Posted by: Adele Laurent 1 year, 3 months ago
- Bilel Aroua -
Bils Imaging website. Latest project in development Generate Sound Effects from Image. Listen to samples of this project. Soundboard, an interactive dashboard for sound effects, available online
IRCAM Forum Team : Hello, congratulations on winning the Mixage Fou 2024 Coup de Coeur. Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Bilel : Hello and thank you. To give you an idea, this is my second award with Mixage Fou, the first being in 2014. (...) I've had a long career as a composer and arranger. After the Tunisian revolution, I changed my career path to work in the media, with six or seven radio stations in Tunisia and other Arab countries.
IFT : How did you discover Mixage Fou?
B : Through social networks, via a post on Facebook. I took part in 2014 and won two prizes: a Public Award and the Chicago Award. I liked the concept of Mixage Fou, because you can do anything: "feel free to create something".
IFT : Can you tell us what software you use for mixing?
B : Yes, I use ProTools, the industry standard!
IFT : And did you know about the IRCAM Forum before?
B : No, but I'm very proud to have a premium IRCAM Forum profile, I've seen that I can share my projects, I've even already shared my latest project Sound Imaging. I intend to share more!
- Éric Lancien -
IRCAM Forum Team : Can you tell us a bit about your background and your work?
Éric : I'm a sound engineer and musician by training, I've been working as a producer at Radio France since 2009. Initially I worked on concert recordings and music programmes (France Musique). Since 2017 I've been producing documentaries and podcasts (France Culture and France Inter). I also compose music for illustration and packaging.
IFT : How did you find out about Mixage Fou and what motivated you to take part?
E : I heard about Mixage fou in the corridors of Radio France. For this competition there's an imposed sound bank. I really like the idea of composing with constraints, within a well-defined perimeter. When you're creating music, it's sometimes difficult to take a direction, you can quickly get drowned out by all the tools and instruments available to us today. Having a limited palette of sounds allows you to make choices quickly, to try out combinations that you'd never have thought of, and to see quite quickly what works and what doesn't.
IFT : How did you hear about the IRCAM Forum?
E : On France Musique programmes (Les lundis de la contemporaine and Alla Breve) for which I worked a few years ago.
- Hugo Beaucarne -
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IRCAM Forum Team : We wanted to get to know you better, find out about your background, where you come from, your plans...
Hugo : I'm a student. I obtained a bachelor's degree at the IAD, an audiovisual school in Belgium, where I studied sound, music, podcasting, post-production and audiovisual. I then did a one-year master's specialising in film post-production. I'm currently writing my dissertation on sound design and audio creation software.
IFT : Can you tell us about the software you're experimenting with?
H : At school we worked mainly with ProTools, of course. I did the Fou Mixage project with Reaper, which I find cheaper and more modular and easier to adapt to your own style. More specifically, on this project, I made a lot of use of a synthesiser called Emergence. I don't know if it rings a bell, but it's a kind of granular synthesiser that lets you slice up a video extract. You can manage the speed and direction of the 'playheads', which creates some interesting atmospheres. I also used Valhalla Supermassive, a very popular reverb in sound design, which allows you to obtain very long reverb times, creating ethereal atmospheres. Then I used more traditional tools such as compressors and EQs, the basic Reaper tools for this mixing project.
IFT : By the way, what's your thesis about?
H : My thesis deals with sound cleaning plugins, such as Izotope RX, Cedar and Wave Clarity Vx Pro, comparing the results obtained and the contexts of use in film post-production. I deal with the technical side, even though I'm not trained in mathematics. It's sometimes difficult, because the creators of plugins don't disclose their algorithms, and scientific publications are often too complex for me. Finding a balance is quite complicated...
IFT : Before Mixage Fou, had you ever heard of the IRCAM Forum?
H : I'd heard of the Forum, but I'd never really been interested in the site. I discovered it via Mixage Fou. Now that I have a subscription, I'm really interested in these tools. The site is a goldmine! On the home page, there are so many interesting things that I'm a bit overwhelmed. I find all the tabs fascinating.
- Jasmine Scheuermann -
IRCAM Forum Team : Could you tell us a bit about your work and your background, and introduce yourself?
Jasmine : I trained in sound engineering at the Paris Conservatoire. This has given me skills in music and sound engineering, including sound recording, editing, mixing, mastering and sound reinforcement. I've worked in live performance and music production, recording albums of classical, jazz and world music, as well as recording concerts. I've worked with the Salle Pleyel, Ircam and the Philharmonie de Paris, where I worked for eight years. At the same time, I practised the transverse flute, opera singing, piano and drums. I left the Philharmonie to embark on a personal project linked to spatialised audio -- a direction I've always been passionate about. My master's thesis was already on the notion of space in musical productions. I'm also interested in accompanying artists in popular or contemporary music, helping them to explore the spatialized sound dimension. My work, which is both educational and focused on musical production, helps me to develop my skills. By working with musicians, particularly in electronic music, I help them to integrate spatiality, because they don't always master spatial production techniques like those at IRCAM.
IFT : How has your perception of space developed over time, and how do you incorporate it into your music?
J : What has always fascinated me is synaesthesia, a cognitive peculiarity in which certain stimuli, such as sound, can generate impressions in other senses, such as vision or smell. As a child, I had visual-sound synaesthesia, where music was transformed into images. Over time, this diminished and became the opposite, where vision generates sounds. This is interesting for musical creation. I like to play with this fusion of sight, texture and touch, and the balance between the abstract and the concrete.
EFI : Can you name a few composers who have influenced you?
J : Iannis Xenakis, Natasha Barrett, Yosi Horikawa, Alva Nota, Thom Yorke
IFT : Could you name some of the software you use for your creative work?
J: I use a variety of software. For spatial audio, Reaper is my choice for its flexibility. For music creation, I use Ableton Live. I also work on Nuendo for mixing and post-production, and I've used Pyramix for classic project. For sound design, I use Sound Particles and its 3D synthesiser, Skydust 3D. I use IEM PluginSuite plugins for ambisonics and binaural, and I've tried Dear VR Pro from Dear Reality. I've invested in Flux's Spat Revolution, which I use with Reaper.
IFT : What about the IRCAM Forum? Now that you're a premium member of the Forum, you'll have access to the software!
J : I'm really pleased to have won this prize, because I've been eyeing up a lot of software from the Ircam Forum for a while now. Now I'll be able to try them out. Before I bought Flux's Spat, I was using Ircam's Spat on Max/MSP, which is excellent with Panoramix for manipulating sound space. I was also able to use SKataRT and ASAP. I can't wait to try out the tools in the cognition department, some of which are reminiscent of synaesthesia and interest me a lot.
- Ludovic Finck -
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IRCAM Forum Team : Could you briefly introduce yourself and what you do for a living?
Ludovic : I am a sound designer. I focus mainly on sound creation for the enhancement of territories and museums. My work consists of creating musical and sound atmospheres to generate emotion and support a narrative. This can take the form of podcasts, sound walks, internet broadcasts, documentary films... always aimed at the museum sector and local areas. I started with a degree in musicology at the University of Strasbourg. After that, I went to sound post-production school, with a focus on audiovisuals, cinema and video games. After my studies, I went straight into freelance work.
IFT : Can you name some of the projects you've worked on?
L : I did a sound walk for the Doublan citadel, just outside Amiens. I also made a sound trail for Jean-Henri Fabre's Harmas museum, near Orange, run by the MNHL (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle) in Paris. I've also worked on sound design for web series and animated films about the city of Nîmes and its architecture. Alongside this, I also create music and sound for digital art and new media projects. This includes music for short films in Dôme 360 as well as music for monumental video mappings, such as Somnium.
IFT : Had you heard of the IRCAM Forum before you started working with Mixage Fou?
L : I'd already heard about the IRCAM Forum during my studies, and I'd also heard about Ircam. After that, I didn't necessarily go to the site. I mainly went there for SPAT 5, and also for XP for Live, which is now XP by Éric Reynaud. It was mainly through sound spatialisation that I became interested in IRCAM and the Forum.
IFT : Now that you're a premium member of the Forum, what software would you like to discover and download?
L : I recently tried SKataRT and I'm still exploring it. It's interesting because it deconstructs an audio sample into segments, then reconstructs it based on pitch and timbre, rather than on a time axis. This dissociates the sound from its temporal function, which I find fascinating. As I often work with film recordings and pre-recorded sounds, I like to deconstruct the sound to create new textures. I want to make SKataRT my own and use it creatively. I've also spotted some tools linked to control interactions and gestures, which I haven't yet tested, but which look promising and could inspire new projects. Gestures can be a very interesting creative vector... I had a question about events or workshops that might be offered in the future within Ircam or the Forum groups.
IFT : Every year we organise an event, which you took part in on the last day (19-22 March 2024). This year it was special because it was spread over 4 days instead of 3. We bring together Forum members from all over the world, as well as professionals, academics, artists and researchers. We are already discussing the next event, scheduled for spring 2025 in Paris. Each year, we also organise an off-site Forum in another country. This year it will be in Korea, in Seoul, at the beginning of November. Apart from that, we take part in other events, such as festivals. For example, we'll be at Sonar+D in Barcelona, in the Project Area, a professional section of an electronic music festival. We'll also be at the Images Sonores festival this summer, which focuses on mapping.
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Mixage Fou is a not-for-profit association supported by a team of sound and listening professionals. Since 2009, the Mixage Fou competition has brought together over 1,000 creations from 20 countries. The Ircam Forum is co-organiser of the 12th edition of Mixage Fou.
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