Sound Play: Interaction in Space
Wednesday April 27 & Thursday April 28, 5pm – 8pm
Saturday April 30 & Sunday May 1, 2pm – 5pm
WHERE: The Edge, Lab 2
COST: Free, bookings required (email book.it@edgeqld.org.au)

The Edge needs some new interactive installations to celebrate our re-launch after the floods – and we want your help to develop it! Work with the Edge to design and build an interactive installation. We’re going to take over speakers throughout the building and make the upstairs bathrooms do strange & wonderful things…

Bring any skills you have or none at all; everybody is welcome. Sign up by emailing book.it@edgeqld.org.au . Book now because spaces are limited.

Sunday May 8, 1– 3pm
The Edge, Lab 1
Free, bookings required (email book.it@edgeqld.org.au)

Hack to the future! Your challenge is to take any number of vintage Queensland songs, superbly preserved as scores by the state library here, and hack them into the 21st century. To kickstart the creation, our resident sound Catalyst Andrei Maberley has taken the digitised scores and turned 20 of them into MIDI files. In this workshop we’ll throw these files into anything that fits in on the Lab 1 computers including Ableton Live, Logic and Garageband. All these scores are out of copyright, so if you think you can take “The Bundaberg Vocal One Step” and turn it into a gritty urban masterpiece, then sign up at book.it@edgeqld.org.au . Book now, spaces are limited.

The Edge’s sound catalyst and all-round musical guru, Andrei Maberley, presents a bunch of excellent – and FREE! – workshops in April and May to help you hone your production skills. All of the following workshops are free to attend but spaces are limited so be sure to email book.it@edgeqld.org.au ASAP to book your spot.

Final Pro Tools Basics Workshop
Saturday April 2 2011, 1-3pm
SLQ Meeting Room 1A
With Lab 3 out of action, now is the time to brush up on the basics and a little more of Pro Tools. We’ll be using Pro Tools 9, which is functionally very similar to the HD system in Lab 3. Once again we’ll cover the basics of good session management and also delve into some of the features of PT9 that make it a game changer for studios. Book now at book.it@edgeqld.org.au spaces are limited.

Music Production in Pro Tools
Saturday April 9 2011, 1-3pm
SLQ Meeting Room 1A
In this workshop, we’ll be exploring how to get the best out of Pro Tools’ inbuilt virtual instruments.  We’ll cover using MIDI to write parts and creating, editing, controlling and automating RTAS instruments. We’ll have a bash at a couple of different genres, and take a brief look at the world of third party plug-ins.  Book now at book.it@edgeqld.org.au spaces are limited.

Working with Video in Pro Tools
Saturday April 16 2011, 1-3pm
SLQ Meeting Room 1A
This workshop will cover how to get started with syncing audio to video in Pro Tools.  We’ll cover the tech specs of importing and working with video on Mac and PC, and demonstrate syncing dialog and music to picture. Book now at book.it@edgeqld.org.au spaces are limited.

The Art of Musical Editing in Pro Tools
Saturday April 23 2011, 1-3pm
Lab 3, The Edge
Love it or loathe it – editing the crap out of recordings in popular music is here to stay. Whether it’s over the top Lady Gaga production, the latest evolution of rock and dancefloor sounds or even orchestral classics, one process all these songs will go through is editing to make the ‘ perfect’ performance.  We’ll cover the basics editing vocals, drums, guitars and touch upon classical music editing. Book now at book.it@edgeqld.org.au spaces are limited.

I recently finished up as a Catalyst at The Edge soon and here is a quick final post.
Thanks to all The Edge crew, I’ve had a great time meeting everyone who uses the space and learning heeeeeeaps.
Much love.

I recently had the pleasure of doing some work in Central West Queensland as part of the Creative Pathways program.
The young crew out there had been working towards the Shockwave Youth Arts Festival.

and we decided to make an audiovisual composition for the Sound & Light show in Blackall.
We filmed a bunch of things making sound, then chopped them into small ‘one-shots’.”
We used Vegas to edit the bits together to make some crazy AV beats.

At the festival, we projected it above a stage the size of a semi-trailer and then we used 2 USB dance mats to trigger the individual sounds with our feet….

Audiovisual feet-drumming is the future!
By the end of the screening we had people from the community ‘dancing’ in their own remix of the video with massive projections on the side of the community hall.

Check out the original video below.

Surroundings 5.1.3 is an audiovisual performance and interactive installation at The Edge on the first weekend in August 2010.

Inspired by the cultural icon of the Australian backyard, the project includes two performances and an interactive exhibition, all free entry.

The artist

Richard

The man behind Surroundings 5.1.3 is Richard Byers, one of The Edge’s four foundation Residents. Richard is a visual design artist who focuses on artistic video based projected imagery that merges drawing, painting and sculpture with light and video, often involving human interaction.

His projects have been featured across diverse spaces including clubs, museums, galleries, basements and abandoned spaces in Sydney, Tokyo, Berlin and Brisbane.

Richard’s project at The Edge, extends the interactivity of his latest project, Sound.Transmission.Light, by developing multi-channel audio input, movement triggering, capture and detection, and the inclusion of data streams from sensors, databases and online social media feeds.

The performance and exhibition

As the key output of Richard’s Residency at The Edge, Richard developed this unique performance exhibition, in which performers and audience alike will improvise, educate and enjoy the interactive experience.

There will be performances on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 August 2010 featuring musicians Aphonia, Arongo Te Whiu and Hannah Shepherd who will provide sound while Richard provides visuals.

On Sunday 8 August, the interactive exhibition will be open from 12pm to 6pm for people to interact with, influencing the sound and visuals simply by being in the space.

Come, enjoy, experience, engage.

Click for more about the events.

4–6pm Tuesday 3 August 2010
Who: Stephen Stockwell, Edge Catalyst
Where: Lab 1, The Edge
Cost: Free
Bookings: book.it@edgeqld.org.au

The internet changed journalism. When profits fell staff cuts ensued and for a while it all seemed rather bleak.

But with the capabilities of the internet being realised we’re beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. The platform of the web allows us to post content in every medium to a single outlet. What does this mean? It means you can have text, audio, video and still images on the same page at the same time. Take that old-school outlets.

But what does this mean for journalism? How will we adapt and how will we know what works?

Stephen Stockwell doesn’t plan to present the future of journalism but he will give you the skills you need to file in every medium. He’ll even go one step further and show you the different ways you can combine this content into one rather exciting package.

Book to make sure you get a spot.

Performances: Friday 6 and Saturday 7 August 2010
Exhibition: Sunday 8 August 2010
Who: Edge Resident Richard Byers, Aphonia, Arongo Te Whiu and Hannah Shepherd
Cost: Free
Bookings: book.it@edgeqld.org.au

Inspired by the Australian icon of the common backyard, Surroundings 5.1.3 is a surround sound, surround video performance and exhibition project being held at The Edge.

It is a collaboration between new media artist and Edge Resident Richard Byers, musician Aphonia, and vocalists Arongo Te Whiu and Hannah Shepherd comprising two performances of an improvised audio-visual work and an interactive installation.

The installation created by Richard as part of his Residency uses multi-channel audio and video along with proximity sensors that enable the audience to influence the mix of sound and music, video and light that makes up the work, just by being in the space.

Performances and exhibition are free.

This is a particularly timely piece of repurposing though, with the triumphant Edge Launch last Friday night, and loud, shouty bands like DZ playing, I was a little concerned that we weren’t providing hearing protection. Not that this is necessarily the responsibility of the venue, but I think it’s something that caring Places Of Noise should do, and I’ll be talking to our staff about getting a supply of cheap disposable ‘plugs for patrons of our shows.

If, however, you’re someone who sees a lot of gigs, cares about how those gigs sound, or who cares about not disposing of things which don’t necessarily need to be thrown away, then you should invest in a slightly more permanent solution. Enter the Etymotics ER-20 High Fidelity earplugs.

As a VJ and live performer, I’ve spent lots of time on stages and in clubs, and always worn hearing protection. Usually the disposable foam ones. They protect your ears well, but provide an uneven attenuation of sound, removing too much high-end. In non-audio-geek terms, this makes the music sound muffled, like it’s coming from the next room, or it’s being played through some speakers which are buried in blankets.

Higher quality earplugs have a more even attenuation, which makes the waves delivered to your ears sound much more natural. I’ve actually found that using them makes loud gigs sound even better than barebacking. When exposed to a loud sound, your stapedius reflex slightly closes your inner ear. This makes things sound different, and it’s why your hearing is muffled after a loud show, but it’s not enough to protect you from permanent hearing damage.

The ER-20s aren’t quite as comfortable as the soft, squishy ones, but the better sound more than makes up for this, and it protects the world from soft, squishy landfill. I actually had a hearing test done on Tuesday morning, less than 12 hours after seeing Phoenix at the Entertainment Centre. It was an extremely loud gig, yet my test results were all well within the normal range.

So. Hearing protection = compulsory. Higher quality hearing protection = lovely. If you’d like to know more on the subject, my original post on CreateDigitalMusic has loads of comments from musicians and performers around the world, both heaping love on Good Earplugs, and lamenting the fact that they didn’t know about them until Too Late.

If you’d like to get some of your own, you can order them for AU$35 (inc. delivery) from Headphonic in Australia.