multiple sound files.
"Listening to the environment, contextualizing it objectively and creatively has always been a priority of the work of U.S.O. Project.
Free from any pseudo-environmental or socio-political implication, the continuous work on sampling, processing and transfiguration of found sound and carefully preserved in memory of a digital recorder, has always played a central role in our compositional practices.
U.S.O. defines Soundscape as the expressive and narrative richness that comes from the reciprocal and continuous interaction of multiple sound sources from the real world, and other phenomena which are perceptible and measurable only through proper and adequate transduction (electromagnetic signals, for example).
A Soundscape is also an opportunity for reflection and imagination that has little to share with the real world.
A Soundscape can be a place of the mind, a reminiscence of a future experienced in dreams, lands far away in space and time.
We try to deal with the possible infinites of the listening experience, both in their objective and manufactured dimensions.
We believe this represents our primary objective, to render the endless possibilities of life and its surroundings, sensible and experienceable in our conscious activity."
Objectives of the Workshop:
Students will be encouraged to actively listen to the rich sound world around them. Their imagination and creativity will be stimulated, and at the end of the course they will create a sound composition using the world around them as a musical instrument.
The workshop offers an introduction to theory and practice as follows:
An historical perspective on the Soundscape Composition.
Tools and methodologies for field recordings.
The listening practice to analyze the characteristics of ambient sound.
A practical approach to the transformation of sound.
Composition with three-dimensional space. The Ambisonics format.
Tools and Advanced spatialization Techniques.
Target
Anyone interested in the Soundscape Composition and sound field experimentation.
Structure of the course
1) Introduction
Brief history of soundscape composition, with examples drawn from the work of contemporary artists who incorporate the practice of Field Recording in their compositions.
Introduction to the concept of "soundscape".
2) Tools
Field Recordist's Tools: microphones and recorders.
Conventional microphones techniques and creative miking.
3) Sound Transformation
Manipulation and digital signal processing techniques (VST+AU).
Filtering.
Convolution.
Granular Timeshifting.
PhaseVocoder.
4) Composing in Space
Multichannel Surround Sound.
HOA (Higher-Order Ambisonics).
Tools for encoding and decoding.
At the end of the four-day workshop, participants will develop a short sound composition (about 6 min.) using the concepts and techniques acquired during the various modules.
Duration:
4 days / 17-18, 24-25 September 2011
10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Costs and subscription
To participate in the workshop you must register no later than 10th September 2011. The fee is € 100.
Listening paths and outdoor recordings. The participants will take part in a "sound walk" to "collect" their
point of view of a soundscape with their digital portable recorders, as
defined by a preplanned route. Editing sessions of the collected material.
Requirements:
It is recommended that participants bring their own laptop, a portable recorder and headphones.
The number is limited to 14 participants.
Sonic Screens – environmental music listening sessions
Live mixing and spatialization by U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi)
Call for multichannel works
U.S.O. Project is pleased to invite submissions of fixed media sound works for the second edition of “Sonic Screens”, a journey among different electroacoustic Soundscape compositions.
Sonic Screens is an annual event that will take place during two acousmatic evenings in Milan during Fall 2011.
Sonic Screens aims to render the endless possibilities of life and its surroundings experienceable in our conscious activity, trying to deal with the possible infinites of the listening experience, both in their objective and manufactured dimensions.
“Listening to the environment, contextualizing it objectively and creatively has always been a priority of the work of U.S.O. Project.
Free from any pseudo-environmental or socio-political implication, the continuous work on sampling, processing and transfiguration of found sound and carefully preserved in memory of a digital recorder, has always played a central role in our compositional practices.
U.S.O. defines Soundscape as the expressive and narrative richness that comes from the reciprocal and continuous interaction of multiple sound sources from the real world, and other phenomena which are perceptible and measurable only through proper and adequate transduction (electromagnetic signals, for example).
A Soundscape is also an opportunity for reflection and imagination that has little to share with the real world.
A Soundscape can be a place of the mind, a reminiscence of a future experienced in dreams, lands far away in space and time.” – Matteo Milani & Federico Placidi
Composers and sound artists are invited to submit multichannel works, up to 8 channels. The assignment of channels to speakers must be clearly indicated in the submission. Works of any duration will be considered although pieces of under 16 minutes will be given preference.
The performance will take advantage of Ambisonics sound diffusion practice, creating an immersive and uninterrupted sound flow between different works from selected international artists.
The recordings of the concerts will be available for streaming and released in binaural format for headphone use. The ownership of the tracks remains to the authors.
Submissions need to include:
a stereo version of the piece
individual mono files for each channel
channel configuration
sample rate
program notes
brief biography
While the composers of the selected works are encouraged to attend the event, attendance is not required for a work to be presented.
There is no registration fee.
The deadline for submission of works is October 31st, 2011.
Material Submissions
Please send download links to your work using one of the many file delivery services (yousendit.com, sendspace.com, gigasize.com, wetransfer.com, etc) in .zip or .rar format. Please do not email file attachments.
“The essential difference between an electroacoustic composition that uses pre-recorded environmental sound as its source material, and a work that can be called a soundscape composition, is that in the former, the sound loses all or most of its environmental context. In fact, even its original identity is frequently lost through the extensive manipulation it has undergone, and the listener may not recognise the source unless so informed by the composer. In the soundscape composition, on the other hand, it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer.” – Barry Truax
Recorded 29th October, 2010 @ O' - no profit organization, during Live!iXem 2010 - Edition VII International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art - Milan
Mamori Sound Project
6th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists & composers
@ Mamori Lake (Amazon, Brazil) / October 2011 / 2 weeks
This Kickstarter Project is to assist in funding eight US sound artists to participate in this year's Mamori Sound Project and, by doing so, help this whole exceptional project in the Amazon survive. This project will only be funded if at least $25,500 is pledged by Tuesday May 31, 1:00am EDT.
Mamori Sound Project is an independent residency/workshop that has been carried out in the Brazilian Amazon since 2005 by a small non-profit organization, integrated by sound artist Francisco López and the cultural association Mamori ArtLab, based in Spain and Brazil. Mamori Sound Project supports the local community at Mamori Lake (Amazonas state, Brazil) by providing jobs every year for a significant number of people in this community.
The Mamori Sound Project is a 2-week workshop/residency for professional and semi-professional sound artists and composers with previous experience in the area of sound experimentation and field recordings. It takes place at Mamori Lake, in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, and involves theoretical/discussion presentations, field work and studio work. The workshop/residency has a special focus on creative approaches to the work with field recordings, through an extensive exploration of natural sound environments. It does not have a technical character but is instead conceived and directed towards the development and realization of a collective project of sonic creation with the interaction of all participant artists/composers. The activities of the workshop/residency include: Introductory theoretical/discussion presentation sessions on field recordings and sound creation, with a historical/philosophical perspective.
Field trips (both diurnal and nocturnal) for extensive listening and recording of sound environments.
Collective listening and discussion sessions of the sound materials gathered. Sessions of studio work (with laptop) using these materials.
Development and realization of a sound piece by each participant (or in small groups), as part of the collective project.
Public presentation of the finished pieces for both the participant artists and members of the local community at Mamori Lake.
All these activities are organized in a daily schedule according to the changing sonic environments of the rainforest. This typically involves many hours of field and studio work but there is also flexibility to allow participants to choose from several schedule options and to have the opportunity to carry out other activities related to the daily life in this environment, such as fishing for food or interacting with the local community.
Richard Beggs: My idea of a sound designer is the soundtrack equivalent of the production designer (responsible for the look of the film, and the stylistic considerations that express the director's intention for how the world is perceived in their film). This look, this visual feeling, can carry a strong emotional or dramatic load. The sound designer works with the same material aurally. It can be as simple as hearing a clock. What kind of clock is it? Is the clock heard subjectively (in the character's mind) or in the room? Acoustical manipulations of the natural world can direct the audience subconsciously towards a particular feeling or point of view about the scene.
The sound designer is responsible for developing these ideas and working with the sound editorial crew. Because movie sound is complicated and there is so much to cut, a lot of people are involved. Even the most ordinary mundane sounds that you would say have no particular dramatic importance one -door slam- as opposed to another may help push the movie in the direction the sound designer would like it to go.
I'll read the script and right away I'm thinking about the various possibilities. What is the feeling I get? I like to develop various sound motifs that carry through the film. This creates a psychological glue that helps tie the film together emotionally and gives a bit more depth to the character's emotional reactions.
Sound motif: a sound effect or combination of sound effects that are associated with a particular character, setting, situation or idea through the film. The sound motifs condition the audience emotionally for the intervention, arrival, or actions of a particular character. The sound motifs can be very useful in the rough cut, where they help clarify the narrative functions of the characters and provide a sound association for those characters as we move through the story. The use of sound motifs can help shape a story that requires many characters and many locations and help unify the the film and sustain its narrative and thematic development. [edited excerpt from The Technique of Film and Video Editing - via filmsound.org]
JS: How are motifs used?
RB: Early on in the movie Sleepers (by Barry Levinson) there is a really terrible, emotionally disturbing event, during which specific sounds happen as a natural course of the action: somebody bumps the light bulb with a little metal chain rattling on the bulb and a steel cage door is opened and slammed. Throughout the movie in those moments when the characters who experienced this horrific incident either speak about it, or you can tell they are thinking about it, I would reintroduce the sound of the pull chain and the door, but in a very distant, diffuse, almost musical way.
It's like the sense of smell. You have an experience that is either pleasant or unpleasant and some odour or aroma associated with it. For the rest of your life, if the experience was strong enough, when you smell that smell, there's a good chance that you'll recall the initial experience. Sound can work much the same way. Especially when it's all jammed inside an hour-and-a-half in a dark room the audience won't forget that easily what they heard 20 minutes or an hour ago.
JS: How else do you use sound?
RB:I'm into backgrounds, the emotional qualities of background sound. The sound of air conditioning in a room can be passive and gentle "fill the space" or it can create an oppressive, unpleasant, pressurized feeling. It's not an issue of loudness or quietness, but what the sound is. In Spike Jonze's movie, Adaptation, a lot of scenes took place in Florida just outside and inside a house we decided had a really funky air conditioner. The neighbourhood was just droning with these air conditioners, but one in particular had this rattle that would come and go, rhythmically. I embedded that in the background and then the background began to function as what are called effects.
Very often, depending upon the movie and the style, sounds will be required to trascend the mundane, to take on special significance. And a specific sound - because it isn't normal - will leap out and become an event. In Children of Men (by Alfonso Cuarón) there's this protracted amazingly-shot battle sequence as our hero journeys through the combat zone and into a large institutional building: lots of rubble, broken windows, with concrete stairs that go up 6 or 7 stories. People are living there in primitive conditions, with chickens. In the middle of this really awful battle I twisted the sound around so that the battle sound suddenly receded - what's loud suddenly becomes very quiet and in the foreground you hear very specific small pin point sounds from the battle. It's a subjective point of view. You hear the loud "buck buck buck" of the chickens before you see them. As Clive Owen comes up around the stairs suddenly you see a couple of hens scurrying around "buck buck bucking" and the sound of them is inordinately loud and prominent. It is not a realistic impression of that scene, but it works dramatically - it affects you emotionally.
JS: Do you record specific sounds when you are working on a film?
RB: For Lost in Translation (by Sofia Coppola) went to Tokyo for 2 weeks and recorded all of the practical locations of the movie; - both night and day - specifics and backgrounds. Even if there were a library of sounds called Tokyo Sound Effects it wouldn't have had the focus that "having read the script and seen dailies of the picture" I had very specific ideas about what I wanted in the sound track.
For Marie Antoinette (by Sofia Coppola) I went to Versailles and spent time in the Palace of Versailles, at 11 p.m. at night after it was closed and really quiet. I recorded the creaking of the floors, the same floors that were there when Louis XVI was there, and recorded the clock in what was Louis XVI's bedroom, the actual clock that was there 200-plus years ago. I recorded doors and fountains, bells, the forest, the grounds of the Palace; we hired French hunting dogs and French hunting horns. It was all done to order. I'm interested in and I enjoy the physicality of sound. If I have a specific requirement for a sound, I will reject sounds over and over and over again until I get the right one. I want the sound to capture the essence of that object.
Technology has given us the ability to make many, many layers - and in fact reality has many, many layers - but we don't really hear in many layers. The advantage of having, let's say, 12 things we can listen to in the scene (they've all been prepared and cut) is i can pick the 2 or 3 things that best convey the scene and either forget the rest or relegate it so far away that it's merely a colour.
I would rather have the one sound that says the most than 5 or 6 sounds - all combined - that try to convey that same idea. It's not the amount of stuff but the specific choices you make.
Richard Beggs, sound designer and re-recording mixer, has worked in his career with directors like Francis Coppola, Ivan Reitman, Mel Brooks, Barry Levinson, Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola (including her latest "Somewhere" - Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice Film Festival 2010), and Alfonso Cuarón, among others.
He won an Academy Award for Best Sound for Apocalypse Now (1979) and has received many Golden Reel Award nominations as sound designer and mixer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Children of Men (2006).
Matteo Milani: I'm very curious about your sound education background, and how you entered the movie industry. Can you tell me about it?
Richard Beggs: I have no formal film or audio education. I had no professional aspirations in this regard. I'm self-taught. During the sixties I was, in the parlance of the time, a "hi-fi bug" and had a consuming passion for classical music that tended to the modern and contemporary. These two interests helped prepare the way for what would eventually become a career in film sound. My vocation and training was to become a painter. My formal education consists of a bachelor’s and master’s degree in fine arts.
During the mid-sixties, my enthusiasm for audio technology and music led to a period of volunteer field recording for KPFA radio, a listener-supported radio station in Berkeley, California. By this time my hi-fi system had come to include an inordinately expensive, semi-pro 1/2 track recorder and four AKG condenser microphones. I recorded lectures and concerts, whatever the station assigned me and I had time for. I really had little understanding of what it was I was about, but KPFA was a nonprofit public radio station and so it dealt with my learning curve, which was often painful for both of us. It was during this period that I was asked to record a chamber music concert independently of the radio station. A fee was mentioned by the musicians and I realized that people would actually pay me to indulge my passion for music and audio. I could support my painting and my family by working as a recording engineer on a part-time freelance basis and devote the bulk of my time to painting. Or so I thought.
I was fortunate in having a technical mentor during those years who taught me the audio engineering principles and practices that allowed me to eventually become professionally viable. My skills with a soldering iron and audio schematics developed along with razor blade editing and microphone technique. Business is not my strong point so client relations and a crude, business sensibility were slow in developing. I ran more on enthusiasm than common sense. A small, garage recording studio in my home was the result. Rock and roll was how I spent most of my time along with field recordings of chamber groups and the occasional symphony orchestra but over time advertising work and documentary scores became increasingly important. These more “fiscally viable” clients often provided more creative latitude and problem-solving opportunities along with a habit of regular payment for services. The idea that there were clients to whom the idea of paying was not an annoying hindrance to creativity but instead a professional obligation was a revelation. The issue of painter versus sound designer remains unresolved.
I eventually moved the studio from the home garage environment to a more professional location. In 1972, together with a partner, I leased the old Kingston Trio Studio in the basement of the Sentinel Building in San Francisco's North Beach. Over several years time, the studio developed a clientele. A part-time audio engineering job I held at Cal State University Hayward’s music department soon gave way to full time demands at my studio. My partner went to NY to pursue fame and fortune, and I hired my first employee. It was my first experience with delegation and surrendering complete control of what till then had been a totally personal, one man undertaking. It was difficult and still is.
In 1974 the director Francis Coppola bought the Sentinel Building and moved in with his film production company, American Zoetrope. In 1976 Francis purchased a controlling interest in my studio and we formed Beggs/AZ. The partnership moved the studio overnight from 4-track capability to 16 and eventually 24 tracks. The studio continued with it's original clientele for several years. Along with a lot of head-banging rock and roll and other album projects, I was doing work for Sesame Street and national and local radio and TV advertising.
When post for Godfather Part ll started, the studio began a fitful transition from music and commercials to feature film. In 1977 Francis bought my interest in Beggs/AZ and put me to work on Apocalypse Now. My first full-tilt foray into film. He talked to me in abstract generalities about the sound of the picture and the areas he would like me to work in. I was so enthused I generated a slightly corny but earnestly felt, 20-minute "tone impression" mood piece that expressed my idea of what Apocalypse Now might sound like. It was an unsolicited demo. I don't remember him ever saying anything about it. The studio was four-walled for 2 years and I became fully committed to film sound.
[YouTube - “Heard Any Good Movies Lately? The Sound Design of Apocalypse Now” featurette]
MM: What did Apocalypse Now represent in your sound career?
RB: Apocalypse Now marked the beginning of my career in film. Few are fortunate enough to have a picture like that as a first film. Apocalypse Now set the bar very high. That experience and its fallout opened many doors and created many opportunities. My hope is that I’ve been able to follow through and have lived up to my initial success. The entire experience was transformative. Apocalypse was like dropping acid and it went on for two years.
[Beggs was not only the music re-recording mixer, he also recorded the narration (by Martin Sheen) and was one of the six synthesists who “realized” the score by Coppola and his father, Carmine.. The first ghost helicopter, the classic sound effect that opens the film, was created by Richard Beggs on a Moog synthesizer.]
MM: How do you fabricate the "Ghost Helicopter" sound of the title sequence?
RB: There were many helicopter sounds in the film. They came in two forms, organic and synthesized. I created all of the synthesized helicopters from scratch with pure synthesis. These synthesized elements could stand on their own or were used to sweeten "real" effects. They would often transition between real and synthesized. The synthesized ceiling fan in the title sequence that becomes the Huey landing in downtown Saigon is a synth to real transition.
At the time, Moog synthesizers had no storage capabilities. No samples. Sounds were created from raw waveforms or white noise or played through a synthesizer and manipulated but not stored. I made the helicopter sounds in real time performance, utilizing white noise, envelope generators, filters and a clock driven sequencer to create the modulated, rhythmic patterns of the rotors.
[R. Beggs and R. Thom discuss and examine the sound design of the opening shot of the movie]
[When Willard finally arrives at Kurtz's compound, he is met by an army of natives who shoot a barrage of arrows at him. How was this sound created?
Richard Beggs recorded a stick of willow that you could whip through the air. Then they dumped it over onto a twenty-four-track multitrack and just repeated and repeated it, creating layers of sound on different tracks staggered out of sync. So we had twenty-four tracks of whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, placed in the space.]
MM: Is your job like a calling, a passion you had when you were young?
RB: At its best, my job is a calling, to use your phrase. The irrational dedication and inhuman schedules of the early days have been muted a bit, but if I'm working on a good picture with a good crew and have that fundamental creative identification with the project, it's a work of passion. Maybe my approach is more tempered and measured these days, but I still feel that rush when a scene’s working, when I've managed to connect with the essence of the project and I think to myself, "I made that happen." In this business, a potential downside to this consuming creative commitment is that it contributes to making one an easy target for financial exploitation. Enough exploitation and passion falters. Art and finance are uncomfortable bed-mates.
MM: You're a pioneer, together with others Bay Area "Mavericks": you were in the right place at the right time to do the right thing. Do you consider yourself lucky to have lived that time in movie history?
RB: Yes, I consider myself lucky. My introduction to the industry was served with a silver spoon. I was brought into the business, I didn’t seek it. I was in league with a brilliant, forward-looking director who placed tremendous stock in creativity and innovation. Francis made a point of demanding these virtues in the creation of his sound tracks. My colleagues and co-workers on Apocalypse Now were accomplished, dedicated players. It was a first film experience that defied convention. I had no standard of comparison and no preconceptions. I knew though, that I was in an exceptional situation with a group of exceptional people. All movies couldn’t be made like this. To my knowledge, multi-track capabilities and skills that I had learned in my music studio had never been applied to feature film production before. To me it made perfect sense and I plunged in, way over my head.
My first serious bruising was when I was nonchalantly presented change notes. I had never seen a change note in my life. When I saw my first and it was explained to me, the pain began. All the fluidity and speed of the 24-track recording format suddenly bogged down in the quicksand of conventional film post-production. The advantages of my native working format, which made sprocketed film technology appear like a vestige of the stone age, were now accompanied by serious liabilities. I won’t bore you with the gory details. It turned out that the technology was at a turning point and it was worth pushing and pursuing despite the inefficiencies. Over the next several years the system came to work and pay dividends in it’s own clumsy, maddening way. If I had come to the project with a practical, traditionally grounded background in film post I may have dismissed the entire notion out of hand. I would have missed out on a preliminary phase of what ended up as the digital revolution. How many sound editors could prepare, mix and audition 22 tracks simultaneously in their cutting room in 1977? Few if any. You could do more than cut sound, you could design sound, assuming a certain amount of patience.
Another advantage of entering the industry in the ‘70s was the exposure to both the pinnacle of analog technology and the arrival of digital and all its possibilities. I know where I came from and I know what I’m doing… most of the time. Film based analog protocols still exist in the digital film world, most with good reason. The reasons were obvious in the analog era. Now they are often an abstraction and their relevance and necessity is a harder sell for a digital generation of film makers new to the craft..
MM: Is there a technological achievement that has radically changed your artistic approach?
RB: No, there isn't any. I could speculate on how my work has been affected by new technologies, but I don’t think it’s that interesting. I feel my approach has always been fundamentally the same. It’s been the same as my approach to painting. My interactions with the track and the process by which ideas occur and develop is very similar to my interaction with the canvas as a painter. Light, dark, mass, line, contrast, color, texture, objects advance or recede, these visual properties all have sonic equivalents. These qualities, when used successfully, contribute to an emotional or expressive state that advances the story.
MM: Recently, did you preferably work in your editing room and then transfer your material to a bigger facility?
RB: My first cutting room was a recording studio control room. I could not make a useful distinction between cutting and mixing. The technology was there so I did both from the beginning. Initially, mixing in the “small room” was constrained by the inability to efficiently provide flexible and accessible elements to the mixing stage. I was 2” tape, they were 35mm mag. Eq and reverb were major issues. Over time, advances in DAW technology have made it possible to increase the amount of mixing operations that can be performed successfully before going into the “big room,” without limiting mix stage decisions. This is becoming an industry trend that is not without complication.
As a sound designer/mixer, I’m unwilling in general to delegate mixing decisions to the sound editorial department. Mixing decisions are often creative, interpretive decisions that I prefer to make by myself or in concert with fellow mixers and the director. These decisions are made with all the elements of the track on line simultaneously and reasonably accessible. The creative and efficient preparation of tracks and presenting them in the best possible light with the least restriction of flexibility during the final mix, is a good thing. My worry is that our tools allow us to slip into a formulaic, albeit “efficient” methodology. The technology that originally offered a tremendous expansion of creative potential, can, in the wrong hands, become the provider of the pre-assembled, “it mixes itself” mix. Where the line is drawn between mixing and editing is an open question. For some the distinction is very clear, for some it’s a blur, for others the line no longer exists.
I like to think that I’m hired to make a unique contribution with a singular point of view to a film that has a singular point of view. I was once referred to as “the last of the art school sound designers.” While not intended as a compliment, I liked the “art school” part. The notion of being the last, if true, would bode ill for the kind of films I like to see and work on.
MM: Do you have a lot of work proposals? How do you choose the next work? Do you have a trusted team you rely on?
RB: My project calendar is usually determined by directors with whom I have sustained relationships, and those projects seem to arrive in cycles, the “when it rains, it pours” syndrome. I recently had a period of about five years that was breakneck, project to project. The last two years have been relatively quiet. Part of that time was a voluntary hiatus on my part; the rest was waiting for the phone to ring while doing smaller scale and independent or personal projects. Time has allowed me to become more selective as well. That’s a luxury I still have to learn how to enjoy and use well. Now things appear to be picking up again. We’ll see. There are no guaranties.
[The Making of Ghostbusters - 1984]
MM: The first motion picture 'sound' work I remember from my childhood, is the funny Ghostmobile "siren" you created for Ghostbusters (1984). Would you like to describe how you did it?
RB: I made the “Ectomobile” siren sound from a leopard snarl that was edited, pitched and otherwise processed, all in the analog domain. An Ampex AG-440 recorder, ¼ inch tape, VSO (Variable Speed Operation), a razor blade and an Editall splicing block were the tools.
[the distinctive Ectomobile's siren wail - via hprops.com]
Several ago, a “technically sophisticated” young man visited my old Zoetrope studio. I was there, digging around in archive sound effects and he heard something I was playing that I had created for Ghostbusters and asked what “program” I used to create the effect. He was incredulous when I told him “none.” He said he hadn’t thought it possible.
MM: How did you manage to design the fantastic sound-world of Children of Men? The screenplay helped you to imagine the sound prior to gather and edit the sound itself?
RB: The sound idea of Children of Men is the result of a time collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón, the director. In part, its sound was almost foreordained. I read the script and felt in tune with its sensibility. The script provides the particular set of motivators that determine the style of the track. I will scribble ideas in the margin as I read. That’s the beginning, then I dive in. The most interesting and successful ideas evolve organically, often after long and sometimes tedious manipulation of the practical, prosaic, aspects of the track. Sometimes ideas will present themselves because of peculiar juxtapositions of disparate elements or a particularly unique recording of a sound. There is a balance between calculated preconception and the more spontaneous act of recognizing a possibility that, through serendipity, presents itself. For me, this is an intuitive and somewhat vague area not lending itself to logic or explanation.
One of the germinal ideas for the track of Children of Men was Alfonso’s desire to have the lead character experience the internal ringing sensation of tinnitus after an explosion. This occurs early, during the title sequence, I expanded on the idea and it became a recurring motif throughout the film. This idea wasn’t planned, it grew out of the context of the project.
A major part of the equation is a crew that is responsive to, and excited by, the possibilities of the track. When the materials generated by editors who are in tune come together, either in the cutting room or on the dubbing stage, the possibility of interesting and effective sound solutions is a given This was absolutely the case with Children of Men.
MM: Did you have the chance to travel around the world with your equipment to record your custom sound library, in an era when commercial libraries were not available?
RB: I’ve had the privilege of being able to do a fair amount of my own effects recording, often in unique or bizarre locations. I pride myself in using as many production location specific effects as possible. While no picture of mine is 100% original recordings, some come very close. Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette and Somewhere are good examples. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo, Versailles and the Chateau Marmont hotel in L.A. and its environs compiling libraries for those pics. The bottom of Vancouver Harbor in British Columbia in a three person submarine was interesting as was two weeks in Jodhpur India. The advantage in doing my own recording is that I know what I want and it’s very specific but just as often it’s a mood or sensation, an abstraction. These are ideas that are difficult to communicate. Being on the location stimulates ideas and realizations that wouldn’t occur to me by simply watching the cut. The subtleties are difficult to express to another recordist. I often don’t recognize what I need until I hear it. I can’t put it on a list for someone else to gather. A large portion of my library consists of sounds un-contemplated. A location reveals itself in unexpected ways and provides many pleasant surprises.
An example would be a scene in Marie Antoinette. It’s an evening garden party that would appear to require a straightforward, conventional background. While hanging around on the set during a night shoot I wandered of into the field behind Le Petit Trianon. What do I hear? A very loud chorus of frogs. Frogs like in a swamp. If I hadn’t heard it, it would never have occurred to me. My preconception had settled around the formality and refinement of Louie XVl’s court, and there was no call for a raspy, exotic frog chorus. Apparently, they’ve been there since before Versailles was built. Of course they play a part in the scene. They impart a nervous, contemporary energy to the proceedings because they don’t conform to our expectations.
When I haven’t been able to do my own recordings I’ve had the talents of others to rely on. Randy Thom’s field recordings for Rumblefish years ago were a marvel. He could see (in this case hear) beyond the obvious. John Fasal in L.A. was key in recording the Ferrari for "Somewhere".
MM: I loved your sound work on Somewhere: I especially appreciated the reflections of the car engine under the bridges in the highway. Do you have any favourite sound or scene would you like to brief describe how you built it?
RB: The opening and closing scenes of Somewhere were the first I constructed. Those two sequences dictated the arc of all the sound that came between. The two portentous, low frequency pulses near the end when the car goes under viaducts were created by manipulating the rush of a bullwhip through the air. I created the extended musical drone that underlays the Ferrari sound in that scene from multitrack elements of "Love Like a Sunset" which were supplied by Phoenix, the band who provided the score. Johnny's lonely helicopter ride is also a composed, manipulated section. Those are the only "special" sound effects in the picure. The opening sequence of the Ferrari on the track is the product of an inordinant amount of editing of recordings I made on the set during the filming of the shot. Essentially all of the effects in the picture are from recordings made at scene specific shooting locations. I spent two days and nights in Johnny's suite at the Chateau Marmont to aquire the hotel library. Susumu Tokunow's production tracks carried much of the intimate. pointilistic sound in many scenes with some help from foley. It's not an elaborate, showy track but it has it's satisfactions. More than enough to make me happy.
MM: What's your thinking about the transformation of the independent industry in the latest 30 years, due to the work of Lucas, Pixar, Dreamworks, Zantz?
RB: I don’t have any particular thoughts on the “transformation of the independent film industry”. At least nothing that hasn’t already been said, and whoever said it, said it better than I would anyway. I will say that I don’t think independent film is as healthy as it was during its halcyon days. For the most part, I believe industry values and practices have moved in a negative direction. But I do hold out for the possibility of another “golden age.” There are significant films being made by young (and some not so young) filmmakers that I believe spring from a new, more relevant sensibility than the bulk of the industry’s “product” would indicate. Let’s hope.
Thanks Richard, it has been a pleasure. — Matteo Milani
"A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions," says composer R. Murray Schafer. "When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous." David New's portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing viewers (and listeners) with a singular moment of interactive subjectivity. This film was produced for the 2009 Governor General's Performing Arts Award.
It is possible to think of the two extremes of the world of sound as the inner domain of microsound (less than 50 ms) where frequency and time are interdependent, and the external world of sonic complexity, namely the soundscape. In terms of sonic design, the computer is increasingly providing tools for dealing with each of these domains, such as granular synthesis and multi-channel soundscape composition. The models of interaction involved with the complexity of each of these domains are instructive, and will be presented with sound examples.
Barry Truax is a Professor at Simon Fraser University where he teaches courses in acoustic communication and electroacoustic music. He has worked with the World Soundscape Project, editing its Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, and has published a book Acoustic Communication dealing with all aspects of sound and technology. As a composer, Truax is best known for his work with the PODX computer music system which he has used for tape solo works and those which combine tape with live performers or computer graphics. In 1991 his work, Riverrun, was awarded the Magisterium at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France, a category open only to electroacoustic composers of 20 or more years experience.
International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art
[a project by AntiTesi (Domenico Sciajno) and U.S.O. Project in collaboration with O' and Die Schachtel]
Live!iXem is a well established event that explores the relationship among sound, music, electronic arts and new technologies. iXem is a project conceived and produced since 2003 by AntiTesi, an organization founded and directed by Domenico Sciajno based in Palermo. Center for self-documentation, research and interdisciplinary development for new forms of Arts, Antitesi focuses on contemporary arts in its diverse expressions, coordinates and organizes cultural events, festivals and exhibitions in music and art.
Festival Live!iXem in October 2010 is divided into two events, a 'preview' in Turin on October 8th, organized with Hiroshima Mon Amour, and the main festival in Milan including live performances, installations and a workshop, organized in conjunction with O' and Die Schachtel.
The field is transverse. The common denominator is not the genre but the experimentation and research to innovation, helping to explore the variety of approaches to aesthetic guidelines, tools and technological solutions adopted by selected international artists and involved in the contemporary music scene.
After the introductory event in Turin, October 8th - with Live! IXem Preview - the festival appointment in Milan will take place in the Isola area, between the spaces of O', Medionauta and VisualContainer on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th October, from morning until late at night, offering a busy schedule of events.
Among these, the workshop 'Movement of acoustic images' - whose theme is the field recording, its transformations and its reproduction in acousmatic space - will consist of three different phases: the first by a technical approach, the second one by listening to environmental sound sources chosen as points of a hypothetical ideal sound map and the third one with 'on-site' recording of sound events.
October 29th, 30th | Milan @ Live!iXem 2010 - Edition VII International festival of music, mixed media and experimental electronic art
Aims of laboratory
Explore through the knowledge of digital recording techniques the universe sound belonging to the "places";
Discuss some aspects of the use of specific material in electronic and instrumental composition.
Localization of sound in the environment focuses on the theme "sound mapping" as a social and cultural identity and, at the same time, an expression of conscience and personal feelings, whereas its use in music opens important interdisciplinary horizons.
The workshop's aim is to provide an introduction to theory and practice of the main mobile sound recording techniques and the use of sound sources in different fields, from sound design to cinema, from digital editing to the use of digital sources in instrumental composition, electronic music and live electronics. Music compositions and musical excerpts from field recordings will also be introduced, listened and discussed. All members are invited to participate in the soundwalk along the neighborhood "Isola" in Milan and thus contribute during the workshop to the creation of a small sound map of the place. The pieces obtained at the end of the workshop will be diffused through a multi-channel audio speakers setup and then available to the public in the form of soundscape composition.
To participate in the workshop you must register (spaces are limited) no later than 23/10/2010 and pay the fee (€ 60.00).
For more information about the workshop and registration, please write to workshop [at] antitesi [dot] org or visit the Facebook and Twitter page.
Payment methods
PayPal
Money transfer
Level
All subjects and activities of the workshop/laboratory are addressed at the introductory and preliminary level, combining theory and practice with some helpful audiovisual material. Members are encouraged to get involved actively, having discussion and bringing in their experience. Participants will be guided, if weather conditions permit, in a short sound-geo path through the "Isola" neighborhood in Milan and invited to contribute to the creation of a work of the soundwalk. It does not require any special technical knowledge and/or music. However, the knowledge of digital audio recording/editing basics can be an advantage.
Recipients
The workshop is devoted for those sound designers, musicians, composers, sound engineers and experts who would consolidate and compare their experience in an environment of exchange and sharing, to all the "listening lovers" and those who have interest and curiosity about soundscape and electronic compositions.
Entry requirements
There are no special requirements. The workshop is open to all without any age limit. Entries remain open until all available seats have been booked.
Devices
Mac/PC laptop (useful but not essential during the editing and sound processing sessions)
owners of a portable recorder are asked to take it for the soundwalk in the neighborhood "Isola"
Roland Italy will provide participants two digital recorders - R-09HR and R-05
O' | residences | photography | sound | performance
non-profit association | via Pastrengo 12, 20159 Milan (Italy)
tel +39 02 6682 3357
website: www.o-artoteca.org
O 'is a non profit organization for the promotion of artistic research, founded in May 2001 by Sara Serighelli and Angelo Colombo as O'artoteca (O' since 2008). Its activity is divided into a large exhibition space, an area of consultation and archive, and an outside lab, L.A.B.-LaboratorioArtibovisa for the production related to photography and printing. It developes exhibition projects and discussions, performances, concerts, lectures, publications; it's a place where artists can experiment, test and compete with their work.
audioscan is an artistic project conceived by Giorgio Sancristoforo, produced by AGON in collaboration with basemental. The project consists of a multimedia interactive installation and of a live performance combining music and video. Both are based on the sound mapping of Milan.
At the basis of audioscan there are 1.580 recordings and phonometric surveys gathered within the perimeter contained in the main ring road of Milan. A process of meeting and exchange between contemporary art, music and environmental themes, a meditation on soundscape and the auditive dimension of human experience, both on an aesthetic and a social perspective.
An ambitious cataloguing work and an environmental awakening project through the transformation of a waste product of technological society – noise – into an artwork.
" [...] Essentially, noise is an ambiguous entity, setting up in a fluctuating reality, whose definition changes according to the coordinate system used to measure it.
Sounds can be sculpted. We can use noise as raw material to start with. Noise is at the same time “no sound” and all the possible sounds. Just as white light contains all the colours, noise contains countless sounds.
Therefore, instead of using musical instruments we have ground and crumbled noise in very fine components, building from these elements orchestras made up of roads and airplanes, people and cars. We have created music from a scrap of our society.
Everything is transformed. Nothing resembles anymore its former essence. Airplanes become microscopic percussions, cars are turned into metallic pianos and rubbery basses, hollow murmurs and waterish illusions.
Braking and tailpipes screeches become tides of the thinnest strings.
We have animated a deep transformation, resembling closely the alchemic processes: actually, we have performed the alchemy of noise transmuted into music.
The city, unaware of the transformations undergone, perpetuates its rhythms and mood intact. This is why those sounds, even if unrecognizable, still describe Milan, with its chaotic passages and deep breaths, with its syncopated rhythms and the feeling, peculiar to an ocean, of being constantly wound by countless mutations."
"I listen to the music of Audioscan again, and I realize how much it’s melancholic.
Milan is melancholic. Not sad. A gloom which could belong to Calvino works, a blues pervading the streets, in the morning, creeping like a cat between porches and boulevards, between old mansions and post-war eyesores. The same melancholy that smoothes the cold when I stroll around, ravished by the decadence of Civic Aquarium or sitting on the lawns of San Lorenzo Basilica, while besides me the city keeps darting in sound tidal waves." - Giorgio Sancristoforo
If you don’t know Ann Kroeber’s name, you certainly have heard her work. In 1999 she formed a company called Sound Mountain and has recorded and or provided sound effects for such films as The Star Wars Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Gladiator, The English Patient, The Horse Whisperer, A Bug’s Life, K-19, Polar Express, The Village, Hidalgo etc. and many games. Although she is often called upon to supply sounds from her huge collection of animal noises/vocalizations, she is also renowned for her unusual recordings of sounds from everyday life, many recorded with a FRAP (Frequency Response Audio Pickup) contact microphone custom-made many years ago by an English audio guru named Arnie Lazarus. In fact the Hollywood Edge FX library (@Hollywood_Edge) even put out a disc of her FRAP recordings--Common Sounds Heard in Uncommon Ways--as part of a three-CD set called Sounds of a Different Realm. The other two of the discs are dominated by the work of her late husband, Oscar-winning FX designer/editor Alan Splet, who did groundbreaking work with Carroll Ballard, David Lynch, and other directors before his untimely passing in 1995. His incredible archive of effects recordings was passed down to Ann, who had been an integral part of his recording life since they met while working on The Black Stallion (which won an Academy Award for Sound Fx Editing), where she was an effects recordist. Kroeber quickly established herself as a masterful sound editor, as well, on such films as The Elephant Man, Dune, Never Cry Wolf, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Mosquito Coast, and Dead Poets Society. She was also the production mixer on Blue Velvet and sound designer on Carroll Ballard’s Duma at the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley. The Saul Zaentz Film Center, along with American Zoetrope and Lucasfilm, it was one of only three major film production facilities in Northern California. By 2005, it has largely shut down its post-production facilities, except for the foley recording studio, which is part of the still-active Fantasy Recording Studios. The film center was sold in 2007 and, after renovations, became the Zaentz Media Center.
"Discovery of Sound Mountain is like finding a new star cluster within the Star Wars Universe. Ann offered unique original audio from which I designed many new and fascinating Star Wars aliens and machines."
"Ann Kroeber has a unique ability to provide one-of-a-kind sound effects. Both as a recordist, and as the knowledgeable gatekeeper of a vast, reknowed library. Ann has given me great sounds that lead to great ideas. When we are searching for something nobody's heard before, Ann can help us find it."
Murray Spivak was one of the premier and earliest sound editors. In the 1933 he created awesome sounds for King Kong by going out in the field and recording lions, tigers and other natural beasts, bringing the sounds into the studio and speeding them up, slowing them down or whatever.
To create Kong's roar, Spivak went to Selig Zoo and recorded the growls of lions and tigers. He spliced the growl together and then played them backwards at a really low speed (which lowered their tone an octave, making the growls sound like they coming out of much bigger animals) as he re-recorded them. [...] For Kong's distinctive love grunts, Spivak recorded himself grunting into a megaphone and then re-recorded the results at slow speed.
To create the sound of Kong's footsteps, Spivak wrapped plungers in foam rubber and stomped them across a box filled with gravel.
Kong's chest beats proved to be one of Spivak's biggest challenges. Spivak tried striking his assistant Walter Elliott on the chest with the drumstick while a microphone was held up to Elliott's back. The resulting sound was the one they ended up using.
On the advice of a vertebrate paleontologist from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Spivak decided to have the dinosaurs hiss and croak rather than roar. To create the hissing sound, Spivak recorded the noises from a compressed air machine. He did the croaking himself. For the T-rex, Spivak mixed in a backward recording of a panther growl. Spivak used an elephant's roar for the Triceratopses (before they were cut, of course) and some bird squawks for the Pteranodon. Bellows were employed to create the sound of the creatures' heavy breathing. All of the sounds were re-recorded at a slow speed to create a lower tone.
In the end, Ben Burtt (Rydstrom's mentor) in his own words.
EGM: Who have been your mentors in sound design?
BB: First, there was Murray Spivak at RKO [co-winner of the 1969 Best Sound Oscar for Hello Dolly!], who created the sound effects for the original King Kong in 1933. His work in King Kong was the beginning of sound design for fantasy motion pictures. The voice of Kong, the sounds of the jungle, the creatures, and the screams—all were individually created and nothing like it existed before. He was able to mix two, perhaps three tracks together at a time, using two optical playback machines, making a loop and blending things together. When people make monster movies today, they still don’t gravitate far from those principles and techniques.
- via 
(2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
(2005), Children of Men
(2006).
. My first full-tilt foray into film. He talked to me in abstract generalities about the sound of the picture and the areas he would like me to work in. I was so enthused I generated a slightly corny but earnestly felt, 20-minute "tone impression" mood piece that expressed my idea of what Apocalypse Now might sound like. It was an unsolicited demo. I don't remember him ever saying anything about it. The studio was four-walled for 2 years and I became fully committed to film sound. 
by Vincent LoBrutto, 1994
]
, 
and 
are good examples. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo, Versailles and the Chateau Marmont hotel in L.A. and its environs compiling libraries for those pics. The bottom of Vancouver Harbor in British Columbia in a three person submarine was interesting as was two weeks in Jodhpur India. The advantage in doing my own recording is that I know what I want and it’s very specific but just as often it’s a mood or sensation, an abstraction. These are ideas that are difficult to communicate. Being on the location stimulates ideas and realizations that wouldn’t occur to me by simply watching the cut. The subtleties are difficult to express to another recordist. I often don’t recognize what I need until I hear it. I can’t put it on a list for someone else to gather. A large portion of my library consists of sounds un-contemplated. A location reveals itself in unexpected ways and provides many pleasant surprises.
