audio entries

Acoustic Botany

Acoustic Botany, by David Benqué, extracts Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering from the usual context of health care, food and environment and examines instead the role they could play in the sphere of culture and entertainment.

via [we make money not art]

Oscar sound editors: Noises real and unreal

Peter Caranicas posted a great articel on two different sound editing approaches:

On that day each was nominated for two Oscars: sound editing and sound mixing. Boyes drew the mentions for “Avatar,” Ottosson for “The Hurt Locker.” Plus, each has the same triple credit: sound designer, sound re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor.

Yet the work of these two seasoned film sound professionals on this season’s contenders couldn’t be more different.

Read the full article here

via [variety]

Avatar: Sound Design and Score

Wired has some nice videos about the making of avatar: Sound Design, Score, Pre-Production, Post-Production, Motion Capture and so on…

check out the videos here: Wired

How to make two Prodigy tracks

Jim Pavloff recreates two lassic tracks by prodigy in ableton live – inspiring. Keep in mind that Liam Howlett wasn’t able to use Ableton live back in the days…

Sound for 3D Films

Everybody talks about 3D movies – but what about the sound for this films?
Music of sound has a great review about this topic.

Along with the hyperbolic (& in my opinion somewhat dubious) promotion of 3D films as “game changing” an aspect that seems to be late to the conversation is the use of sound in such films. In some ways I guess this is partly due to the fact that with the implementation of surround sound many decades ago, bringing sound “off the screen” has been a part of the vocabulary of every film mixer since the 1970s; the concept of 3D sound is not new in that respect.

But the re-launch of 3D films in the form of huge budget blockbusters such as Avatar raises the issue again, since for such a film to cost many hundreds of millions of dollars to make means there must also be vast funds available to develop & present an appropriately “game changing” soundtrack. Accordingly there can be no doubt that a need has been created, but is it being fulfilled?

For those of you who have seen Avatar, did you think the soundtrack presented any new innovations in terms of physical depth and/or use of surround sound? But of course, accompanying that question is the philosophical issue of whether it actually should do and if so, how?

Hans Zimmer and Diego Stocco talk about the Experibass on Sherlock Holmes’ score

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Diego Stocco, a great sound designer & solist, worked with Hans Zimmer on Guy Ritchie’s new movie “Sherlock Holmes”. In this video they are talking about his unique instrument – the experibass:

From Diegos Youtube Chanel:

I had the fantastic opportunity to play my Experibass on Hans Zimmer’s score for “Sherlock Holmes”, the new Guy Ritchie’s film. I’m one of the featured soloists.

Hans really loved the pounding tonal grooves and aggressive depth of the basses I was playing on the Experibass and asked me to go full scale with all those techniques I was showing in the original video. I didn’t stop there though, I also experimented with new techniques that were coming up to my mind while playing on his tracks.

A big thanks goes to my friends Daniel Holter and Russell Emanuel for passing my video and make the connection happens.

Working with Hans Zimmer and his team has been great and I’d like to thank them for this amazing experience. I’ve been a fan of his music for a long time and I felt honored when he called  me to play on the score of Sherlock Holmes.

Music Documentaries at BBC Four

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BBC Four spoiled its audience recently with a collection of brilliant music documentaries that underline the impact technology, namely the synthesizer, had on popular and academic music in Britain.

via [silent listening]

Klipsch headquarters walkthrough

Engadget posted  a pretty interesting behind the scenes article on hifi manufacturer klipsch.

TED Talk: How sound affects us

Julian Treasure asks us to pay attention to the sounds that surround us.

via [silent sound]

Robot Marimba Improvisation

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The stage debut of Shimon, the robotic marimba player. Also, the world first human-robot rendition of Duke Jordan’s “Jordu”, for human piano and robot marimba.

Fascinating and scary at the same time…