Zach Poff

DUE NEXT WEEK (FEB 1)

Engagement with your medium will define the conceptual scope of your practice. (In other words, your art will suck if you don’t know how to make things.) In this exercise you will learn how to capture environments in sound.

Submit 3 tracks:

1. A radio-style voice-recording (without using a professional vocal booth).
   It should be close and clear, without ambiance – the classic disembodied voice. Alter your sonic environment to eliminate echoes and unwanted noises. Get under the covers, tell your room-mates to take a hike. Put your keys in the fridge and pull the plug. (The keys will remind you to plug it in again!)
   
2. A complete soundscape from the “deep listening” assignment.
   Listen through the microphone while recording. It hears differently than your ears, so you need to be a translator. Try to capture the interesting elements you wrote about, the tension between the sounds. I’m looking for distinct foreground and background elements. What makes it more than your average boring “noise”?  This can be difficult!
3. An isolated element from the “deep listening” assignment.
   Get closer to something – make it the foreground. Use mic patterns and mic placement to “crop out” unwanted sounds so your chosen sound is unambiguously the center of attention. (This should sound different than track #2. If it doesn’t, try again.)
   

I will collect 3 labeled files from you in class – not via network or email!
(We probably won’t listen in class, but I’ll give you written feedback.)

Things to Keep in Mind:

• For this exercise, do not use the (dynamic) mic included in your “Sound Kit.” Borrow a condenser mic instead. Dynamic mics are OK for speech, but not for critical details. If you use the dynamic mic I will hear it and ask you to do it again.
• Record several solutions to each prompt, but only give me three files. I will interpret everything as intentional, so be clear. If your recordings don’t sound good enough, I will ask you to do them again until you’ve mastered your tools.
• We haven’t covered editing yet, so just download your tracks from the recorder onto a computer and bring them to class on a CD, USB stick, Firewire drive, etc.)

*iPod note: I can’t access the tracks on your iPod if you add them via iTunes. On older iPods you can enable disk use so it shows up as a drive on your desktop, then drag your files onto it. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch then you can’t enable disk use. I suggest not buying things with such Orwellian restrictions.