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Week 2
Day 5: (Friday) 7/12/24
Cluster 9 began the lectures on Sound Synthesis and Max MSP with our TA, Zehao. Initially challenging, we learned a lot today! Later, our cluster performed our skit. We're proud everyone hard work contributing to our lyrics and recording. Despite the speaker not working as planned, Cluster 9 had a lot of fun watching other skits and participating in the COSMOS Olympic activities!
Day 6: (Saturday) 7/13/24
First weekend of Cosmos! It was a relaxing day and relatively quiet as half of the clusters, 1-8, had gone to La Jolla Shores, taking a break from the breakneck speeds of daily Cosmos life. We took naps, washed our laundry and more to relax and recharge.
Day 7: (Sunday) 7/14/24
Cluster 9 went to the beach, exploring the La Jolla Shores area and enjoyed the summer ocean. We had fun swimming, riding waves, beach volleyball and more. We had an enjoyable day at the beach and rested for the next week.
Day 8: (Monday) 7/15/24
Day 8 was much the same as Friday of last week. Our TA, Zehao, taught us more of the same as Friday, with more basic Max MSP functions like turning on audio and controlling inputs. After lunch, we learned a bit more of Max and then had an introduction to Machine Learning. Some notable examples were from Suno.com, an full text-to-audio AI program as you can see to the right. Markov chains were also interesting as we could implement it ourselves to create melodies fully from AI.
Day 9: (Tuesday) 7/16/24
Day 9 started our with us brainstorming ideas for our ethics project if we didn't already and working on our ethics project. Most of our cluster finished finalizing our project ideas and planned together on how to execute their ideas. Some included a news story, podcasts, and more. After our brainstorming, we headed to lunch and we then came back to some more Max MSP lectures. However, due to some struggles with learning with Max, our TA switched the format up, changing to a more hands-on approach, which helped many in our cluster, ending with us learning about MIDI keyboards and EQ filters.
Day 10: (Wednesday) 7/17/24
Day 10 had us look up from our computers and start focusing more on the electronical and hardware aspect of music-making. We swapped locations, moving to the Envision Lab. Here, there were a plethora of machines to manufacture and make our ideas into reality, ranging from laser cutter to soldering, to CNC routers. We then focused more on electronics and microcontrollers, learning what devices deal with sounds; microphones and speakers. From there, we learned how to solder parts together, giving us a base to create our own devices. In the afternoon, we soldered contact microphones to headphone jacks, allowing us to create our own sounds. We not only used them to create new sounds, but also linked it with Audacity and other digital programs to create our own songs.
Day 11: (Thursday) 7/18/24
Field Trip Time! Cluster 9 headed to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad. We learned about how music has evolved over time, and how it has been effected by new discoveries and events. For example, guitars would have been left in the dust if we didn't discover electricity as they didn't have enough noise, electricity allowed for the development of the amplifier. After learning more about the history of music making, we headed back to UCSD, and combined the two major programs we use in class, Max and Ableton together, allowing us to customize our own songs further.
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