Sonic Circuits is an organization which exists to promote and support the performance of experimental music in the DC metro area. While it promotes shows throughout the year, its main even is The Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, which was begun by the American Composers Forum (ACF) provide opportunities to hear and experience avant-garde electronic music, which often utilizes artistry of new technologies via improvisation.
The DC chapter is now in its 10th year and upcoming shows include: Mountains, formed by Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp at Bossa on February 8th, 2010. The act incorporates field sound recordings, acoustic instrumentation, and electronic sounds.
Experimental electronic music composer Zavoloka from Kyiv, Ukraine at Pyramid Atlantic on February 12th, 2010.
Musical composition and electronic wizard Zbigniew Karkowskifounding member of Sensorband and active member of the Tokyo noise scene at Pyramid Atlantic on February 27, 2010.
Visit Sonic Circuit’s site to sign up for their active newsletter which consistently provides great info on upcoming avant-garde and experimental electronic noise music.
New video with audio of a sound effects montage by Adam A. Johnson. This montage was created with some of the free sound effects available at SFXsource.com.
I had the pleasure of composing music, doing sound design, and audio sweetening for the promotional video from photographer Norah Levine produced by Genevieve Russell of Story Portrait Media which was recently featured in the recent Winter Newsletter from ASMP New Mexico. The video was a unique marriage of sound, music, photography, and video, presenting a series of Levine’s photographic work in video format, with accompanying narration and original music. Norah contacted me through Genevieve with a request to produce a custom piece of music, something greater and more fitting than the royalty free music that sometimes is used for such pieces. The work was done under the auspices of my music services company Architect of Sound (TM).
The process of writing the music was very similar to writing for strict film/video. First, Norah communicated the genre, tempo, and instrumentation she wanted for the music. After an initial cut, both Genevieve and Norah came back with some specific requests such a very organic sound with guitar and piano as opposed to anything synthy for the main instrumentation, a mellow intro, a slightly slower tempo overall, and specific transitions in the piece to segue between segments of images such as the percussion that comes in at 1:28. When finished, we were all pleased with the work as the video, photos, and music flowed and transitioned in unison nicely throughout the piece. The difference in terms of music between Norah’s video and music for film is that often short films require shorter bits of different music to accompany and bolster the various scenes, whereas Norah’s worked quite well with a single moving and changing composition.
For sound design, more sound effects would have busied up the audio, detracting from the smooth and easy flow of video so I kept it very minimal, using only one windchime sound effect which beautifully underscored the child playing with bubbles around 1:35. This is is another difference between photography videos and film, which tends to require more ambient sfx and event sounds.
In terms of audio sweetening, I did a bit of work on the narration at the request of Genevieve, who felt the intitial recording was a bit back in the mix and slightly harsh to the ear. To bring the voice to the forefront I added some compression and to soften the tones I layered a touch of warm reverb and decreased the EQ of the midrange between 1Khz and 3Khz, a sweet spot in the frequency of the human voice.
Overall, this project is unique because it brought often disparate artists, the composer and the photographer, together through video production. As new media continues to mash and mingle various artforms certainly the relationship between the composer and photographer will only strengthen and take on new yet unseen forms.
SFXsource.com Sound Effect Library recently added a new free section to download free sound effects The sounds are easy to download, simply right click. Categories of free sfx include Animal, Bathroom, Breaking, Christmas, Classroom, Kitchen, Household, Music Loops, Metal, Machine, Mulitmedia, Nature, People, Restaurant, Sci-Fi, Sound Design, Sports, Tool, Toy, Transportation, War, and Weather.
The free sound effect section will be updated frequently so visit often and sign up for updates via the email submission form on each free sound fx page.
Check out this following youtube video which demonstrates how to find and demo a bird sound effect on SFXsource.com. The narrator takes the viewer through the process of navigating categories, specifically the animal sound effects category and where to click to preview the sound effect. Then, the narrator demonstrates how to find a helicopter sound effect and preview.
Software designer Chris Ashworth has found recent success with his QLab program for live sound design. This Mac program allows live sound designers, such as those who run sound for theater productions, the ability to blend all production elements such as sound effects, animation, lighting, and video together in a queue. Until QLab, this sort of technology was expensive and available to mostly PC users. The beauty of the program is its ability to simplify previously complex live sound and video performances through a single workspace.
Users of the software give rave reviews and the price is definitely right: a free lite version for stereo, $249 for full versions which support, audio, video, or MIDI, and $599 for all three. Check it out at
There are a slew of iphone apps available that allow audio recording straight into the iphone. Most are pretty straightforward and offer quick solutions to audio recording, enabling the iphone to replace yet another device (a digital audio recorder) taking up space in your pockets.
FiRe by Audiofile Engineering: This is hands down the most professional grade app for recording audio currently available on the iphone: Pros: this app features audio markers, support for WAV metadata, and realtime display of waveforms. It allows stereo recording using the BLUE Mikey or Alesis ProTrack, uploading to FTP, and VU meters to monitor input. Cons: Slow to start up for off the cuff recording. Stereo mic offerings by BLUE Mikey and Alesis are minimal and either are too bulky or don’t connect well to iphone.
Smart Recorder App by Roe Mobile Development (RMD)This app looks very similar to the Notes app that comes with the iphone, bright yellow and nearly blank. Pros: Up to 44.1 sample rate, slider upon playback, different speeds for playback, easy to use interface, quick to start up. Cons: Looks cheap but don’t let that deceive you, works very well.
iTalk Lite by Griffin Technology Pretty basic recorder which, like all the others, allows recording on your iphone. Pros: Starts up quickly, pretty easy to use, quality of recordings okay. Big cool red recording button. Cons: Has advertisements embedded in app, help section not standalone and instead redirects to website which closes app, not sure what recording quality is aside from “Good,” “Better,” and “Best.” Quality of playback not as strong as others.
Audio Recorder by Peerium Inc: Though not found in a recent search, this simple audio recorder is quite handy. Not sure if its been discontinued or so far down in the searches that its hard to access. Pros: Start up time is incredibly fast and the app loads in seconds. The interface is easy to understand and recording starts immediately. Recordings can be emailed and sent via text. Cons: Low quality recordings, no .wav capability. Cannot handle exterior mic.
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