Phonozoic, Patrick Feaster's website "dedicated to the history of the phonograph and related media," is an amazing collection of information about historic recordings. Not just early recordings, however, but also
experimental "eduction projects": the "automatic 'playing' of primeval inscriptions of sound."
[more inside]
posted by litlnemo
on Dec 30, 2011 -
1 comment
Atari Teenage Riot is the
sound of punk, breakbeat and glitchy electronics, with a message behind the noise, something of the modern version of
a riot set to music. The German group was
briefly associated with the Phonogram record label back in 1993, but only long enough
get a record deal with an unrecoupable advance, piss off the label, cut those ties and form their own new label:
Digital Hardcore Recordings. From there, the group made three albums and about a dozen singles and EPs, toured the world, then went quiet in 2000. That is, until last year when
the group reformed to tour, and the revised cast of characters recorded a new album, which is
streaming online. Step inside for more history and noise.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on May 25, 2011 -
45 comments
Soundmaps are field recordings of the unique audio ecology of a particular place and time. Often they are cities:
New York,
Berlin,
Montreal,
New Orleans,
Barcelona,
London (previously),
Madrid, and
many others. Sometimes they move through space:
Ramallah. Sometimes they are
mixable (probably my favorite, from Portugal). They might be of entire countries (
Spain, the
United States (previously), the
United Kingdom, or continents (
Africa, while on a bike!). Sometimes they cover the
entire world:
aporee (you may prefer the map interface). Some attempt to
preserve sounds that are in danger of being lost. And sometimes soundmaps are of the
deep ocean.
Most of the sounds are, appropriately, licensed under Creative Commons.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Sep 6, 2010 -
8 comments
There are mysterious noises in the sea. NOAA has
six unidentified underwater sounds (and their kinda creepy spectrographs) on their website, recorded by the sonar arrays that used to hunt submarines, but which are now are used for research. The most famous of these is
The Bloop, a sound of
seemingly biological origin, yet many times louder than the loudest biolocial noise. With an origin in an empty stretch of the the Pacific Ocean, it
gives Cthulhu watchers something to think about. Another once-mysterious sound,
The Boing has been identified as
coming from minke whales. Yet the sounds known as
Slow Down,
Julia, Train, and others remain intriguing mysteries.
[prev.]
posted by blahblahblah
on Apr 19, 2010 -
40 comments
Pain Pack — Ze Frank posted a phone number and asked that anyone experiencing emotional pain leave him a message. He received a number of very distraught messages. From those, DJs and musicians created 138 samples for him—and those samples have since been made into songs—and the collaborative process continues.
posted by netbros
on Feb 1, 2010 -
26 comments
Sounds of American English details each of the consonants and vowels of American English with a real-time Flash animated articulatory diagram of each sound; video and audio of the sound spoken in context and an interactive diagram of the articulatory anatomy.
posted by Lezzles
on Feb 16, 2009 -
15 comments
Hongkiat.com is a treasure trove from a Malaysian designer, developer that features
Photoshop tutorials,
icons,
Wordpress tips and tricks,
tools for everything from
sound to
Flickr,
inspirations,
graphics and templates,
stunning wallpapers including for
Windows 7,
Leopard, and
iPhone, and finally a
library of how-to's to make your everyday internet simpler.
posted by netbros
on Jan 15, 2009 -
2 comments
"For over half a century, the
UCLA Phonetics Laboratory has collected recordings of hundreds of languages from around the world, providing source materials for phonetic and phonological research, of value to scholars, speakers of the languages, and language learners alike. The materials on this site comprise audio recordings illustrating phonetic structures from over 200 languages with phonetic transcriptions, plus scans of original field notes where relevant."
(Description from website.) Many more recordings -- indexed by
language,
sound, and
geographic location -- are available
here.
posted by cog_nate
on Dec 9, 2008 -
12 comments
Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. Users can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user's songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more.
posted by crunchland
on Oct 16, 2006 -
7 comments
Clik. Clak. (embedded Quicktime video.) Short animated film featuring little robots who make their own language using Rube Goldberg contraptions.
posted by jann
on Feb 17, 2006 -
28 comments
Sound 101 Fingernails scraping down a blackboard... the scream of a baby... your neighbour's dog barking: what is the worst sound in the world? This is what this website is trying to find out.
Acoustic science is concerned with the production, transmission, manipulation and reception of sound, from unwanted traffic noise to beautiful music. Acoustics is about both the physical properties of sound waves and the reaction of humans. This website is interested in the often complex ways in which people perceive and interpret sounds. The aim is to increase awareness of sound psychology by examining what makes a sound unpleasant to hear. Your votes on the site will also give us an insight into what is the worst sound in the world, and maybe why it is the worst sound.
posted by Ugandan Discussions
on Nov 14, 2005 -
42 comments
Arcade Sounds. We recorded video games from 1982 until 1988. Fortunately I managed to save all fourteen audio tapes of video game sounds and arcade ambience which were recorded from a variety of locations in the US. Most of the recordings are from Ithaca, NY, Albany, NY and Ocean City, MD.
posted by rxrfrx
on Nov 1, 2005 -
46 comments
Ideophones are words that are usually spoken but not written and are often
onomatopoeic, including (
but not limited to) the calls—often
reduplicated—with which we beckon domestic animals, kindred to our
animal imitations. In the States there are many more
pig calls beyond
soo-ee. Maxim Gorky wrote that the sound
tse tse is used to call pigs in Russia. In Spanish
coch is used.
Americans use
pipi and
biddy to call chickens and turkeys. In
Ambon Malay chickens are called with
kurrrrr or
pan kur. In
Kiswahili you call chickens with
gurúgurúgurúgurú, call dogs with
aháháhá, and straying cattle with
ishiyeeyeeeeee or
ngoyéeeeee. In Sweden, they call cattle with a loud, high-pitched
kulning (akin to
yodeling). Cervantes wrote that they use
tus tus to call dogs in Spain.
One source says in
Coolderry, Ireland, they use
gen-gen to call pigs to ford,
puddly pudde to call ducks,
peopeo to call horses, and
geg geg to call geese. In Iceland,
kibbakibb is used to call sheep. In the Hiligaynon language of the Philippines, they call cats with
míming. In the parish of Nantcwnlle in Wales they have their own
set of calls.
posted by Mo Nickels
on Aug 27, 2005 -
17 comments
Insect sounds : "but have you heard a rice weevil larva eating inside a wheat kernel, a termite cutting a piece of wood, or a grub chewing on a root?"
posted by dhruva
on Feb 23, 2005 -
10 comments
Mystery of 'chirping' pyramid decoded: "A theory that the ancient Mayans built their pyramids to act as giant resonators to produce strange and evocative echoes has been supported by a team of Belgian scientists." Others are not so sure... Coincidence, or engineering? Did the designers of
El Castillo pyramid cannily build in a sound effect that mimics the warble of the sacred quetzal bird? Listen for yourself, with the
.wav file (first set is the real bird, the second is the pyramid) featured in
this Acoustical Society of America page. I prefer to think it's deliberate; after all, it's possible that early man was experimenting with cave acoustics to to create
sound-enhanced rock art (there are sound samples for this included
here - unfortunately a Geocities site). Also of interest, the BBC programme "
Acoustic Shadows"
(requires RealPlayer - *heavy sigh*).
posted by taz
on Feb 8, 2005 -
24 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
Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing "cloud" of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky.
The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.
posted by schoolgirl report
on Apr 9, 2004 -
22 comments
Screw Major Tom! "
Oscar 1 was battery powered. Its signals lasted for about two weeks. The batteries were not rechargeable". Awww..... Here are the actual sounds of the first satellites. In fact, I may just become a MeFi musician just to sample them. So there.
posted by Carlos Quevedo
on May 20, 2003 -
8 comments
Japanese Sound Effects and what they mean. Spotted on Gen Kanai's blog: this rather comprehensive list of sound-effect words from
manga - the Japanese equivalent of BAM! WAP!, OOF! (and possibly even D'OH!), but covering a wider range of social and emotional terrain. Lest you surmise that these are more or less arbitrary, I "tested" ten or so on my fiancee and found that she knew every single one. Aaaa!
posted by adamgreenfield
on Apr 3, 2003 -
12 comments
bzzzpeek - a fun site with kids from around the world imitating animals and vehicles in an exercise of onomatopoeia. Similar to
a post last year, this version adds sounds from native speakers and some cute visuals, making for a neat toy. MeFi moms & dads take note - submissions from kids age 2 to 7 are invited.
flash and sound alert!
posted by madamjujujive
on Feb 9, 2003 -
15 comments
The Sound of Magic: an amazing homage to the ambient sounds of various Disney Mecca, is also an amazing site: beautiful, whimsical, nicely architected, and with
plenty of content
[via DollarShort]
posted by silusGROK
on Oct 17, 2002 -
8 comments
Spanish dogs say "guau guau". Did you ever read comics or something in a language other than your cradle tongue and notice that onomatopoetic words, particularly for animal sounds, are different in different languages? This webpage has animal sounds from loads of languages, organized by language and animal. Indonesian dogs say "gonggong".
posted by jeb
on Apr 30, 2002 -
46 comments
