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Final Project
Presentations: March 11-13
turn in media by March 6
All Final Project CDs Due by 5:00 p.m.
Tuesday,
March 18
Music Center Room 128 or Music Office
Final projects for Music 80R
are available in three flavors: Content Exercise, Term Paper and Interactive
Site. They will be presented during the final week of classes, and should be
delivered in a folder titled Final Project on a CD handed directly to me -
please don't email me the final project (but feel free to email me if you have
questions). All text documents need to be readable on a Macintosh computer
running OSX and contain your name and date. The safest formats are Microsoft
WORD Document (.doc) or, if you are not working at the lab, but rather on your
own computer, save as Rich Text Format (.rtf). Pretend that you are generating
a resume for a job you really want, and that the recipient won't have any
problem opening your good looking document. Check all files on the Macs at the
Porter lab.
Music 80r creative projects
are designed to be FUN - don't forget that as you produce them. Your concepts
can be outlandish, and the results should be entertaining, or powerful, or
artistic, or kitchy. The web is your oyster: take from it and give it back in
spades.
Content
Exercise - this
project involves students' acquiring sound or music source material from the
web (audio formats, mp3s, MIDIfiles, etc), and then using any or all of the
audio applications available in the Porter Lab to modify, customize and combine
that material. Transformation of the audio or MIDI data can include speed
change, pitch change, effects, conversions, reverse, re-arrangement
(cut/copy/paste re-ordering). Finally, having transformed the material into a
creative piece of their own, students mix all components into a stereo aiff
file.
Deliverable: stereo MP3
soundfile (make AIFF first, then convert) between 1-2 minutes. Also, include a
1 page text document describing your process - outline your concept and exactly
how you produced the AIFF mix, step by step, sound by sound. See above for text
formatting.
Here are some of the software applications available @ Porter - in the Audio
Folder of your Hard Disk:
Peak - a mono or
stereo (one or two channel) sound editor that can host VST plugins. This
program is strong on I/O (input and output in many formats), and processing,
but since it's the DV version, there's no looping functionality and many DSP
functions are unavailable.
SoundStudio - a sound
editor
SoundEdit 16 -
basically a stereo editing program, it can convert from and to many different
audio formats, lets you easily rearrange (cut, copy and paste) material, and
add effects to render anything easily unrecognizable. Exports in many formats
as well. Sound Edit will also handle more than two tracks, so you can compile 4
or 5 ideas - just Insert Track to add more - then Import another sound file.
Operation manual is available from the Lab Assistant.
Audacity - a freeware audio editor that also
imports MIDI tracks
Garage Band - Apple's
entry-level music creation software. There are virtual instruments available to
play, as well as loops (beats) and other riff material to construct songs -
transposition and tempo change are easy to do, and you can drag audio files
from the desktop to the track window (this imports the sound and adds a track
all in one move!) Beware that sample rates other than 44.1kHz will playback at
often bizarre speeds, so prepare these files in Peak or some other program that
SampleRate Converts.
Dent du MIDI - since
Garage Band doesn't import MIDIfiles, use this simple utility to convert
Standard MIDIfiles to GarageBand format.
Soundflower - use
this to record streams into SoundStudio or Audacity as we did in class.
Remember to Save often and
backup your work to your folder on 'Music 80r.' The safest backup is to also
purchase an external hard drive and backup the material there as well.
Term
Paper - Students
need to choose a topic related to Music and the WorldWideWeb, for example, some
topic we have covered, send it to me for approval, and then produce a 10 page
research paper. As stated above, I need to be able to open the document on my
Macintosh - check your work @ Porter lab - if I can't open it, or it doesn't
look good, that will be a problem.
Deliverable: at least 10
page document. See above for text formatting (make sure it opens on the Macs @
the Porter lab). Include your name and date. Links and pix are welcome as long
as everything works well on the Mac, but pix should not take up more than 1/3
of a page. Open the document from the disk using a different computer to make
sure it opens on other computers.
Interactive
Site - this option
is for web-savvy or otherwise students with advanced computer skills. The goal
here is to produce an interactive web site with sonifications like those
discussed in class: clicks, rollovers, transitions, ambient music. It's best
produced with Flash, which is available @ Porter. There is no exact
specification for this project, but I would estimate that a site with ~3 linked
pages, vector animations and amply sonified would do it. Be as impressive as
you can be.
Deliverable: a folder with
main Flash page (.swf) and all related media. I should be able to drag the
Flash file (.swf) onto Netscape and get the site happening locally on my
computer without problem.
PLEASE DON'T SEND A URL. WE
NEED TO HAVE THE FLASH PAGE AND RAW MEDIA ON A DISK.