Singing computer, cyborgs and music of the waves - we discuss unusual sounds and audio gadgets
Earlier we told you about unusual sounds that can be heard in nature: from animal sounds to gravitational waves . Today’s World According to Sound micro-podcast collection is dedicated to the sound of unusual instruments and gadgets.
Photo by Adam Engelhart / CC / Wave organ
The Wave Organ is an acoustic sculpture. It is located in the San Francisco Bay and is part of the Exploratorium Science Museum, which was founded by the physicist Frank Oppenheimer. The sculpture was built in 1986 by Peter Richards (Peter Richards) and George Gonzalez (George Gonzalez).
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This is an object of stone and 25 PVC pipes, which are at different heights. The “organ” sounds when the waves, pushing against the open ends of the pipes, push the air out of them. The Wave Organ was dedicated to the memory of Oppenheimer.
Also, the sea organ is in the Croatian city of Zadar. It was created in 2005 by the architect Nikola Bašić during the reconstruction of the embankment. The sound of this marine organ is not just noise and hum, but real music , which is produced by pipes in contact with sea water.
A similar musical sculpture was installed in the city of Blackpool in the UK. The Blackpool tidal organ is a 15 meter high sculpture. It consists of eighteen organ pipes connected to eight pipes at the water's edge.
In 1961, during the public demonstration, the first song recorded by the computer was recorded. A version of the song Daisy Bell was recorded at IBM, where they wrote the first programs for speech synthesis and digital music. The vocals were programmed by John L. Kelly and Carol Lockbaum, and the accompaniment was by Max Mathews, author of the MUSIC program.
At this demonstration was the writer Arthur Clark (Arthur Clarke). The recording impressed him so much that later, while working on the 2001 Space Odyssey, he inserted into the script a scene in which the HAL 9000 computer sings Daisy Bell after switching off the logic modules.
After that, Daisy Bell was used in a number of games and films: for example, in the film “The Universe of Stephen Hawking,” the scientist types the words of a song so that his speech synthesis device speaks them. Also, the first line of Daisy Bell will be sung by Cortana's voice assistant from Microsoft, if you ask her to sing a song.
If in 1961 the computer first performed a song written by a man, then Google wrote this music on its own in 2016. The neural network formed this melody based on the first four notes of the children's song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.
Google is experimenting with ML technologies to create works of art as part of the Magenta project, which is based on TensorFlow technology. According to company representatives, the algorithms will not replace musicians and artists, but will help them to reveal their talents.
One of the first full-fledged project products is the NSynth Super , a synthesizer based on the NSynth algorithm. The task of NSynth is to analyze the characteristics of existing sounds and create new ones based on them. For example, this demo video shows how musicians combine the sounds of a flute and snare to get a new sound. You can use the NSynth algorithm in the Max MSP and Ableton Live software environments, as well as in the AI Experiment web application.
In 2003, Adam Montandon, who studied sound as part of his student work, came to Dartington College of Art to give a lecture on his project. After the speech, artist Neal Harbisson approached him and offered to become a volunteer in research.
Harbisson’s congenital achromatopsia is a disorder due to which he sees all colors as shades of gray. For Neil, Adam created a device that takes in colors through a camera and translates them into sounds.
Photo by Wikimedia / CC / Artist Neil Harbisson (left)
Over the years, the gadget was turned into a small antenna built into the back of the bone of Harbisson. At one end of the device is a camera, and at the other end, a chip ingrown into the skull of Nile.
Data from the camera comes to the board, and it translates the color into sound waves. Neil hears them. That's how the world sounds to him.
In 2009, the chip was improved, and now Harbisson can perceive the waves of the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. In 2010, Neil co-founded the non-profit organization Cyborg Foundation , which supports projects aimed at empowering the human body. The organization, including, donates gadgets to the communities of blind people and gives them the opportunity to hear color.
In addition to non-commercial activities, Harbisson is engaged in art. He creates works based on his unique vision of the world: he translates songs and performances of famous speakers into colors and creates sound portraits of people.
The need to wear a hearing aid journalist Frank Swain (Frank Swain) turned into an unusual ability: he hears Wi-Fi. Frank's hearing aid can be connected to the smartphone and adjust the sound using the program.
Together with engineer Daniel Jones, they added a new feature to the interface. The application processes information from the Wi-Fi chip of the smartphone and transmits this data to the device in the form of sounds. The project was named Phantom Terrains .
The recording presented above was made during Frank's walk through the streets of London.
Clicks, similar to the sounds of the Geiger counter, show the signal strength - the stronger it is, the higher the frequency of clicks. It turns out that routers with particularly strong signals “sing” their SSIDs. At the same time, low frequencies in the “song” denote the degree of network security.
According to Swain, these parameters can tell a lot about the landscape around. Low-security networks are more common in residential areas and buildings, and Wi-Fi with encrypted traffic is found in the business districts of the city.
Additional reading - more about unusual sounds and gadgets:
Photo by Adam Engelhart / CC / Wave organ
Wave organ
The Wave Organ is an acoustic sculpture. It is located in the San Francisco Bay and is part of the Exploratorium Science Museum, which was founded by the physicist Frank Oppenheimer. The sculpture was built in 1986 by Peter Richards (Peter Richards) and George Gonzalez (George Gonzalez).
')
This is an object of stone and 25 PVC pipes, which are at different heights. The “organ” sounds when the waves, pushing against the open ends of the pipes, push the air out of them. The Wave Organ was dedicated to the memory of Oppenheimer.
Also, the sea organ is in the Croatian city of Zadar. It was created in 2005 by the architect Nikola Bašić during the reconstruction of the embankment. The sound of this marine organ is not just noise and hum, but real music , which is produced by pipes in contact with sea water.
A similar musical sculpture was installed in the city of Blackpool in the UK. The Blackpool tidal organ is a 15 meter high sculpture. It consists of eighteen organ pipes connected to eight pipes at the water's edge.
Singing computer
In 1961, during the public demonstration, the first song recorded by the computer was recorded. A version of the song Daisy Bell was recorded at IBM, where they wrote the first programs for speech synthesis and digital music. The vocals were programmed by John L. Kelly and Carol Lockbaum, and the accompaniment was by Max Mathews, author of the MUSIC program.
At this demonstration was the writer Arthur Clark (Arthur Clarke). The recording impressed him so much that later, while working on the 2001 Space Odyssey, he inserted into the script a scene in which the HAL 9000 computer sings Daisy Bell after switching off the logic modules.
After that, Daisy Bell was used in a number of games and films: for example, in the film “The Universe of Stephen Hawking,” the scientist types the words of a song so that his speech synthesis device speaks them. Also, the first line of Daisy Bell will be sung by Cortana's voice assistant from Microsoft, if you ask her to sing a song.
Algorithm-composer
If in 1961 the computer first performed a song written by a man, then Google wrote this music on its own in 2016. The neural network formed this melody based on the first four notes of the children's song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.
Google is experimenting with ML technologies to create works of art as part of the Magenta project, which is based on TensorFlow technology. According to company representatives, the algorithms will not replace musicians and artists, but will help them to reveal their talents.
One of the first full-fledged project products is the NSynth Super , a synthesizer based on the NSynth algorithm. The task of NSynth is to analyze the characteristics of existing sounds and create new ones based on them. For example, this demo video shows how musicians combine the sounds of a flute and snare to get a new sound. You can use the NSynth algorithm in the Max MSP and Ableton Live software environments, as well as in the AI Experiment web application.
Sounds Turned into Sounds
In 2003, Adam Montandon, who studied sound as part of his student work, came to Dartington College of Art to give a lecture on his project. After the speech, artist Neal Harbisson approached him and offered to become a volunteer in research.
Harbisson’s congenital achromatopsia is a disorder due to which he sees all colors as shades of gray. For Neil, Adam created a device that takes in colors through a camera and translates them into sounds.
Photo by Wikimedia / CC / Artist Neil Harbisson (left)
Over the years, the gadget was turned into a small antenna built into the back of the bone of Harbisson. At one end of the device is a camera, and at the other end, a chip ingrown into the skull of Nile.
Data from the camera comes to the board, and it translates the color into sound waves. Neil hears them. That's how the world sounds to him.
In 2009, the chip was improved, and now Harbisson can perceive the waves of the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. In 2010, Neil co-founded the non-profit organization Cyborg Foundation , which supports projects aimed at empowering the human body. The organization, including, donates gadgets to the communities of blind people and gives them the opportunity to hear color.
In addition to non-commercial activities, Harbisson is engaged in art. He creates works based on his unique vision of the world: he translates songs and performances of famous speakers into colors and creates sound portraits of people.
Sounds Wi-Fi
The need to wear a hearing aid journalist Frank Swain (Frank Swain) turned into an unusual ability: he hears Wi-Fi. Frank's hearing aid can be connected to the smartphone and adjust the sound using the program.
Together with engineer Daniel Jones, they added a new feature to the interface. The application processes information from the Wi-Fi chip of the smartphone and transmits this data to the device in the form of sounds. The project was named Phantom Terrains .
The recording presented above was made during Frank's walk through the streets of London.
Clicks, similar to the sounds of the Geiger counter, show the signal strength - the stronger it is, the higher the frequency of clicks. It turns out that routers with particularly strong signals “sing” their SSIDs. At the same time, low frequencies in the “song” denote the degree of network security.
According to Swain, these parameters can tell a lot about the landscape around. Low-security networks are more common in residential areas and buildings, and Wi-Fi with encrypted traffic is found in the business districts of the city.
Additional reading - more about unusual sounds and gadgets:
- 5 places in the world to hear
- Musical instruments that did not become mainstream
- Rain, clank armor and liquid metal: how sound is created for the movie
- The end of the world soundtrack, the music of the roads and the stalactite organ: peace and nature in the sounds
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/418943/
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