Wednesday 18 December 2013

Virtual Studio Technology (VST)

Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is a software interface that integrates software audio synthesizer and effect plugins with audio editors and hard-disk recording systems. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware in software. Thousands of plugins exist, both commercial and freeware, and a large number of audio applications support VST under license from its creator, Steinberg .Steinberg's VST SDK is a set of C++ classes based around an underlying C API. The SDK can be downloaded from their website.We did some soundsculpting with Iris Garrelfs yesterday at London Cllege of communication sound department using this software.It's free and easy to work with.I try to find some tutorials and upload them later. http://www.steinberg.net/en/home.html

Tuesday 17 December 2013

The Soundscape and Society

In describing the soundscape’s capacity to convey information, Truax(1984) describes sound as a mediator between listener and the environment.This relationship is illustrated in the image.As the soundscape deteriorates, so awareness of the subtleties of environmental sound has withered in proportion.As a result, the meanings sound holds for the listener in contemporary soundscapes tend to be polarised into extremes—“loud” and “quiet”; noticed or unnoticed; good (I like) or bad (I don’t like). Compare this level of sonic awareness(and the results of the listening tests mentioned earlier) with the Kaluli men of Papua New Guinea who,according to Feld (1994)can “… imitate the sound of at least 100 birds, but few can provide visual descriptive information on nearly that many.” In other words,environmental sounds for the Kaluli tribe comprise a continuum offering a limitless range of subtleties.In the developed world, sound has less significance and the opportunity to experience “natural” sounds decreases with each generation due to the destruction of natural habitats. Sound becomes something that the individual tries to block, rather than to hear; the lo-fi, low information soundscape has nothing to offer. As a result,many individuals try to shut it out through the use of double glazing or with acoustic perfume—music. Music—the virtual soundscape—is, in this context, used as a means to control the sonic environment rather than as a natural expression of it. Broadcast speech and music provide the same opportunity for control, turning the sonic environment into a commodity. Networks, transmitters and satellites extend the acoustic community across the entire planet, a fact that has been utilised for fair deeds and foul.Schafer refers to the latter use of sound as “sound imperialism”
The Journal of Acoustic Ecology,Volume 1,Number 1