### Monday 25-Nov-2024
🤔 I do not have much documentable work to show for the past week but my relevant focus has been on doing my best to follow along with [rhosy](https://github.com/pdx-cs-sound/rhosy), as well as continuing to try to get my keyboard to work with MIDI.
* Rhosy has been an interesting project to watch unfold, and I have made a few minor contributions with short question responses during lecture. Creating electronic synthesis (well) turns out to be no small task, even in python. I'd like to commit to this project in the near future but at the moment my primary goal is to keep up with the ongoing progress of rhosy from the instructor.
* After further debugging and some remote assistance, I still cannot interface my PC with the MIDI port on the suzuki keyboard. At this point, I have tried using [qsynth](https://qsynth.sourceforge.io/) with the various linux audio interfaces (jack, pipwire, alsa). Upon further inspection, I see my MIDI/USB adapter is using a [CH345](https://www.wch-ic.com/products/CH345.html) controller
```
djw2@pop-os:~$ aconnect -l
...
client 36: 'CH345' [type=kernel,card=5]
    0 'CH345 MIDI 1    '
...  
```
The most likely issue is then that my cheap MIDI/USB adapter with this controller does not have an opto-isolator, which uses light modulation in the circuit to eliminate unwanted noise. This seems reasonable, because my keyboard is both old and cheap. I plan to borrow a better MIDI/USB adapter to confirm this theory. 


### Friday 15-Nov-2024
📝 [Tuner](./code/tuner/README.md) - A simple python instrument tuner

🤔 This week covered topics of music theory and MIDI. With regards to music theory, this was a needed review for me. I am already somewhat familiar with concepts notes, scales, measures, etc. but it has been some time since I have applied the theory. MIDI however is a new topic to me. I find the history and technical specifications of it interesting. Since I hope to experiment with MIDI using my Suzuki keyboard, I went ahead and bought a MIDI to USB adapter, and visited Professor Massey to learn a bit more about working with MIDI on linux.  


### Sunday 03-Nov-2024

🤔 Lectures this week continued coverage of audio filters, and introduced to us audio effects. By better understanding the theory and some technicaly challenges audio engineers face when working with signals at a given sample rate, frequency range, and variations of amplitude the role of filters becomes apparent. Audio effects were interesting and fun to play with in class, and I find myself somewhat trying to notice which effects were likely used in the music and podcasts I listen to. 

📝 Began work on [adaptive tone control](./code/adaptive-tone-control/README.md) portfolio object


### Sunday 27-Oct-2024

🤔 Lectures this week focused primarily on a review of the pre-recorded topics from the previous week, including seeing some examples of using fourier transforms between the frequency and time domain, seeing visual representations in audacity, and listening to examples of applied filters

This weekend I also attended the [BSidesPDX](https://bsidespdx.org/) InfoSec conference on Friday and Saturday. While most of the talks and workshops were not directly relevant to the content of this course, I mention this as it was a bit of a time commitment which I have to fit my other academic goals around.

One interesting takeaway from BSides was the badge, which is an embedded device with an [RP2040](https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/rp2040/specifications/) controller, USB-C port, LCD display, I2C connection, RGB-LCD and IR blaster/reciever. The badge served as an ice-breaker game to trade and collect candies from other badge holders, to later exchange for real candy. It worked well for this purpose, but the badge did not have speaker or sound integrated. I have been considering what it would take to append a small speaker to this device to perhaps improve the user experience with some low-bit sound feedback for navigating the menu, or trading

![badge.png](./badge.png)

### Sunday 20-Oct-2024
📝 **Understanding Frequency (2/2)**: Here I watched the remaining three lectures
* [Musical Notes](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_cfrix2or/359647152)
* [Audio Filters](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_0befs86c/359647152)
* [FIR Filters](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_9kugdr0x/359647152)

These topics cover the music theory of notes, as well as the theoretical application of Discrete Fourier Transforms in the form of filters.


On the topic of notes, I found the lecture to be a helpful reference on music theory. Having practiced playing some instruments in the past and reading music, this content was partially review but also novel in understanding the relationship between notes and actual sound frequencies.


Audio filters are an interesting topic, and something that I appreciate should be understood better at a theoritcal level before one practices applications. I am sure most, if not all of the audio media (especially music) that I enjoy employs an extent of audio filtering. 


As someone who often listens classic rock (particularly 60's and 70's rock operas), I find it intersting to have a bit of background on how audio filters work in the analogue domain. I have a strong respect for the analogue audio engineers of those days.


The topic of digital filters seems more practical and relevant to my interests as any audio content I create will most certainly be captured and recorded digitaly as is the same for a large portion of the audio content I consume. This lecture introduced DFT, FIR and IIR filters as some common practical digital filtering techniques. All of these concepts were previously unfamiliar. Like mentioned yesterday, I am seeking to find myself some practical application experience to better reinforce the new topics. 

### Saturday 19-Oct-2024
📝 **Understanding Frequency (1/2)**: Per the assignment, I watched the first three of six lecture clips on topics related to frequency science. This included

* [Frequency Domain and Fourier Transform](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_dvb8fh2g/359647152)
* [Discrete Fourier Transforms](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_zns263z7/359647152)
* [Applying the DFT](https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_zns263z7/359647152)

These lectures were relatively dense with the calculus based maths requied to work discretely with continuous signals in the time and frequency domain. My takeaways were more so in appreciating the foundational importance of the Fourier Theorem and Fourier Transform, but I feel some applicational practice is needed on my end to better understand the technical math involved. My goal is to conceptualize a self motivated exercise for practice, but I hope a future portfolio assignment will provide some practice for these topics.

### Thursday 17-Oct-2024
📝 **Clipped**: Today, I finished work on the [clipped](./code/clipped/README.md) assignment. My retrospective thoughts and experience with this work are found within. 

### Sunday 13-Oct-2024
📝 **Say "hi" On Zulip**: Today I posted [my introduction in the course zulip](https://cs516sound-fall2024.zulip.cs.pdx.edu/#narrow/stream/455-introductions/topic/intro/near/76245) and noted a brief background of myself and my motivation for taking the course. My introduction was the first, and I expect to see others from my classmates follow soon

⚙️ On tuesday, I picked up a copy of the course textbook from the library and have since read the first 3 chapters

![book.jpg](./book.jpg)

🤔 Our lectures this week focused on the digital aspects of computer sounds. Particularly, some of this had overlap with topics of my other class CS590 Multimedia Computing and Networking such as the basics of analog to digital conversion, discretation, sampling rate, bit rate, and the nyquist limit, which were coincedentally lectured just an hour before this course. However, here in CSM, we got into further details regarding the bit represtation, and hardware architecture implications, endianness, etc. of storing sound data in bytes. After discussing the theory, the more hands on exposure to programming computer sounds with python was my first experience seeing such a demo. This segues well into the first portfolio assignment, Clipped

📝 **Clipped**: Today I began work on the portfolio assignment, [Clipped](./code/clipped/README.md). 
### Sunday 06-Oct-2024
⚙️ Updated the readme and created this notebook file
### Thursday 03-Oct-2024
🤔 In lecture this week we went over some foundational knowledge for the course. Most of this was novel to me, as I have never studied the science of sound or human hearing. I appreciate the emphasis on safety during the discussions.
### Wednesday 02-Oct-2024
⚙️ Initialized git repository