:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 ::

Location-based timeline

A sketch for a location-based timeline representation of a field recording.



"I was always interested in field recordings involving shifting. For playing back such a recording, there should be ways much more interesting than traditional linear timelines as known from regular audio players. As an experiment, I mapped the recording of a segment of my way to work on a Google Maps screenshot of that very area in Hamburg. I have drawn a black line along the rails from start to destination, and a red dot is moving along that path as the audio plays back."

Brilliant. The next step is to link this to a GPS tracker as can already be done to place photos along a route as I've done with the CatCam.

[thanks to James D for the link]

Labels: Audio, GPS, Maps

:: Dan 27.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Grom says:
"It doesn't get geekier than this
Honestly, outputting the contents of your hard drive to your speakers has to be one of the simplest and geekiest things I've ever heard of. A simple command and ambient/industrial music/noise is there for the sampling. this one's specifically for you DanP"
Thanks mate! I'll be trying that out for sure!

Also via grom:
Hairdresser turned would be robber into boy toy
I'm now considering a change of occupation.

Labels: Audio, Computing, Electronic Music, Humour, Noise

:: Dan 16.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Babble by Alex McLean

"Babble is a system for authoring mechanistic sound poetry. It occupies a space between speech and music, allowing play with the structure and form of simplified phonetics. The visitor is encouraged to enter nonsense verse, which is then immediately played back as synthesised sound. Although babble's phonetic system is quite unlike that of any natural language, when faced with the text that generates the sound, the listener has the sensation of 'hearing' speech.

"Babble is written in the open source HaXe language, which compiles to javascript and flash. The source code for babble is available under the GNU Public License version 3 or later."

This makes some fun noises and I like the rhythms it generates when given large sets of input data. However, the "simplified phonetics" are simplified to the point they bare little relation to what you put in.

Babble by Alex McLean is a project.arnolfini commission (produced for the exhibition 'Supertoys'.
[development blog]

"Alex McLean is a programmer and live coding musician. He is co-founder of the dorkbotlondon meetings on electronic art, the TOPLAP organisation for the proliferation of live algorithm programming and the runme software art repository. He is also a PhD student at Goldsmiths College, within the Intelligent Sound and Music Systems group."

I had a wander around the Supertoys exhibition last week. There is some interesting stuff, but as I've complained about previous technology based exhibitions at the Arnolfini, half of it wasn't working or was only a prototype. I may go back sometime to see if things gets fixed.

"mechanistic sound poetry. It occupies a space between speech and music"
Sometimes I think people might appreciate art more if the artists didn't write a load of balls about everything they do. That would raise the bar such that the art had to be good enough to stand on its own, rather than need to be justified by some pseudo-intellectual twaddle or gibberish manifesto.
[/end rant]

Labels: Art, Audio, Robots, Speech, Synths

:: Dan 3.12.08 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
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"A unique, informative, very readable and practical book, "Designing Sound" presents advanced sound design methods for tomorrows video games, interactive applications and computer animations."

Andy Farnell, who Hardoff introduced me to a couple of years ago, has finished and published his book of sound design using PureData. It's been a long time coming. The world seems to be full of books on computer generated imagery but audio synthesis books are much more thin on the ground. This fills a gap nicely.

Andy is selling the initial limited run direct from this website and is hoping a larger publisher will pick it up soon. There is also a great 100odd page abridged PDF Pure Data introduction available for download. Check it out and help support him if your interested.

Labels: Audio, Computing, Electronic Music, FOSS, Pd, Software, Sound

:: Dan 2.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Japanese Sound effects and what they mean

Labels: Audio, Comics

:: Dan 19.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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1. downloadyoutubevideos.com save as .flv
2. aoa audioextractor to wav or MP3

Labels: Audio, Tools, Video

:: Dan 6.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"Do you want to learn about building guitar stompbox circuits? Have you been frustrated before by soldering, or trying to buy the right parts? Have you tried your hand at various kits, but want to learn more about how circuits actually work? Do you want to hear how certain designs sound before you plunk down your hard-earned cash on boutique or commercial pedals?

"Well my friend, I think I may have something that will interest you: the beavis board."





The Hackers Guide to the Beavis Board [3MB PDF]

"The beavis board makes it easy to:

• Build a huge array of stompbox circuits including overdrives, distortions, fuzzes, filters, amplifiers, tremolos, noise generators, oscillators, and more.
  
  
• Learn about the different components and how they work to shape your guitar's signal
  
  
• Modify stompbox designs to tailor your sound.
  
  
• Easily try out your circuits through a true-bypass breakout box
  
  
• Have a giant buttload of fun"

A "giant buttload of fun"? What a fantastic phrase! I'll be using that from now on.

Labels: Audio, Electronics

:: Dan 18.6.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"American researchers have pieced together a 10-second audio clip of a French folk song which they believe is the oldest recognisable recording of the human voice. The recording appears to be of a young woman singing a couple of phrases from the 18th century folk song Au Clair de la Lune. It was made in 1860 by Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and librarian, on a Heath Robinson-style device he called a "phonautograph". But in successfully playing back the clip [134KB MP3], the team from the University of California's Berkeley Lab, may have robbed their compatriot Thomas Edison of the honour long accorded him as the first man to successfully record sound."

Edit: Story causes giggle attack on Radio 4 Today programme [600KB MP3]
[thanks James]

Labels: Audio, Radio4, Recording

:: Dan 31.3.08 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
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"...auction one of the rarest relics of Vatican Radio in the world. This is one of the 15 mixers RCA BN-2A owned from the Vatican Radio from the beginning of the ’60 to the '80, that was used to transmit the Pope’s cerimonies from the St. Peter's cathedral, Basilica di San Pietro. This mean that through this mixer has passed the voice of 4 Popes..." but not mine.

Labels: Audio

:: Dan 20.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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This is for Hsiao, I know he still harbours dreams of setting up his own audiophile hi-fi company.
Film about Audiophile Club of Athens

At the opposite extreme, I think this is the scariest thing I have ever seen:
Scary hacked animatronic robots sing Fergie's 'London Bridge'

Labels: Audio, Audiophile, Hi-Fi, Robots

:: Dan 7.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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ChucK => Strongly-timed, On-the-fly Audio Programming Language
"what is it? : ChucK is a new (and developing) audio programming language for real-time synthesis, composition, and performance - fully supported on MacOS X, Windows, and Linux. ChucK presents a new time-based, concurrent programming model that's highly precise and expressive (we call this strongly-timed), as well as dynamic control rates, and the ability to add and modify code on-the-fly. In addition, ChucK supports MIDI, OSC, HID device, and multi-channel audio. Furthermore, the language is designed to favor readability and flexibility over raw performance. It's fun and easy to learn, and offers composers, researchers, and performers a powerful programming tool for building and experimenting with complex audio synthesis programs, and real-time interactive control."
Tutorial

Labels: Audio, Computing, Production

:: Dan 8.5.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Ableton and Cycling '74 announce Strategic Partnership
Interesting news. I already use Albeton Live and have been trying for a while to get mu head around Puredata. But if Cycling '74's Max/MSP was fully integrated into Live I'd have to give it a go at that.

(For the non-audio geeks: Pd and Max are very similar and are both based on the work of Miller Puckette at IRCAM. The difference is that Pd is open source and still watched over by Puckette whilst Max is now privately owed and sold by Cycling '74.)

Labels: Ableton, Audio, Max/MSP, Production

:: Dan 4.4.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Software

TeraWiki – The Unofficial Ableton Live wiki

Reason tutorial sessions in Bath 07.04.07 [£50]

Hardware

Monome 40h now shipping [$500]

Labels: Audio, Electronic, Instruments, Music, Production

:: Dan 27.3.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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