Sound artist Nicolas Collins has a very long history of messing around with sound; and he's got a list of high-quality creds to show for it. He teaches in the sound department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where he has also served as chair), and he is editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Music Journal at MIT.
His list of electronic inventions include the "backwards" electric guitar and voice-to-MIDI convertors that use vocal rhythms to drive percussion. Both of these are included on his 1992 album, It Was A Dark And Stormy Night. In 2006, Routledge published his book, Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking
Collins was generous enough to answer some introductory sound questions from Gearwire. Stay tuned as he returns over the next few weeks to answer more. Meanwhile, check out his work online .
If you were to teach a rank introductory course in sound, what would your list of essential gear include, and why?
Portable audio recorder with microphone: nothing sensitizes you to sound more than simply recording a sound in one place and playing it back someplace very different.
Small format mixer (stereo bus plus at least one send bus) with amp & speakers: to play back that recording; and because this is the core of any studio, whether "virtual" inside a computer or out on a table, and these days everyone is confused by mixers, so you better start early.
Contact mike and telephone pickup coil: to hear through different ears.
Reel-to-reel tape machine: it makes recording physical - tape loops, head delay, reel rocking, tape saturation; all the things you can't do on a computer, and essential to understanding the roots of electronic music.
A turntable: the oldest and newest electronic instrument.
Noise gate/ducker: the single coolest piece of traditional audio processing gear, Christian Wolff in a rack unit.
Compressor/limiter: for controlling feedback between the mike and speaker.
Lots of sources brought in by students: laptops, iPods, radios, guitars, etc: to keep a steady flow of varied sound sources.
Lots of patchcords: to put it all together, especially in the wrong order.
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