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This thesis is concerned with an examination of the reliability of R-DAT recording media in regard to professional and archival applications. Four brands of R-DAT tapes were subjected to mechanical stress, environmental stress, and a combination of both the mechanical and environmental stresses. Data generated from these tests were analyzed objectively, subjectively evaluated, and subsequently compared. Findings showed that in the majority of cases, the subjective evaluation results corroborate the objective measurements. The study concludes that only one brand of tape exhibited no deterioration of data, while the other three brands failed at various points throughout the testing.

This thesis presents high-level strategies for controlling existing audio morphing algorithms. Prominent methods for spectrally representing audio data in the context of audio morphing are surveyed, and techniques involving manipulating and interpolating additive models are explored. Additionally, a combination of past audio-morphing approaches (sinusoidal morphing techniques as well as techniques taken from an MFCC approach) are employed in order to facilitate any type of sonic input. The system presented herein is meant to accommodate a wide range of inputs, and will adjust the impact of a high-level feature depending on the type and quality of the input.* / *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation).

This thesis explores how the study of culture can benefit from Western technology by reviewing anthropological theoretical and methodological processes and issues concerning reciprocity between the ethnographers and research subjects. In this case I am exploring the process of digitizing and dissemination of 400 hours of Kiowa song recordings. New digitizing equipment has made audio preservation and access relatively easy and affordable. These issues are most critical to groups like the Kiowa whose songs I have already started digitizing. In this thesis I closely examine existing collaborative theory and methodology in order to demonstrate the balance that can and should be maintained when using technology to preserve traditional music. In general, applying audio technology to an anthropological problem can enhance or inhibit the ethnographic process. My thesis focuses on how audio technology can contribute to this process without inhibiting, complicating, or distorting the way ethnomusicologists, folklorists, and anthropologists practice go about recording sound. / Department of Anthropology

The objective of this research is to improve the analysis of musical sounds in comparison to traditional additive analysis, i.e. Fourier Analysis. Namely, the focus of this study is to improve the tracking of time-evolving partials. Traditional analysis methods assume constant amplitudes and frequencies over each successive frame in which a signal is analyzed. Tracking the time-evolution of these partials, however, can require the implementation of complex probabilistic techniques. This thesis presents an alternative method in which the Ambiguity Function, a distribution in both time and frequency, is used to create a clearer, more accurate representation that requires fewer complex methods to track partials. Through the use of a more accurate spectral representation and the inclusion of a chirp rate parameter, partials may be more readily followed based upon spectral parameters alone. This new method that is presented will build upon the traditional methods by first employing Fourier analysis to identify partials, and then utilizing the Analytic Signal and Ambiguity Function to improve individual spectral parameter estimations and partial tracking. The overall intent of this work is that through this method, one may create an improved spectral model that is more useful to musical analysis.

Thesis (M.M.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-122).

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-204). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D. (Business management))-University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-227). Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This thesis investigates the extent to which networking technology can be used to provide remote workstation access to a pool of shared music studio resources. A pilot system is described in which MIDI messages, studio control data, and audio signals flow between the workstations and a studio server. A booking and timing facility avoids contention and allows for accurate reports of studio usage. The operation of the system has been evaluated in terms of its ability to satislY three fundamental goals, namely the remote, shared and centralized access to studio resources. Three essential network configurations have been identified, incorporating a mix of star and bus topologies, and their relative potential for satisfYing the fundamental goals has been highlighted.

This practice-based thesis offers a new approach to editing processes that take place during the recording and subsequent editing of an individual speaking directly to a camera. Rosalind Krauss identified all performance to camera as narcissistic (1976), which includes the subset of artists’ direct address to camera, and since then the area has been widely understood within a psychoanalytical framework. This new approach provides a non-psychoanalytical perspective on direct address to camera, taking into account linguistic self-editing during the generation of speech (Skinner, 1957, p. 370) and technological editing processes once the speech has been recorded. While ‘artists’ film and video is a distinct form of cultural practice with its own autonomy’ in relation to mainstream film (Rees, 1999, p. vii), editing practices within the field of artists’ direct address to camera show no such independence and widely adopt techniques and terminology from the mainstream canon. I consider ways that the language and practice of editing can be expanded beyond the mainstream, and I introduce a transdisciplinary approach to the editing of speech, which is between, across and ‘beyond all disciplines’ (Nicolescu, 2008, p. 2). My practice plays a major role in developing a context for this enquiry. I use the video process, artist’s books, transcription, drawing and text to add to the existing vocabulary of mainstream editing. I create a new technique called blindediting, which involves cutting out video material without looking at it. Finally, I discuss my publication A Relational [Video] Grammar: Extrapolation (2013) which illustrates my transdisciplinary approach and explores the new language that I have developed for editing speech. My research provides a new perspective on the editing of speech in artists’ direct address to camera and suggests that a transdisciplinary understanding of editing practices can shed light on existing works within artists’ film and video.