Camille Robinson

Those who can, do

Camille Robinson — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:43:38 +0000

I’ve been reading Steve Reich’s Writings on Music on and off over the last couple of weeks, which for those who haven’t read it consists of program notes and a few articles written by him from 1965-2000. Anyway, predictably enough in the earlier bits there are a bunch of interesting ideas and the older he gets the more set in his ways he becomes and it starts to dull out a little, and he starts to write a few cranky middle aged man things. This includes such things as re-phrasing the age old cliché “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” which when I read it I found quite disappointing. It’s a shame that someone of his calibre would perpetuate such an idea, even if sub-textually it seems to have more to do with his personal discomfort with teaching.

So, I have a new version of the old adage, may it catch on:

Those who can, do
Those can teach, teach
Those who can’t teach bad mouth teachers

Dedicated to the music teachers of the world and their insecure detractors.

Recording plan for a learning engineer (written by a learning engineer)

Camille Robinson — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:28:14 +0000

Mid last year after Nick Carver and I finalised recording and mixing the first Morrisons release I put together a little outline of how I’d like to approach my next recording, based on the experiences we had. I thought others might find it useful, so here it is..

Recording plan for a learning engineer (written by a learning engineer)

Analyse properties of ensemble (instruments, voices, various percussion).
Figure out in advance what a desirable sound for each instrument is. (identify reference recordings?)
Figure out the gear (instruments, amps, mics, preamps, effects)/space (surfaces, dimensions, baffles) necessary to attain desirable sound.
Do a sketch recording of song with simplest possible configuration of gear/space elements.
Analyse structure of song.
Figure out a mix narrative (points to tweak sound/instrumentation/arrangement to fit narrative of song).
Amend gear/space plan if necessary.
Figure out how the e.q. landscape is going to be covered (what instruments accentuate/are filtered out from what).
Record a guide track of all instruments in one space.
If optimal spaces for recording instruments are different, perform seperate recordings. (alternately and ideally record the instruments at the same time in their optimal spaces).
Be prepared to re-record anything and/or everything.
Figure out an order of focus for the various sonic elements (i.e. voice priority 1, drums priority 2, etc.)
Consider aesthetic of recording before beginning to mix (does it need to be loud? clean? subtle? are there genre considerations?)
Establish necessary buses/routing.
Select effects according to specific sonic/narrative objectives.
Achieve a satisfying mix on monitors.
Test on a variety of speakers, tv, hifi, pa, large, small, etc.
Identify corrections to be made, repeat.

Anyone who’s c…

Camille Robinson — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:25:58 +0000

Anyone who’s checking back in here after a while may have noticed a couple of changes. Firstly I updated the look a month or two ago, I felt it needed a bit of a spruce and it seems a bit clearer and lighter now. Secondly I’ve recently integrated my social media stuff into the site a bit more, so there’s now a proliferation of “share” buttons and such. I’ve even set up a Twitter account; welcome to 2007 Camille. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet but I’m sure it’ll come in handy.

My Honours Dissertation On Jack Ellitt

Camille Robinson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:58:47 +0000

I’ve been umming and aahing about what to do with this for a while, and as it’s been a year and I haven’t gotten around to trying to get the sucker published, I feel like I should share it here, just so that anyone interested can glean what they can from it.

PDF ahoy… Light and Rhythm

Abstract

This dissertation examines the creative output of Jack Ellitt, a unique Australian
composer and extraordinary musical thinker and experimentalist who has been largely
forgotten by Australian history.

The circumstances of Jack Ellitt’s life are described and events in it crucial to the
development of his craft and aesthetic traced, providing a context for analysis of three
landmark works of Ellitt’s career: Light Rhythms (1930), Journey #1 (c.1930), and
Homage to Rachel Carson (part 2) (1983).

The Govett-Brewster Contemporary Art Museum in New Zealand holds a copy in their growing Len Lye research collection.

The Morrisons

Camille Robinson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:40:48 +0000

Introducing The Morrisons, the punk rock band I play guitar in with Nick Carver, Pete McKew and Lizzie Dynon.

What more can I say? Come and be friends on Facebook.

Eastment Street Derby 2011

Camille Robinson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:33:05 +0000

Video montage of the Eastment St Billy Cart Derby put together by Dave Rusanow, featuring footage of yours truly performing my traditional annihilation of the Australian national anthem.

Snow Hunt

Camille Robinson — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:30:03 +0000

I bit of electro business I did a little while back on a fashion film for Sans Pareil Vintage, via frequent collaborator David Rusanow

Permanence

Camille Robinson — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 12:03:53 +0000

This was a show made by Samara Hersch and Gabby Rose with an ensemble of performers associated with Access Inc., an association working towards the empowerment of members of Melbourne’s Jewish community living with disabilities, and a group of professional performing artists. The piece is set in a world where things and people that are unneeded or unwanted begin to vanish, and tells the story of an archivist charged with destroying records of the disappeared who begins to be aware of what underlies this mysterious phenomenon. The narrative is described almost exclusively through movement and music.
The musical approach used a very small ensemble (2 performers to be exact) playing a range of instruments live, responding to and interacting with the show on stage, using a style reminiscent of early musical comedy with moments of French tinged jazz and persistent minimalism.
It was staged at Dancehouse, North Carlton as part of the 2010 Melbourne Fringe.

Patients

Camille Robinson — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:22:59 +0000

This was the most recent in a long succession of projects I’ve worked on with choreographer Caley O’Neill. The show was commissioned by St Michael’s Grammar School, a selection of whose students formed the dance ensemble, and staged at Gasworks theatre in September 2010. The underlying narrative of the piece is an interpretation of the story the Island of Dr Moreau (or Frankenstein, or the Golem etc. take your pick) set in a lab in which hybrid animal/people are brought to life and eventually revolt against their creators. The aesthetic of the show borrowed from early horror films of the 1930s mashed up with modern fashion and entomological illustrations, and the sound tries to draw together similar threads. The music composed is a series of intense but pared back electronic works whose underlying materials are sampled from early percussion recordings and sounds produced by insects, treading the territory between straight music and sound design I seem to keep coming back to with my electronic music.

Measure Island

Camille Robinson — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:22:20 +0000

This is the most complex project I’ve done for Museum Victoria to date, again commissioned by Ben Landau. The exhibit is an adaptation of one developed for Questacon (in Canberra) designed to allow children to explore practical applications of the concept of measurement in a fun, jungle themed setting. As part of the rethink of the exhibit the idea of making it a more immersive environment emerged, which is where I came in. My job was to create a sonic environment that evoked a cartoon jungle, with the condition that it would not send the poor people in the adjacent gift shop crazy from having to listen to something too repetitive. My strategy: create something fun and slightly over the top that incorporates a diverse range of animal sounds and a selection of stereotypical “jungle” drumbeats, which dynamically assembles itself out of a number of component bits. The delivery system was designed in Max/MSP, wherein a number of channels dedicated to classes of sounds (ambience, insects, monkeys, birds, etc.) randomly select from a given repertoire of samples, randomly setting volume, panning, and length of pause before the selection of a new sample and reset of all parameters, rendering an exact repetition of a convergence of sounds across the 6 channels nigh on impossible, and sounding rich, hyper-real, and fun. Make the trip to Spotswood and check it and the rest of Scienceworks’ fascinating bits out. Highly recommended for those with kids.

Measure Island at Scienceworks