Our planet fizzes and crackles with a rich cacophony of sounds—but it constantly changes over time. Now, a team of scientists want to record the noises that surround us each and every Earth Day—which just happens to be today—to see exactly how it alters over time.
You can’t hear sound in space. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make sound from space. Lefse Records recently did just that, inviting 14 artists to make songs using "sounds" from space. The first track released is by Youth Lagoon, and it’s pretty good!
Imagine a place with no noise whatsoever: no sound, no light, no radio—hell, no Wi-Fi. How on Earth would you go about creating it?
If you picture what sound looks like in your head, you’ll probably think of some picture graph of a sound wave. But no one can actually see those up and down scribbles with their eyeballs. So what does sound actually look like in real life? It’s invisible but sound looks like what you see in the GIF above. A gust of air.
The world is full of things you can’t see
Digital audio software lets you emulate the sounds of instruments that you don’t own or know how to play in real life. But these programs don’t eliminate the learning curve. They’re still not intuitive. Imitone can change that. It’s an Windows and OS X application that helps your computer convert your voice into a signal that music creating software can understand. With Imitone, you can sing a piano track. Whistle a guitar hook. Fart a string section. I hope.
Imitone is a software MIDI controller. In simple terms, a MIDI controller turns your input into MIDI, a format that many music and sound creation programs can understand. Common examples of a MIDI controller include keyboards and drum machines. Obviously, with those MIDI controllers you still have to know how to play drums, piano, etc. in order to create a melody. But with Imitone, the only thing you need to know how to use is your voice.
Here’s Imitone inventor Evan Balster imitating a violin in real time with the help of Imitone and Ableton Live:
Imitone reminds me of the Beardytron 5000, but way more user friendly. Speaking of which, Imitone will have two versions. Imitone will be for casual and amateur users, while Imitone Prime will pack advanced capabilities such as multi-channel control, noise cancellation, adjustable tuning and more. Pledge at least $25 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a copy of Imitone as a reward; pledge at least $60 if you want a copy of Imitone Prime.
Japanese artist Ei Wada, who was born in 1987, belongs to a generation that spent middle school feverishly poring over cassettes to make mix tapes—until, of course, they were quickly outmoded by CDs, and then MP3s. Now, Ei makes art using the outmoded technologies he grew up with.
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Bay Area sound critic Marc Weidenbaum—acoustic historian, noise futurist, music instructor, and writer of a brand new book about Aphex Twin—has been blogging about music, electronics, and everyday sounds at his blog Disquiet here at Gizmodo for the last few months.
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From the Golden Gate Bridge to an ancient Japanese bell, the physical structures around us are humming with secret sound. Artist Bill Fontana has made a career of capturing these haunting and complex soundscapes. As an artist at residence at CERN, he’s mostly recently been listening in on the world’s largest particle collider.
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Ever wondered what it would sound like if computers could talk to each other? Yes, we have an internet that links all the machines in a vast and glorious global network. But what if they really talked? What if computers could communicate using sounds that humans can’t hear?
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
