COURSE URL: https://msp.ucsd.edu/syllabi/173.02w/

Prerequisite: Music 170 and enough music background to write and produce a two-minute piece.
Textbook: none
Meetings: Mandeville (0326) room B202, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:35-10:55 AM.
This is in the Mandeville basement, two floors down from the main floor;
stairs and elevator are in a passageway through the center of the building.
Instructor: Professor Miller Puckette , Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, 534-4823, msp@ucsd.edu,
https://msp.ucsd.edu/ Office Hours are at CRCA (0408), Tuesday 11:15-12:15 or by appointment.

NOTE: Another section of this course is taught by Chris Mercer (camercer@ucsd.edu) at 11:05 on the same days.

This course introduces theoretical and practical aspects of digital music recording, mixing, and editing. Technical topics covered include audio montage, equalization, effects processing, spatialisation, mastering, and diffusion as time permits. In parallel we'll look at some of the many musical issues raised by recording and editing techniques, both in the "art" and pop music traditions.

Topics and assignments. (note: This course is taught interactively, and the following syllabus may change.)

week 1 (Jan 8, 10). Examples of sound montage in electronic music repertory; introduction to Csound.

week 2 (Jan 15, 17). Basic recording techniques: microphones, conversion, and storage.

week 3 (Jan 22, 24). Acoustical parameters of sounds: pitch, time, dynamic, and timbre. Basic montage technique: cutting, enveloping, speed change, time reversal, looping, stereo placement.

week 4 (Jan 29, 31). Organization strategies in music. FIRST ASSIGNMENT due Feb. 5: choosing source sounds from the courseware or your own recordings, put together a montage exploring how they might be juxtaposed and what the musical possibilities are.

week 5 (Feb 5, 7). Montage: cutting, enveloping, speed change, time reversal, looping, stereo placement.

week 6. (Feb 12, 14) Strategies and techniques for time and pitch change.

week 7. (Feb 19, 21) Form, time, and rhythm. SECOND ASSIGNMENT due Feb. 28: rough draft of a 2-minute piece of music or "sound art."

week 8 (Feb 26, 28). Filtering and modulation.

week 9 (Mar 5, 7). Delay, reverberation, and spatialization.

week 10 (Mar 12, 14). Issues: interactivity, performance, copyright, distribution, multimedia, ...

Final Exam, 8-11AM, Friday, March 22: project presentations

Computers. This class is supported by ACS (Academic Computing Services) in the APM 349 lab (Applied Physics and Mathematics building). You can obtain class accounts and get a door code at the first class meeting. (Note that the lab is unavailable certain hours.) Machines labeled "audio" are set up for this course.

Alternatively you can work on your own computer. PCs and Unix machines will work best, but the courseware can also run on Macintosh computers.

Visit the online version of this page for instructions .