What's so funny?
posted by gilgamix on Aug 9, 2005 - 9 comments

Project C-90 is a photo collection of vintage cassette tapes • Meet Artyom, the Russian DJ who built his own cassette turntables • Last week, BBC News declared "Not long left for cassette tapes" • Mod your old cassette to make a USB flash stick.
posted by highsignal on Jun 24, 2005 - 10 comments

Did you know there's a department of the Smithsonian dedicated to saving the sounds of the past? Old phone rings, coffee percolators, home movie projectors, and much more.
posted by braun_richard on Jan 11, 2005 - 20 comments

Let's say that you have a cell phone, and you need to sound as if you're somewhere else, or you need to get the long-winded person you're talking with off the phone.
posted by Witty on Jun 22, 2004 - 7 comments

Ping Pong Pang Pong ... (MIDI file). Archives of public transport departure chimes and announcements. From Japan, MIDI files [+] [+] (via Boingboing) and live recordings [+] [+] of various elaborate tunes (no I don't speak Japanese, just keep clicking the blue links until you hit an MP3!). European recordings [+]. The very excellent Shonen Knife used a sample of the Osaka subway chimes in their rockin' cover version of the Carpenter's 'Top of the World.' (WFMU archive here, click "Hear the show", song starts with Osaka chimes at approximately 15:23)
posted by carter on Mar 3, 2004 - 7 comments

Dr Richard Lord has shown in a controlled experiment that the extreme bass sound known as infrasound produces a range of bizarre effects in people including anxiety, extreme sorrow and chills -- supporting popular suggestions of a link between infrasound and strange sensations.
Here's the Reuters Story, He's done some other cool stuff as well at the National Physical Laboratory.
I can't help but think of The Brown Note, am I so imature?
posted by Blake on Sep 7, 2003 - 16 comments

Do you know this scream? Originally labeled in studio reels in 1951 as Man Being Eaten by Alligator, the sound effect now known as the Wilhelm has turned up in dozens of films; sound designers have made a game out of sneaking it past the director's notice. This NPR feature (includes link to RealAudio file) tells much of the story of the Wilhelm Scream. Or you could just watch the best of Wilhelm, compliled in this (27MB) video compilation (read the making-of here). (By the way -- an orc in The Two Towers lets out a Wilhelm as he falls to his death.)
posted by argybarg on Jan 3, 2003 - 45 comments

Mix Tape for Dead Girl. Writing a eulogy used to involve hours of revising and a good thesaurus. Joshua Allen opts for a cassette of field recordings and madrigals instead. Found sounds find their way to lost loved ones.
posted by botono9 on Dec 11, 2002 - 11 comments

The Massey Lectures are the CBC's annual effort to give exposure to eminent minds working on 'big ideas' in the realm of social criticism. This year's lecturer, Margaret Visser, undertakes a very engaging attempt to explain and undermine fatalism. The site links to transcripts and audio files of some past lectures. Some Canadian book-learnin' for those of you who aren't sleepily digesting your Thanksgiving turkey!
posted by stonerose on Nov 28, 2002 - 3 comments

Want to listen to the World Series on the Web? Pay $9.95. I know, it's a sports post, so (most) everyone will hate it, but I see a disturbing trend of no more free media lunches on the Web. CNN went subscription months ago, and most other places I've gone for free video/audio are drying up. All I wanted was to listen to the game. But I can't find it anywhere. All the regular stations I listen to that carry the game are silent. And how will the Angels make a valiant comeback if I can't cheer them on? (sigh)
posted by TheManWhoKnowsMostThings on Oct 26, 2002 - 25 comments

Government plans to use Flight 93 cockpit tapes in Moussaoui trial "Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11" "An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request." Finally someone admits that there was a plane up there when Flight 93 crashed. But who was it and why?
posted by bas67 on Aug 10, 2002 - 15 comments

Bloop! Scientists have revealed a mysterious recording that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean. Researchers have nicknamed the strange unidentified sound picked up by undersea microphones "Bloop."
Is it Cthulu? Communist robot sea monsters [pdf]?
posted by badstone on Jun 13, 2002 - 24 comments

Missing Dog Head! And other /Insane/ things found. Provided to you by Ubu.com Also check out the mp3 section for hundreds of audio recordings by other loonies like Artaud, Duchamp, Burroughs, etc etc...
posted by protocool on May 31, 2002 - 7 comments

A verbal day at the racetrack. (Requires Flash. Have your headphones on.)
posted by mrbula on Jan 10, 2002 - 8 comments

Audio from Flight 93 - Pennsylvania (Realvideo) Somehow ABCNews got ahold of this and made it an "exclusive" on Primetime Live. Certainly chilling, but also seemingly exploitative.
posted by owillis on Nov 15, 2001 - 22 comments

B&O goes virtual : Beoplayer 1.0 is a Windows application that sits on your desktop and, like everything Bang, works in a sleek, elegant, unintuitive manner (until you learn what the icons and doodads do, then you can show it off for all your friends). Guaranteed you've never seen a music player like this one.
posted by honkzilla on Jul 31, 2001 - 14 comments

Live audio description of Bush inauguration If you get PBS and if your PBS station broadcasts in stereo, you will likely be able to hear only the second-ever attempt at audio description of a live event - the inauguration of Bush. (The other live-described event was Clinton's inauguration.) This of course is audio description, ostensibly for blind viewers. Set your TV or VCR to SAP and compare the approaches of the standard announcers, who call the event assuming the viewer can see, and the describers, who don't. (No sexy Web page for this event.)
posted by joeclark on Jan 14, 2001 - 9 comments

I've been thinking of making my own digital delay for several years, but I've been waiting for CPU prices to drop. Damned if Cirrus logic went and solved that with one chip.
posted by plinth on Apr 18, 2000 - 4 comments

Do you have the knack?
posted by veruca on Apr 2, 2000 - 0 comments

I didn't even know that RCA had a mp3 player until I saw the site for it. It's interesting that it plays Real G2 files as well. Until the empeg car player gets cheaper, I might get one of these portables and run it through an auxillary port of my car stereo. It's a tad more expensive than the Rios though.
posted by mathowie on Nov 3, 1999 - 0 comments

The Bellingham Radio Museum is a neat find. Inside its sound archives are Real Audio recordings of some of the highlighs in radio history, including the Abdication of Edward VIII and Hitler's Speech after the Annexation of Poland.
posted by tdecius on Oct 30, 1999 - 0 comments

Wow, a killer new site: mp3lit.com. Listen to books in mp3 format. Wouldn't it be great if this was Shoutcasted and a global wireless broadband network was in place so you could hear it in your car or walking around? Another cool thing would be if they hooked up with The Gutenburg Project and had audio versions of all those free texts.
posted by mathowie on Sep 21, 1999 - 0 comments

You say you enjoy the comedy stylings of Mr. Show and Tenacious D? Well then, get your ass on over to FugitiveAlien's site for all your bootleg audio and video needs.
posted by mathowie on Aug 29, 1999 - 0 comments