Sonic Art & Sound Design- P17:Sonic art is a new art form, or rather, forms. As we shall see, it can encompass a wide range of activities, perhaps wider than almost any other art form. It is an unusual case, based upon a medium that has traditionally been regarded as inferior and subservient to other creative or expressive forms. | PROCESS AND PRACTICE Articulation One of the most fundamental activities of sonic art involves examining individual sounds to see what they are made of and what they relate to. Thus we discover much about their nature and meaning it is rarely sufficient to present a sound as is since this tells us only what is on the surface not what the sound is made of at a deeper level or what its relationships may be. Before we examine the context in which we hear a sound we need to consider how to discover its structure and there is no better way of doing this than identifying its components and seeing how best to display is known as articulation and we can approach it in two main ways firstly we can be analytical and uncover the components that make up a sound object and secondly we can use another sound as a means of discovering how it interacts with others. Both approaches help us to understand what our sound consists of and what it may signify both can be undertaken using regular studio technologies. A number of possible processes could be adopted for example the filter of a synthesiser allows us to isolate and hear each individual harmonic. Here we consider two other examples the noise gate and the vocoder. For our purposes the gate is the most useful of the several types of dynamic processor. One quality is common to all the level of sound passing through the unit is subject to automatic is usually derived from the sound itself or via a side chain carrying the same information. However there is no reason why this has to be so the controlling element can be derived from another source so that one sound is subject to the articulation of another. Right The Behringer Multigate Pro A simple dynamics controller capable of a useful range of processes. Image used with permission of BEHRINGER International GmbH Copyright 2006. BEHRINGER International GmbH. STUDIO OR LABORATORY control input from incoming signal Left Simple dynamics processor The incoming .
