sound studies resource

explorations in audio culture collated by @drhulbs

[soundstudiesresource]

ujoo+limheeyoung's mechanical phonograph generates music from plastic waste

 

Music generated from long-forgotten plastic waste emanates from Korean artist duo ujoo+limheeyoung’s new mechanical device, ‘Song From Plastic’. Drawing on Thomas Edison’s innovative tin foil phonographic approach, here, a discarded old clock, a cordless telephone, and an egg carton are given new life.

Inscribed with grooves on their surfaces, the objects take on the role of a record — capturing and playing back sounds of children’s voices, joyful songs, and everyday noises. Equipped with a sensor, the device is triggered and activated, beginning to play its melodies as a visitor steps within a 1.5 meter radius. The musical installation was presented recently in Seoul’s Amorepacific Museum.

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When composer Hans Zimmer was approached to score “Dune,” the new movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel, he knew one th

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Microphones for nature recording II.: different microphones for different situations

Here I present some examples of microphones and related equipment to use for different recording situations. This is not an endorsement of a

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Listening to the ocean reveals a hidden world – and how we might save it

The ocean is naturally noisy. Here’s what all the buzz is about.

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Dance music and DJ history has been driven by disruptive technologies, revolutionary movements and pioneering people. We look at few key, and perhaps under celebrated moments from our shared history.

(via Unlikely Moments In Dance Music History - Attack Magazine)

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Bhan Lam at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and his colleagues have created a device that can halve the noisiness of urban traffic, reducing the sound coming through an open window by up to 10 decibels.

To cancel out road noise, the researchers used 24 small loudspeakers and fixed these to the security grilles of a typical window in Singapore in an 8×3 grid. These grilles are a common feature across South-East Asia, says Lam. He adds that the spacing of the speakers was dependent on the frequency of the noise that they wanted to cancel out.                   

(via Noise-cancelling windows halve traffic sounds even when they're open | New Scientist)

[soundstudiesresource]

Music 'releases mood-enhancing chemical in the brain' - BBC News

Music psychologist, Dr Vicky Williamson from Goldsmiths College, University of London welcomed the paper.  She said the research didn't answer why music was so important to humans - but proved that it was.

"This paper shows that music is inextricably linked with our deepest reward systems."

see also: https://www.psypost.org/2019/02/listening-to-the-music-you-love-will-make-your-brain-release-more-dopamine-study-finds-53059

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Tony Andrews saw the potential for live music to resemble a "feedback loop between what the band were feeling and playing and what the audience were hearing and feeling," an ideal that presaged the lofty goals of techno DJ sets. Andrews knew there weren't systems around that could produce the right kind of sound for such an exchange. "Due to my long-held belief that evolution of consciousness is vital to our continued existence as a species on this planet," he says later in the paper, "I felt that I found my task in life, and determined to apply myself to the evolution of loudspeakers, with particular emphasis on enclosures."

(via RA: Industry standards: Funktion-One)

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Funktion One: Sultans of Sound - Electronic Groove

Tony Andrews: Quite simply if a sound system, or anything else for that matter, is big and powerful then it becomes increasingly important for it to be benign and not harmful so I have spent a lifetime removing the distortions in sound that make it hurt. In other words making it as clean as possible. Furthermore, I try to engineer a system to be naturally even in its frequency response without recourse to equalisation which is the least desirable way to fix problems.

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Moments in Music: 8 Sound Systems that Changed the World | LANDR Blog

See the best sound systems ever installed. From classic discotheques to modern techno temples, these are the sound systems that changed the world.

“So get you started here’s the 8 most iconic sound systems in the world and why they matter.“

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OneFour Is Banned From Performing In Sydney, Again

Why are Australia's most exciting rappers being censored?

OneFour, Australia’s first drill rappers, now have even more in common with their UK Drill counterparts: censorship. This weekend, the rappers announced that their live performance with French-British rapper Octavian was “shut down” by NSW Police, a trend that has plagued the UK drill scene in the past few years—mainly because, according to authorities, the genre incites gang violence and knife crime.

Last week, the rappers were in the spotlight when New South Wales Police announced Strike Force Imbala, a specialised task force of 20 detectives and analysis experts, telling reporters they were looking into “gangs such as OneFour.”

OneFour are the only rap group in Australia’s history to face such heavy policing and It’s the third time this year that venues have been pressured to cancel their shows in Sydney, which begs the question—what makes OneFour’s performances such a concern to NSW Police? Especially after OneFour supported UK rapper Dave, in his sold out show in Melbourne, without any controversy.

Short documentary:

[soundstudiesresource]

One Key, Many Notes: Ólafur Arnalds' Piano Rig Fuses Technology And Musicality

The piano composer and his code-savvy friend created software and a piano rig that plays spontaneous notes from one key stroke.

He remembers seeing the machine — something of an updated pianola, the old ones often seen in old Western movies plunking out notes dictated by holes in a roll of paper — and laughing at its function. "I just looked at it and thought, 'OK, that's very silly. That's a very bad idea, but I wonder if there's something there we can work with.'"

However silly, it planted the idea of incorporating technology into his own composing. So, he got together with his code-savvy friend, and together they created a new way to play piano using software.

"It senses what I play. Usually I am sitting at a grand piano, and I would play a chord," he explains from behind his instruments after playing a set at NPR's Tiny Desk. "That chord goes into the software, which manipulates it and then sends it out as rhythmical textures to these two pianos."

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From John Cage to Kool Herc: A Brief History of Turntablism - The Vinyl Factory

We explore the history of turntablism, from its primitive beginnings with travelling showmen right up to contemporary sound installations and the DMC. Words: Sophy Smith Coined by DJ Babu of the Beat Junkies crew, the term ‘turntablism’ emerged in 1995 to reflect the artistic practices of the hip hop DJ and, specifically, to denote the …

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Behind the awesome sound of Anthem: | A Sound Effect

SFX Supervisor Michael Kent gives you the inside-story on that excellent Anthem sound:

BioWare SFX Supervisor Michael Kent discusses the aesthetic direction for Anthem, and how they designed the sounds of the different flying exosuits called Javelins. He also shares their strategy for keeping the mix clear amid chaotic conflicts - and the sound tools and synths they used to design the game's impressive sound.

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The British Library's online Syliphone record label archive: 8,000+ Guinean Afropop tracks recorded over 26 years.

(Link via Brian Eno on Twitter).

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Using his expertise in sound and architecture, Abu Hamdan attempted to reconstruct the psycho-physical conditions in which prisoners lived at Saydnaya by using recorded testimonials. The exhibition, installed in a large room divided into two sections, features a recording of an Amnesty International interview with a former detainee, Salam Othman, broadcast across the space, and renderings of the prison projected onto the walls.

The expectation that visitors listen in silence to the recording mirrors with stunning success the content of Othman’s testimony. Othman explains that all prisoners were kept in the dark, blindfolded or with their eyes otherwise covered, and forced into silence. Prisoners were not allowed to make a sound, even when they were beaten. The more noise they made, the more brutally they were beaten — this enabled prisoners to identify the newcomers who were not yet aware of the consequences of making noise. Their inability to see heightened their awareness of even the most insignificant sound, and produced a population of hypersensitive listeners who helped Abu Hamdan reconstruct the prison through acoustic memory.

(via The Politics of Sound in a Prison)

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Peter Blamey performing ‘Double Partial Eclipse’

Two handheld photovoltaic panels harvesting energy from a single lightbulb, powering two eBows resting on an electric guitar.

(via Peter Blamey performing ‘Double Partial Eclipse’, the Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart, 10th June 2017. on Vimeo)