Academic year 2014-15

Sound Creation Laboratory

Degree:	Code:	Type:
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science	21493	Optional subject
Bachelor's Degree in Telematics Engineering	22594	Optional subject
Bachelor's Degree in Audiovisual Systems Engineering	21629	Optional subject

 

ECTS credits:

4

Workload:

100 hours

Trimester:

3rd

 

Department:	Dept. of Information and Communication Technologies
Coordinator:	Emilia Gómez
Teaching staff:	Emilia Gómez, Jose Manuel Berenguer, Nadine Kroher
Language:	Emilia Gómez (english), Jose Manuel Berenguer (spanish), Nadine Kroher (english)
Timetable:
Building:	Communication campus - Poblenou

 

Introduction

This course deals with sound recording, description, transformation and generation. We will work with sounds produced by humans, animals, sounds from the environment and sounds of music. We will learn how to record them, analyze and describe them, process them and use them in a creative way.

 

Prerequisites

To be familiar with basic signal processing concepts (related courses: Signals and Systems, Speech Processing, Audio and Music Processing). Audio Equipement. Programming experience is also desirable.

 

Associated competences

These are the competences we will work in the course according to the official description of the studies:

Cross-disciplinary competences

Specific competences

Instrumentals G1. Analysis and synthesis G2. Organization and planning G3. Adaptation to new situations and contexts G4. Information retrieval and management G5. Decision making   Interpersonal G8. Abilities to work in a team   Systemic G11. Flexibility and creativity in new contexts G12. Autonomous and self-education and continuous training

Audiovisual Systems AU6. Sound and music processing tecniques. Application development and implementation. AU7. Sound recording and acoustic field reproduction AU12. Audiovisual production, post-production and exhibition AU34. Recording, generation and production of audio and music content.Application of signal processing and multimedia systems on the creation of sonic environment for audiovisual productions AU15. Data analysis for regularity estimation, prediction and classification AU23. audio and music coding in practical applications

 

Assessment

100 points divided into:

• Final exam (40 pt) (Recoverable in july period). Minimum of 5/10 is required.
• Lab reports and participation in class (30 pt) (Not recoverable). Minimum average of 5/10 is required.
• Project: seminar activities, final presentation and concert (30 pt) (Not recoverable). Minimum of 15 pt (5/10) is required. Those 30 pt will be devided into:
  • Concert mark (10 pt)
  • Project presentation & concert rehearsal (5 pt)
  • Seminar work (15 pt)

Basic rules for evaluation:

Labs

• Lab teams will have no more than 2 students.
• No code sharing is permitted between teams.
• Plagiarism of code or report material will result in 0 for the lab.
• Work will not be accepted after the submission deadline.
• Work has to be submitted in the format and structure specified in the lab instructions. Other formats will not be accepted.

Project

• Project teams will have no more than 4 students.
• Workload should be balanced between all students in a team and individual work has to be reported and justified during the term.
• Seminar presentations have to be shared between team members.
• Students that do not attend the project presentation, rehearsal and soundcheck (on the day of the concert) will not be allowed to perform and will have a 0 in the concert evaluation.
• Teams with an evaluation’s score below 5/10 in the project presentation & concert rehearsal activity will not be allowed to perform in the final concert and will get a 0 in the concert mark.

 

Contents

Theoretical concepts

 Block 1: Introduction

• Course presentation. Introduction to soundscapes.
• Sound walk.

 Block 2: Sound and creativity

• Usages of sound from a creative point of view.
• Sound, cinema and publicity.

 Block 3: Technological foundations

• Sound description: timbre characterization
• Sound events & periodicity detection
• Sound similarity & classification
• Sound generation

 Practical activities (labs)

• Sound recording and tagging
• Automatic description
• Sound classification
• Sound synthesis and transformation

 Group (project-based) activities (seminars)

• Seminar 1: Project definition
• Seminar 2: Gathering sound material: recordings, sound libraries, foley, synthesis.
• Seminar 3: Description of the sound material (manual, computational)
• Seminar 4: Sound transformations and generatio
• Mixing at the studio
• Concert organization

 

Methodology

This is a practical course that will combine lectures, practical sessions (labs) and seminars. In the lectures, we will review the main theoretical concepts related to sound description, labeling, classification, transformation and synthesis and we will present a set of research and artistic projects related to sound design and sound processing. We will also hold a final concert to present the results of the projects.

In the hands-on sessions (labs), the students will perform guided work with computers. The labs should be carried out in teams of no more than two students. The labs will include working with recording devices, software and programming languages. Students will present their results by a set of written reports.

In the seminars, the students will carry out an artistic project related to sound in small groups. The seminars will consist on tutoring sessions, project status presentation and final presentation and concert. Project will be carried out in teams of no more than four students.

 

Effort:

	Teaching hours			Hours for personal work
Topic	Lecture group	Lab group	Small group
1. Introduction	2	0	2	7
2. Sound and creativity	4	2	3	12
3. Technological foundations	8	8	3	14
4. Concert	4	0	0	14
Project/exam preparation	0	0	0	17
Total:	18	10	8	64	Total: 100

 

Resources

Main references

• Gouyon, F. Herrera, P. Gómez, E. Cano, P. Bonada, J. Loscos, À. Amatriain, X. Serra, X.“Content processing of music audio signals” In “Sound to sense, sense to sound: A state-of-the-art in Sound and Music Computing,” Polotti P. and Roccheso D. (eds). Logos Verlag, Berlin GmbH, 2 008 ISBN 978-3-8325- 1600-0
• Ecological Acoustics Perspective for Content-Based Retrieval of Environmental Sounds. Gerard Roma, Jordi Janer, Stefan Kersten, Mattia Schirosa, Perfecto Herrera, Xavier Serra EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing 2010, 2010:960863 (5 December 2010)
• Nicola Orio: Music Retrieval: A Tutorial and Review
• Schafer, R. M.Our Sonic Environment and The Soundscape – The Tuning of the World, Destiny books, 1977.
• Farnell, Andy. Designing Sound, The MIT Press.

Complementary bibliography

• Chion Michel: La audiovisión: Introducción a un análisis conjunto de la imagen y el sonido; Paidos Comunicación.
• Rodriguez Angel: La dimensión sonora del lenguaje audiovisual; Paidos papeles de comunicación.
• Sonnensschein David: Sound Design: The expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema; Michael Wiese Productions.

Software and hardware

• Sonic visualizer, sonic annotator, Matlab/Python, Pure Data, Multi-track, MIDI Controlers, Recording studio,...