MetaFilter posts tagged with Sound

Modal Phenomena

netbros — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:22:31 -0800

Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, typically on the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane. Directly visualizing vibrations involves using sound to excite media often in the form of particles, pastes, and liquids. The apparatus employed can be simple, such as a Chladni Plate or advanced such as the CymaScope, a laboratory instrument that makes visible the inherent geometries within sound and music. Hans Jenny (1904-1972) is considered the father of cymatics. Simulate cymatics on your computer. (java applet) Enormous Cymatics shapes on Saturn? Part 1 · Part 2 Cymatics carvings in Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland? Robert Hodgin of Flight404 experiments with black oil, cornstarch, and a webcam. flickr Cymatics previously on MetaFilter.

For me, it was an away game.

idiopath — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:00:54 -0800

Jaap Blonk, Namesake of the blonkorgan, performer, sound poet. Aaa aaA AAøøøø øøøø øAEE Eeeeii iIIII Iiiiüüü üüüüüüüiee eeooooOU UUUUoo ooooo. previously. previously.

Art of Noises

fire&wings — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:32:46 -0800

Luigi Russolo was a futurist painter, experimental composer, and instrument builder. In his 1913 manifesto "The Art of Noises" he declaimed the death of traditional Western music and foresaw the dawning of a new music based on the grinding, screeching, moaning, crackling and buzzing of mechanical instruments. He and his assistant Ugo Piatti built the Intonarumori to bring these new sounds - "the palpitation of valves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of a tram on its rails, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags" - to life. Listen to them, then and now.

Lunar Jamming

Korou — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:28:13 -0800

Moon Music: moonbell generates sounds based on lunar topography. (via) Topographical data is from Japan's recent KAGUYA explorer. Here's a short guide for the generator.

The Present Sound of London

nthdegx — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:13:40 -0800

The Present Sound of London -- "I’ve been lured to London by money at the hottest, stickiest time of year. Every time I visit, I’m struck by the noises—not necessarily their volume, but their strangeness and variety in comparison to the quiet humdrum of the provincial town where I live. So this time I’m equipped with an audio recorder." By Giles Turnbull.

Dinosaur Jr. apparently too old (not really)

auralcoral — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:41:22 -0800

[musicnewsfilter]: European copies of Dinosaur Jr.'s new album Farm have been recalled after duplication software "doubled the sound layers, resulting in a 3 dB increase in the overall sound volume." Thankfully, if you have a defective copy you can exchange it for a working copy free of charge. Also, listen to J Mascis' other band Witch to understand further why this happened.

Oldest recorded voice

stbalbach — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:34:55 -0800

Last year we discussed a recently discovered 10-second audio recording from 1860 that was thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice, a girl or woman singing the 18th century French folk song “Au Clair de la Lune”. Turns out, it was being played too fast - slow it down and it's the voice of the inventor himself. As well, a number of other recordings have been found, pushing back the oldest recording to 1857. Hear it all on NPR (5-min). “Au Clair de la Lune” various renditions. *France Gall - Au clair de la lune (1964) *Café Crème 2 *au claire de la lune *Au Clair de la Lune

Have You Heard The Hum?

Aetius Romulous — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:30:35 -0800

"For decades, hundreds of people worldwide have been plagued by an elusive buzzing noise known as "the Hum". "

Trimpin: Musical Sculptor

Kattullus — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:32:29 -0800

Seattle-based German artist Trimpin makes sculptural musical instruments. He was profiled in a mini-documentary by Washington public TV station KBTC a couple of years ago. Here are videos of some other works of art he's created, Fire Organ, Liquid Percussion, Cello, Sensors and Record Players, Contraption at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, MIDI-controlled Player Piano and Sheng High. Kyle Gann wrote an essay by that placed Trimpin in the tradition of John Cage, Harry Partch and other avant-garde American musical inventors. The audio of a nearly hour and a half long 1990 interview with Trimpin by Charles Amirkhanian can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Another, more light-hearted interview in connection to his show at this year's SXSW, where a documentary about him premiered (trailer).

Friday Flash-ish Spaß!

LMGM — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:54:52 -0800

Friday Flash JavaScript Fun! Balldroppings (ha.) is a gravity-based game where balls drop at regular intervals from a particular point in the screen and you draw lines to make them bounce. The excellent part: every time the balls bounce off a line, they sing. Well, to be more precise, they emit a bell-like tone at a pitch that is somehow a function of velocity and/or height. Brought to you by Chrome Experiments.

What language is music?

univac — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:52:25 -0800

Western musical intervals are derived from speech tendencies, according to Duke scientists. Specifically, "most of the 12 chromatic scale intervals correspond to peaks of relative power in the normalized spectrum of human vocalizations." A somewhat more layperson-friendly summary of the study is here. Some think that language and musicality evolved in tandem (see the singing Neanderthals), and Mendelssohn thought that the communicative ability of music is even more precise than that of language (as related by Oliver Sacks, at 9:05 - .mp3 link).

Preceded by silence... followed by more silence

aught — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:37:37 -0800

When Resul Pookutty won the Oscar for Sound Mixing last weekend, it's probably the first time an Oscar acceptance speech, or really any U.S. network television broadcast, has mentioned the "primordial syllable," Om, which is very important to Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists.

Free Sound Archive

leotrotsky — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:49:55 -0800

Your alarm goes off, you get up to attend to your morning ritual, have a coffee, take a shower, head off to work, get on to Metafilter, and there you discover the wonders of the Free Sound Project! (previously)

That calls for a Wilhelm Scream

fearfulsymmetry — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:46:43 -0800

Ben Burtt... heard the name? Well if you've ever watched a Star Wars film you've heard what he does. He's already won four Oscars for sound and he's up for another two for WALL·E (he was also the voice of the eponymous robot). A Space Journey In Sound. Interview. Another interview. Yet another interview. WALL·E Sound Masterclass. Lecture on sound design. His favourite sound? The arrows in The Adventures of Robin Hood... Oh and he popularised the Wilhelm Scream (previous) - song.

Structures Sonores

Grangousier — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:24:31 -0800

In 1952, Bernard and François BASCHET reveal a new acoustic principle. They manage to amplify the internal vibration of metal, thus founding a new acoustic instrumental family : The Sound Structures The instruments they created - especially the Cristal family of instruments, an astonishing modernist take on the glass armonica - make a sound that is unusual, beautiful and sometimes slightly scary. There have been virtuosi of the instrument: Jacques and Yvonne Lasry were its first masters, played today by Thomas Bloch and Michel Deneuve among others. Ubu-Web have Chronophagie by Lasry-Baschet available for download. The instrument was feaured on the soundtrack to Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus, but it's probably best known (to British people of a particular age, anyway), for providing the (faintly terrifying) theme to Picture Box, a schools programme of the 1980s.

Now maybe people will stop stealing the Doom door sound

Mr.Encyclopedia — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:04:33 -0800

SFXR by Tomas Pettersson - Ever needed a skilled Foley artist and an audio lab for making sound effects? No, probably not, but even the most amateur game designer needs sound effects for his game. Now, thanks to Tomas Pettersson the long tradition of stealing sound effects from other games is finally over. It doesn't do much more than little 8-bit bleeps and bloops, but it sure feels nice to have original, royalty-free sound effects for your game, or just for fun. [previously]

Eternally Surprising And Self-Generating Artworks

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:01:19 -0800

The bespoke generative design system at the heart of Forever will spawn unique audio-visual films everyday, forever. This winter the V&A John Madejski Garden will come alive with the latest digital commission by Universal Everything, a multidisciplinary design studio founded by creative director Matt Pyke in 2004... Working with a wide range of media from pencils to generative design, Universal Everything is a UK-based studio at the crossover between art and design.

Bbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr GAH phpbphpbphppbp / Words without meaning

Beautiful Screaming Lady — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:18:46 -0800

iSerenity

nickyskye — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:58:00 -0800

Like a little serenity? "Ambient sound environments at your desktop for relaxation, privacy and solitude". Soothe yourself with the sound of purring or some birdsong , rainforest, storm, sounds of the beach to go with your tea and contemplation. You might pretend you're taking a train trip, on a plane, visiting NYC. Or for fun you could mix them up, pencil writing and windchimes. Each soundscape has a visual to accompany it as well.

I have no idea what perceptual insight is, but this is pretty interesting

TheDonF — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:29:34 -0800

An Introduction to Sine-Wave Speech Play the first sound and you'll probably hear nothing but squeaks and bleeps. Play the second one and then go back to the first. Cool!

Tubular bells?

arcanecrowbar — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:31:46 -0800

"Next-generation loudspeakers could be as thin as paper, as clear as glass, and as stretchable as rubber." Making sound from heat and vice versa is nothing new, but a flat loudspeaker sure would be cool, provided nothing goes wrong. [previously.]

Genius

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:29:27 -0800

Walter Kitundu is one of this year's MacArthur Fellows, a musician and artist who invents and builds new instruments from turntables, strings and the interactions of the elements. His recent invention, the Ocean Edge Device, uses the flow of the rushing tides to provide energy for on-board accordion and turntable instrumentation.

That giant fountain projection thing

Artw — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:39:58 -0800

Primal source at GLOW (video), Burble London (an implementation of Open Burble) (video), Evoke (video) - the transformative artworks of Haque Design and Research. Interview with Usman Haque. Previously.

Whalesong and ocean sounds

Upton O'Good — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:26:56 -0800

The Jupiter Foundation and the Whalesong Project are both organizations which record humpback whale songs from floating buoys; some of their archived recordings can be found here, here, and here. (Warning, last two may resize your browser.) DOSITS hosts a more comprehensive collection of oceanic sounds, with seals and fish along with its whales and dolphins. It also has a couple of nice sections on how animals use sounds in the ocean. (Previously.) A few more whale songs may be found here and here.

Rat Sound, the original punk rock sound company

Monday, stony Monday — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:35:23 -0800

Rat Sound Systems is the original punk rock sound company. Started in LA in the early 80s, it was a stalwart of the early LA punk scene (posters: it did happen). Starting in the 1990s, Rat Sound has been supplying sound for some of rock's biggest acts. They even went corporate, with a client list including Paris Hilton. Since May 2006, founder Dave Rat, who mixes the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the audience, has been keeping a tour blog. Those of you who (like me) are interested in audio nerdery may be interested in the Sound nerd speak section of Dave's blog. (e.g. drum fills, subs, input lists, amplifiers, the Grateful Dead's wall of sound) You may also read about the technical evolution of sound systems, from humble beginning to the Rat Trap 5 cabinet of the 1990s and the L-Acoustics V-DOSC and Microwedge of today. Also of interest: Dave's Roadiepedia.