FEB 01 | Physical Sound

Read Before Class

Discussion led by: N/A

Optional:

In Class

  • Collect files from the “Recording 101″ exercise.
  • Introduce the basic vocabulary of sound (Frequency, Amplitude, Spectrum, Duration).
  • Demonstrate the cone-movement of a speaker with a sub-audible tone. In MAX/MSP, observe sounds using onscreen graphs of the 4 aforementioned properties.
  • Observe interference patterns on the surface of water, agitated by a speaker. (aka “Chladni plate”)
  • Introduce the installation equipment available from Dan in the editing room (players, amps, speakers, etc.)
  • Expand the basic audio signal flow (which we introduced last week) to include playback.

Screening

  • “Music For Piano With Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators” by Alvin Lucier (From “Still Lives” CD, 2001)

Further Research

  • “Soundings” by Gary Hill (http://www.ubu.com/film/hill.html)
  • “The Queen of the South” by Alvin Lucier
  • German artist Markus Kison used tactile transducers to hide sound in a metal railing overlooking a river in Dresden. In “Touched Echo”, listeners put their elbows on the railing and cover their ears. The sound conducts through their bones, revealing aural artifacts of the WWII bombing of Dresden.
  • Wave Table by veteran sound and media artist Liz Phillips
  • A very geeky Chladni plate Youtube video from Edwin Wise, also featured in MAKE Magazine #16. (Subscription required to view. Ask me and I’ll print it out for you.)
  • In class today we used a subwoofer driver to vibrate a tray of water to explore cymatic phenomena. There are special drivers called “tactile transducers” (AKA “bass shakers” or “aural exciters”) that are designed to vibrate surfaces instead of air. Parts Express sells a wide variety of them. You can also use a piezo buzzer element and a small audio transformer to turn lightweight rigid surfaces into speakers. (See book Handmade Electronic Music by Nic Collins)
  • In this extremely corny PBS video, you can see an alligator rippling the surface of water using only its low voice.
  • On the subject of sound analysis (and the mysteries of the deep): An array of underwater research microphones (AKA “hydrophones”) have detected several unexplained deep-ocean sounds over the years. The “Bloop” was recorded several times in 1997 and has since become the stuff of legend. Maybe it’s a sea monster from pre-history? H.P. Lovecraft fans think it’s the stirrings of the ancient alien overlord R’lyeh and skeptics dismiss it as one of many unknown sounds in the deep ocean.
    NOTE: The NOAA hydrophone array that detected the “bloop” is a leftover Cold War surveillance system formerly called SOSUS. It was designed to detect and classify the sounds of Soviet submarines across the world’s oceans.
  • The class demo was made with a visual programming language called MAX/MSP/Jitter (aka “MAX”). It’s part of a family of “patcher based” programming languages, which means that data flows through visual patch cords instead of lines of code. It was designed to emulate the way that early modular synthesizers worked, so electronic musicians could write computer software using skills they already had. You have probably never seen a modular synthesizer but many people find the patcher style of coding much friendlier than traditional textual coding. Here are some links:
    • MAX/MSP/Jitter – (Mac/Win) $$$, free trial and student discount
      Trivia: MAX is named after computer music pioneer Max Mathews.
    • PD (“Pure Data”) – (Mac/Win/Linux) free, open source
      Very capable but much uglier than MAX with a steeper learning curve. Created by Miller Puckette, who originally wrote MAX. (Download the version called “pd-extended” because it includes lots of optional things that are not present in the main distribution.)
    • Quartz Composer (Mac) free, closed source
      Not as flexible as Max or PD but popular with VJs because it’s very highly optimized. It is included on every Mac OS X CD as part of the optional “Xcode” development environment. After you install “Xcode Tools” you will find Quartz Composer in the “Developer” folder on your hard drive.
    • Isadora (Mac/Win) $$$, free trial and student discount
      Designed for dance and theater performance (not general-purpose programming) so its structure is not as open as the others listed here. These limitations make it easier to use but put serious limits on what you can do.
    • VVVV (Win) free for non-commercial use, closed source
      Highly optimized for video/audio
    • Lily (Mac/Win/Linux) free, open source
      This runs inside of Firefox (!) but it’s a complete programming language that looks a lot like MAX. It can play sounds and Quicktime movies but it can’t really alter the video/audio.
    • Processing (Mac/Win/Linux) free, open source
      This isn’t a patcher-based language but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Processing is a very simple textual programming language based on Java. It’s a painless way to learn “real” programming and there is a huge community out there to help. It handles video and sound through external “libraries” that extend its basic functions. (Not as fast as MAX, PD for video and sound.)
    • SuperCollider (Mac/Win/Linux) free, open source
      Another textual language, but very efficient and powerful when dealing with audio (unlike Processing). Doesn’t really do video though.

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