Wednesday, 8 January 2014

New Year, New Start


New year’s resolution: Post things on this blog.

With the first month or 2 of this blog being very slow I’ve decided that this year I will start to make more regular posts on here.  This post will mainly be about my work at university and will mostly be for my own benefit but you are more that welcome to read them too.

This week I have had to focus my attention towards finishing a group project I have been working on with 4 students from the Game course. The task was to create a game that would utilise the Kinect system. While the game students worked on this it was down to me to create all the audio for the game.

First and most obviously I need sounds of a bowling alley. After some phone calls to some bowling alleys’ it was clear I wouldn’t be able to get in and record audio before anyone turned up. So unfortunately I had to make the most of free sounds online with lots of editing. I used 2 online sounds to create the key things I needed. One the sound of a strike and the other a thunder rumble.

The strike sounds was cut up to single out a pin sound. After this the clip was copied and each then given slight variations in pitch and timing. This gave me 7 very different sounding pin strikes.

The thunder rumble was used to help with the sound of the bowling ball rolling. I recorded a coin rolling along a desk several times, once crossfaded this gave a long noisy rolling sound. I needed to fill out the low end. I tried to some EQ and pitch shift but still couldn’t get the right sound so instead I used the thunder rumble sound and it worked a treat.

Game music was also created and needed to fit in with the game. I opted for a laidback jazz style piece created entirely synthetically. The key reason for this was that it needed to be done over Christmas and I did not have access to the studios. I’m usually one to favour recordings over synths and don’t often enjoy making synth based music but I did enjoy this project.


Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Why am I here

You may be asking yourself questions such as, "why am I here?", "What exactly am I looking at?" and "why is there not a cat GIF on this specific page of the internet?". To be honest i'm asking myself the same questions. So this is a small Q and A that i will probably add to over time.

"Why am i here?"
I don't know why you are here that's a question for yourself.

"Why are you here?"
Just to share some opinions, talk about some and show a little bit of what I do.

"What do you do?"
I'm currently in my second year studding Music and Audio Technology at Bournemouth University where I will hopefully graduate from in 2016 with a BSc.

"What is Music and Audio Tech?"
My course contains a lot of variety, I have modules in topics such as, Studio techniques, Midi and Sequencing, Syntheses and Effects, Software programming, Electronics, Business and even some Sound for video games.

"What are you gonna do with that degree?"
While i have no specific ideas at the moment i would like think it could help me get a job somewhere in the music industry or the tech industry but hopefully somewhere in between. Software development, sound for game, audio hardware design, R&D, a mix of everything the list could go on.

"Why did you choose your course?"
I have a passion for computers and music. It fits me perfectly.

"What are you gonna put on here?"
Any thing form general tech and gadgets, music technology, programming,  PC build logs.


Sunday, 18 November 2012

Google Music


This week saw the launch of Google music in the UK. On the surface it looks like just another digital music store but it is much more than that. You can upload 20,000 of your own tracks to it, then stream and download them to any device. This launch runs alongside the launch of Google’s new tablets and phone running android 4.2.

The service is free of charge you just need a Google account to get started. Then you can purchase music through the Google play store and start to upload your music which is a surprisingly simple process. You download the dedicated upload tool, direct it to where your music is stored, then let it upload the music. After this you can play your music through the Google music webpage or via the music app on android.This is built into Google devices following criticism due to the lack of up-gradable storage on the nexus 4 phone that was announced a few weeks ago.

Google Music cover flow on Nexus 4

After using the service for a few days now I can say that I love it. It’s perfect for getting all my music wherever I am. The music app on the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4 performs fantastically and it has a nice look and feel. I love the cover flow (pictured Right) and also the instant mix feature that is a playlist that automatically collects songs that are similar.


I like this service as it offers a good way to back up your music online for free. I like that you can stream your music on many devices and the compatibility with android. Currently there is no official app on IOS however there are various unofficial apps available. Over all this is a fantastic service from Google and I expect to see other companies do similar things soon.You can get started with Google music at https://play.google.com/music/




Google Music music playback on nexus 4
Google Music Web Player