[muffled music playing in the distance]

May 11, 2017 7:22 PM

Do you miss that inconsiderate neighbor or roommate who would blast their music into the wee hours of the morning? Then you're in luck! From Another Room is a playlist of songs equalized to sound like they're playing in another room or far away. FAQ and more at the FAR Tumblr.
posted by Woodroar (33 comments total)

Most of these make me immediately tense up with rage at the dickheads upstairs but Ginuwine still sounds pretty great.
posted by theodolite at 7:31 PM on May 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oof. That is uncanny. It works especially well with songs that have a strong beat and are kind of annoying to start with. "What is Love?" is weapons-grade.
posted by jedicus at 7:39 PM on May 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

I need to download a playlist of this for next time I go out to a cabin in Maine and get freaked out by the silence.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:39 PM on May 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

I love this. I have no idea why.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:39 PM on May 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

oh man I should totally make a "music playing from the next room" impulse response
posted by idiopath at 7:40 PM on May 11, 2017

As expected, "Raining Blood" stick fucking kicks ass from another room.
posted by NoMich at 7:44 PM on May 11, 2017

Sadness was the default reaction. It all sounds like a high school party I wasn't invited to.
posted by davebush at 7:48 PM on May 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

If you want to hear music that is designed to sound like it's coming from busted speakers, or from another room, you may enjoy War aka Vår. I know I do (and this comment now serves to pin them down, because I always forget how to find them).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:53 PM on May 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is great for what I'm doing now, writing. It's definitely not distracting, as real music would be. It creates an environment that reminds me of other moments in life when music was playing from another room. Soothing but invigorating. I don't get it. What a bizarre idea!
posted by kozad at 7:54 PM on May 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

I am surprised by how touching this is.
posted by rebent at 8:02 PM on May 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

This playlist is too good. The rule for neighbors who blast their music is that it's always the WORST shit. (Well, when you can make it out and it's not just a thumpa thumpa thumpa that goes on for hours and hours.)

I don't need this site because right now my neighbors are already blasting their music through my walls. (And it's pure thumpa thumpa thumpa.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 8:11 PM on May 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

It really is so weirdly satisfying. Some of it definitely sounds like the prelude to a haunting though. La Vie en Rose from another room is peak "there is a ghost in that room" vibe.
posted by yasaman at 8:18 PM on May 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

Still sounds way too clean and recognizable to me. Perhaps they need "from another unit on the far side of the apartment building"? Or even "from a passing car's sound system - road noise extended mix feat. diesel turbo"?
posted by traveler_ at 8:51 PM on May 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

The rule for neighbors who blast their music is that it's always the WORST shit.

My brogrammer neighbor seriously blasts the worst shit. My other neighbor and I sometimes text each other about how we feel like we're living next to a shitty nightclub.

And he's a really nice guy in person, which just makes it that much more awkward.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 8:53 PM on May 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have no idea what this is about. Is this a real thing? How could I possibly hear music from another room over my own?

you're talking about me aren't you
posted by adept256 at 9:58 PM on May 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Even better with these effects playing in separate tabs:
Creaking floorboards
Muffled voices...or radio station
posted by prinado at 10:46 PM on May 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

> Do you miss that inconsiderate neighbor or roommate who would blast their music into the wee hours of the morning?

I wouldn't say I "miss" him so much as I "still fucking hate him even though it's been almost 17 years since I moved out of that apartment."
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:15 AM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

One year I had a housemate whose "angry " music was the album Songs about Jane by Maroon 5. This Love turned up to distortion levels blasting every time their boyfriend cheated, which was roughly once every fortnight. It's no wonder I turned to drink.
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:59 AM on May 12, 2017

Oh, I love this too, feels so cosy listening to my neighbours listening to their silly music.
posted by glitter at 3:35 AM on May 12, 2017

My senior year of college during exam week one evening the girl next door to me in the dorm broke up with her boyfriend in some kind of knock-down drag-out screaming and banging fight. She then played Everybody Hurts on a loop for about 6 hours. I don't know if I'm glad or sad that it's not on this playlist.
To be fair, listening to Everybody Hurts all night was probably better than listening to them having sex, so there was that at least.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:58 AM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

pure thumpa thumpa thumpa.
I lived quite contentedly in a cute apartment that was very convenient for work for about a year. Then my upstairs neighbor evidently returned from deployment and spent his money not on a car, but a kickin' sound sytem. All day, every day (and night) I was treated to my apartment lightly vibrating and a low-level steady thump. I tried to sleep in different rooms, even the kitchen, but it was no good. The bass was everywhere. Reader, within 90 days I had purchased a house. I will never share a wall (or floor/ceiling) with another person so long as I live.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:10 AM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Big Smoke / Flying Kitty "You Picked the Wrong Room" - eponysterical...

Living in the southeast as I do, I feel the annoying power of country music is underrepresented here, but turning on Marty Robbins "El Paso" gave me a flashback to a night I spent in a Mississippi motel room where I become somewhat obsessed with the fact that I couldn't figure out if the music from the parking lot that was keeping me awake was being sung in English or Spanish.
posted by randomkeystrike at 5:17 AM on May 12, 2017

Is Boston's "More than a Feeling" in the mix?
posted by Meatbomb at 6:38 AM on May 12, 2017

I've had neighbours from hell. DO NOT WANT.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:07 AM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mmmmff mmf fmfmmfm mfn, fmfmmfm. Fmmf mm.

Mmmmmmmmmmmf fmmf ffmmmfm mmfmmf mmf! Mffmmmf mf mmfm.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:13 AM on May 12, 2017

The Internet: A proud tradition of bringing you things you didn't know you needed.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:18 AM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, MF: A proud tradition of bringing you things you didn't know you needed.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:18 AM on May 12, 2017

Ah, dorm life.
posted by Flexagon at 9:58 AM on May 12, 2017

still waiting to hear shots shots shotsshotsshots shots shots shotsshotsshots which is what I heard every night for years back in college. Don't even know what musician that was from.
posted by rebent at 10:50 AM on May 12, 2017

As a skinny geek in my first year of university, I was lucky enough to have a burly football player for a dorm roommate (who also happened to be a nice guy). When the guys in the room next door would come back from the bar and crank up their thumpa thumpa music when we were trying to sleep, he would sigh heavily, slip into his flip flops and shuffle off to pound on their door and yell at them to turn it the fuck down. They always did.

Despite us being totally different people, it was a great roommate situation.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:36 PM on May 12, 2017

I've been lucky enough to have avoided living with/next to noisy neighbors and roommates. So, instead of these muffled music sounds filling me with annoyance and rage, they're making me feel just a bit wistful. Because, for me, this is the sound I associate with being back behind the gym during a high school dance and in the bathroom at a loud bar or nightclub, back when those were things I used to go to.
posted by mhum at 4:31 PM on May 12, 2017

This makes me wonder if you could remix a track with the exact opposite effect, so that you could set it playing and wander into the room next door and then hear it sounding normal.
posted by Lanark at 2:36 AM on May 13, 2017

Nothing's helped my insane sleep cycle and intermittent insomnia as consistently as using one of those ambient noise apps. (I use Ambience, it's perfect. Highly recommend Snowfall on an Umbrella, Grizzly Fumarole and Storm in the High Atlas tracks.)

The one I throw on when I get into bed though, is TV Next Door. It's perfection - just muffled enough that you can't make a single thing out. Cozy as fuck.

This thread reminds me that I meant to go download the source file, I'd be genuinely lost without it. More muffled next door sounds in general please, the people who have to encounter me when I'm sleep-deprived thank you.
posted by pseudonymph at 7:59 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]