ETC_Final Project

Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario

 Rodolfo Fernández

Overview:

The purpose of this Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario will be the introduction of a music creation/audio recording web 2.0 tool, in the Introduction to Computers class.  The use of the web 2.0 tool will introduce students to similar applications used in the course of their Associate Degree program.

Target Audience:

• Students in the first year of Recording Engineer associate degree.

Materials:

• Computer with broadband connection.
• FL Studio
• Garage Band

Objectives: At the end of this scenario, the learners will be able to:

• Create a musical piece using Soundation, FL Studio and Garage Band.
• Evaluate and compare the ease of use of Soundation with FL Studio and Garage Band.
• Discuss the application of the web 2.0 tool in class.
• Apply the use of these applications as recording engineers.

Procedure:

• Students will go to the Soundation webpage, http://www.soundation.com/ and create an account.
• Once students’ log in, they will proceed to create a musical piece as they do in FL Studio or Garage Band.  
• If the student has any questions or doubts, they will refer to the “How-to-section”.
• After they finish the musical piece, students will export it to the computer’s desktopin .wav file format

Students will review the Web 2.0 tool in class by:

• Discussing advantages and disadvantages of Soundation to similar program, like Garage Band or FL Studio.
• Use of ease of the web 2.0 tool (Soundation).
• What improvements can be done in Soundation
•  Remind students that they can take their finished jobs on a USB Flahs Drive and use it on other projects.

Web 2.0 Tool:

Soundation is a free online music creation tool.  Users can create music using an online loop library; also, audio editing and effects are features available in the application as exporting to the computer or the Internet.

 Social Participation/Social Learning:

Students will work on their musical creations during class hours for class grade, at the computer lab, during 4 class sessions.  Collaboration will occur by listening and recommend which loops are best to their musical pieces.  Once they finish they will listen to their final product before exporting the project in a .wav file in the computer’s desktop.

Making Connections:

To work efficiently on the project, students will learn how to use keyboard shortcuts, like cut, copy, and paste, select all, etc., since most audio recording/music creation tools used them.  By learning the shortcuts, students can work more efficiently on the programs that they will use throughout their course program.  After they learn how to use the keyboard, students will be introduced to web 2.0 tools, in this case Soundation

Create/Produce:

Students will create a 2-minute musical piece and export it in a .wav format. 

Assessment:

See the rubric below

RILS Rubric
	Excellent	Good	Average	Poor
Musical creation	Student create and edit an original 2 min. musical piece, using volume changes and effects and export it to .wav format	Student create and edit an original 2 min. musical piece and export it to a .wav format	Student only created 1 min. musical piece. No editing, volume changes or effects, but export it to a .wav format	Student did not create a musical piece.
Evaluation and comparison of Web 2.0 tool with other applications	Student made a deep evaluation on the use of the web 2.0 tool and detailed the difference to other applications	Student made a deep evaluation on the use of the web 2.0 tool, but made gave a general comparison to other applications	Student only evaluate on the web 2.0 tool, but did not gave any comparison to other applications	Student did not evaluate the web 2.0 tool, nor other applications
Discussion in class	Student presents the musical piece and gives a detailed explanation creation process in class	Student presents the musical piece in class and gives a general explanation creation process in class	Student presents the musical piece, but does not give an explanation of creation process in class.	Student did not present musical piece in class.
Applications	Student gave thoughtful suggestions and recommendations to classmates of the web 2.0 tool used in class	Student gave general suggestions and recommendations to classmates of the web 2.0 tool used in class.	Student gave general recommendations to classmates the web 2.0 tool used in class	No recommendations

Reflection:

Students:

Students will deliver a written reflection that describes their impression of learning about Web 2.0 Tools in class and what topics can be modified or eliminate in the Introduction to Computers course.

      Teacher:

The teacher will make a reflection based on students’ feedback.  This reflection will also include technical mishaps during the learning scenario and present them to professors and faculty director.

Press this link for my RILS in Educator Studio

PE5_Soundation

Mixing your audio tracks is one of the toughest moments in the music recording process.  Volume and balance are amongst the most important part of mixing.  Musical Instruments must be balanced in the right or left channels, for the listener to hear them and not get lost in the mix.  Rhythm guitars could get lost in the mix if they are not separate in the mix.  For this post I create a funky rhythm piece featuring bass, drums and two rhythm guitars.  When I finished, the track sounded like this:

If you have external speakers on your computer, you will hear that the guitar tracks are on the center, mix with the bass and drums.  Although you can hear them well, you can't distinguish the nuances or extra notes that each rhythm guitar has.  To balance the guitars, I turn the pan control to the left and to the right.

Once I placed the guitars on the left and right channels, the music track sounded like this:

To finish my mix I decided to add a fade in at the beginning of song (or melody, if you prefer).  I added de fade in the master channel so it won't interfered with my instruments.  To add a master channel, simply go to "view" and choose "Show Master Channel".  Once the master channel appears on the bottom left of your screen, press the black button where it says "Display off" and choose volume.  Click on the timeline and a line will appear.  Click on the yellow line and "dots" will show up on the yellow line, with this dots you can move them up or down to control the volume as you can see here:

If you are not satisfied with the fade effect, you can still work on it until is done the way you want it.  After finish with the fade, go to "File" and choose "Mixdown" and choose "save as .wav" or "Publish and share".  For my RILS project, my students will export to .wav, for them to keep as part of their portfolio that will deliver at the end of the semester.

Hope you enjoy this demonstration!!!!

PE4_Soundation

For my RILS project I chose Soundation as the Web 2.0 Tool that my students will use to create their musical pieces, using the free online sound library that comes in the application.  As I mentioned in my BP_3 Sondation post, this application is a "Garage Band" type of application that can be used to create, record and mix music or background sounds for video productions.

For this post I decided to not to use the drum tracks that are already in the application.  Soundation lets the user create their own drum tracks by adding an instrument channel to the interface.  This channel will be identified a blue color.

Once the track is created, a small window will appear on screen.  In this window, the user can modified the volume, pitch and time duration  of the drum sounds, like snare, bass drum, hi hat, etc.

                   

To create the drum tracks the user will double click in the timeline area and a small window with a piano keyboard on the left side will appear.  By clicking on the keys, the user will listen to the drum sounds and write the "notes" on the small window with a pencil icon that can be clicked on the top part of the window.

For this blog, I programmed a straight 4/4 beat that sounds like this:

After I finished with my drum track to add more, but instead of writing the notes, I've just copy and paste the track that I already made.  To add a little depth to the drum track, I added a reverb effect.  Reverb can be found on the top part of the instrument/audio channel on the left part of the screen.

Here's the final product.  For my next post, I'll show you a couple of techniques for a good mixdown with Soundation.  Enjoy!!!

BP_3 Soundation

Hi there!!!
I will dedicate this post to my students at the Center of Cinematography and Television Sciences (CCAT in spanish).  Most of them are itching to work in a recording studio or to have their own, so they can begin producing their own music.  One of the tools that I found on the internet is the Web 2.0 tool called "Soundation".  This tool is an online version of Mac's "Garage Band", where the student or music aficionado can create their own tracks, by using a collection of loops that goes from different styles of music and instrument, to background noise for people who want "ambient sounds"(street sounds, alarm clocks, people chatting, etc.), for video productions. In the free version, is not possible to save the project online, but they can do a mixdown to the user's desktop.  If your student can't afford Garage Band or Frutti Loops, Soundation is a good solution.

To show you how cool is the application, I decided to create a small musical sample.  Once I open the application, I saw at my right hand of the screen the channels where I can control the volume and effects of the instruments/sounds, at the center is the main work area or "timeline; and at the left is the collection of loops/sounds that I will use for my musical sample.

I chose Indian tabla and other Indian instruments that I found in the loop collection. I drag the ones that I liked to the "timeline" and adjust the volume and level to my liking.  Since I didn't found any Sitar loops to go to the rhythm section I already created, I chose a blues sounding Dobro slide guitar and drag it to the timeline.

You will ask yourself "How this guy can mix a blues guitar with a Indian rhythm section?".  Soundation will notify that the track doesn't fit the tempo of the song and gives you the option to stretch the tracks' tempo or pitch.  I decided to stretch the pitch and viola!!! a sitar sounding guitar. For effect, I balance the frequencies of the guitar using the program's eq. and to add a little effect, I put a phaser sound.

Since I can't saved my musical track on the program, I chose to do a mixdown and save it as a .wav sound file on my computer's desktop.