The dates given in the Week column are for the Tuesday of the week.
Reading and Listening Responses are due by the beginning of the Tuesday.
Assignments and Exercises are due at your tutorial time.
| Week | Topic | Reading, Watching, Listening | Assignments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 (8/25) | Overview; scheduling | Jonty Harrison: Internal Combustion and Manuella Blackburn: Switched On | |
| Week 2 (9/1) | Acoustics 1 (sound, speed of sound, waves, frequency); microphones, recording |
Reading: Acoustics 1 in Canvas
Reading: Studio Gear 1 in Canvas Natasha Barrett: “In the Rain,” from Three Fictions (2000) |
Start Assignment 1: Recording. |
| Week 3 (9/8) | Acoustics 2 (amplitude); Digital Audio Workstation concepts; creating phrases with audio in DAWs |
Reading: Acoustics 2 in Canvas
Reading: Studio Gear 2 in Canvas Panayiotis Kokoras: Construct Synthesis (2010) |
DUE: Assignment 1: Recording
Start Assignment 2: Editing. |
| Week 4 (9/15) | Acoustics 3 (partials, phase, resonance, reflection, standing waves, formants); pitch-shifting, time-scaling |
Reading: Acoustics 3 in Canvas
Robert Normandeau: Rumeurs (Place de Ransbeck) (1987) |
DUE: Assignment 2: Editing
Start Assignment 3: Short Piece. |
| Week 5 (9/22) | Acoustics 4 (psychoacoustics, pitch, loudness, timbre, localization) |
Reading: Acoustics 4 in Canvas
Katharine Norman: Hard Cash (and small dreams of change) (1997) |
(Work on Assignment 3.) |
| Week 6 (9/29) | Effects (EQ, delay, reverb); busing in the mixer; final mixdown/bounce |
Reading: Effects and Routing in Canvas
Hildegard Westerkamp: Kits Beach Soundwalk (1989) |
(Work on Assignment 3.)
TEST 1: Acoustics, Microphones DUE Friday, 10/2, midnight |
| Week 7 (10/6) | Digital audio theory |
Reading: Digital Audio in Canvas
|
DUE: Assignment 3: Short Piece |
| Week 8 (10/13) | MIDI hardware; MIDI protocol; MIDI in DAWs; virtual instruments |
Reading: MIDI in Canvas
Benjamin Broening: Twilight Shift, for flute and electronics (2012) |
Start Assignment 4: MIDI Sequence. |
| Week 9 (10/20) | Using MIDI cc’s: automation and real-time control; spatialization and multichannel mixing | Zack Browning: Network Slammer, for amplified flute and computer-generated tape (1998) |
(Work on Assignment 4.)
TEST 2: Digital Audio, MIDI DUE Friday, 10/23, midnight |
| Week 10 (10/27) | Intro to synthesis (part 1): the voltage-controlled analog synthesis model, waveforms and spectra, envelopes |
Reading: Synthesis 1 in Canvas
Yvette Janine Jackson: Destination Freedom (2017) |
DUE: Assignment 4: MIDI Sequence
Start Exercise A: Basic Patch. Start Final Project. |
| Week 11 (11/3) | Intro to synthesis (part 2): sub-audio rate modulation, more complex patches |
Reading: Synthesis 2 in Canvas
Morton Subotnick: Silver Apples of the Moon (1967) |
DUE:
Exercise A: Basic Patch
Start Exercise B: Modulation. |
| Week 12 (11/10) | Intro to synthesis (part 3): filters, sequencers |
Reading: Synthesis 3 in Canvas
Éliane Radigue: L’Île re-sonante (2000) |
DUE:
Exercise B: Modulation
Start Exercise C: Sequencers. |
| Week 13 (11/17) | Little Dragon: Butterflies (2017) |
DUE:
Exercise C: Sequencers
TEST 3: Synthesis DUE Friday, 11/20, midnight |
|
| 11/24 | Thanksgiving Break | ||
| Week 14 (12/1) | Dynamics processing (limiter, compressor, gate, expander); side-chain compression; parallel (upward) compression |
Wikipedia compression article
Compression 101, part 1 (Youtube) Compression 101, part 2 (Youtube) Parallel Compression (mainly for Figure 1) |
(Work on Final Project.) |
| Week 15 (12/8) | Complete draft of Final Project. | ||
| Exam Week (12/15) | Project presentations | DUE: Final Project | |