MU 306 Lab 2
Due October 17,
2003
The purpose of this Lab is to carefully edit
and manipulate text, with three tasks for you to do (everyone must
do the same tasks for either option 1 or 2):
1.
Clean up and/or fix up the original recording, to make the
reading as natural and perfect as possiblecorrect order of
words, no bumps, extraneous noises, extra pauses, etc.
2.
Make a different, but still intelligible poem by rearranging
the words make someone say something they didn't really saysuch
that it still sounds natural, but with a different meaning.
3.
Make a (short) unintelligible abstract from the same
source material, for example something rhythmic that uses small
fragments of the recording to create a beat.
You can record the original text yourself
(option 1), or you have the option of using the prerecorded
text I showed you in class (option 2).
If you make your own recording, you will
need to record it onto DAT (as you did in HW1), and then transfer
it to the computer and work from there in Pro Tools.
See Appendix A for details on how to do the transfer.
Option 1: Find
someone (or yourself) to read a poem, or short text of some kind. The piece should be around 2-3
minutes in length. Keep
recording different "takes" until you are satisfied that
you have a usable recording of each line.
Try to get a good, clear recording of the speaker's voice.
Check your recording for the level of room noise/ambience, and any
background noise that may have crept in. And of course, you want
to capture a good performance of the reading. The nice thing is that because
you have a professional editing system at your disposal, you don't
have record a perfect reading all the way through.
You can record it in fragments and then assemble it later.
Now transfer your recording on to the computer.
When you have all your tracks on the computer, edit the best sections
("takes") to create the perfect performance.
Things to listen for are: smooth transitions between sections, balanced/ consistent
volume between sections, any pops or clicks caused by either the speaker or
your editing, and finally a flow to the whole piece.
Option 2:
Import into Pro Tools the file "MUSIC306 SOURCE" which
you will find in the "Mac Extras" folder. This recording
is excerpted from So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, by
Douglas Adams. (See
text below). Try to
make this recording as faithful as possible to the original written
text. You can easily change the order and the timing between
words and phrases to improve the flow.
Fix all the false takes to make the narrative identical to
the written text. In
addition, try to fix the "pops" and any other small problems
you may have noticed.
You can also to make subtle changes to improve
the prosody (the subtle rhythm and pitch variations of a real speakerthere
is clearly more to editing text than simply rearranging the order
of the words). This may be difficult to achieve.
In this example, the words and phrases are out of order and occasionally
repeated. Also, since
this option is too easy compared to option 1, you'll find thata
word or two are missingsee if you can fix that somehowit's not easy!
Note that the original file is mono,
so you don't need to maintain two channels in your edits. If you're recording something yourself, you can do
it mono or stereo, as you wish.
The text:
"Rob McKenna was a miserable bastard and he
knew it because he'd had a lot of people point it out to him over the years and
he saw no reason to disagree with them except the obvious one which was that he
liked disagreeing with people, particularly people he disliked, which included,
at the last count, everybody."
Hand this in by using the DROP BOX folder
in the MUS306 folder in CLASS FILES. Or, if you did NOT use Pro
Tools, hand it in on a burned CD with a hard-copy writeup. The writeup
should explain your mic placement, mic selection (if you did a recording),
and description of edits (especially tricky edits), and general comments on your recording
and editing approach.
APPENDIX A:
How to do a digital transfer from DAT to disk using Pro
Tools.
1. Make
your recording on DAT in the School of Music.
2.
Take it over to the Lab in the Fine Arts Building and put
it in the TASCAM DAT machine in the rack.
3. Run
Pro Tools LE on the Macintosh next to the rack.
4.
Create one or two new audio tracks, and click the Record
Enable (rec) button for each track.
5. In
the MIX window, set INPUT to S/PDIF for all channels you want to
record/transfer. You should see
the little meters in the edit window bounce around when you play the DAT.
6. Push
the PLAY button on the DAT.
7. In
the Transport, push the red RECORD button (it will flash). Then push the play button. You are now recording (doing the transfer).
8.
You are now doing a digital transfer. Stop Pro Tools and the DAT when you've
finished the transfer.
You're now ready to start editing.
If you get an error: "Unable to allocate
disk space. Your disk
may be fragmented" try running your session on the other
hard drive (not on the internal hard drive).
You can do this be selecting "Save Session As..."
in the File menu, and selecting the other (external) hard disk.
Now open it and try again.
It should be OK now.