Jan 28
This is genius. Mario Wienerroither replaces the music from popular music videos
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Oct 13
Kids love to play fight. Just give them a few seconds of idle time and their minds will transform them into all sorts of characters. Soon enough you’ll hear them making sound effects for their movements and weapons. But the problem with being their own foley artist is that they can’t pew pew pew and spew killer lines at the same time. The Mega Stomp Battle can help with that.
The Mega Stomp Battle is composed of a small box and a wand that emit sound effects when you walk, wave the wand or push the wand’s trigger. It has 10 sound banks or character types, such as a knight, a giant monster or a pirate. Each sound bank has at least six sounds for different types of movements like walking, attacking and more.
Someone on YouTube said we should watch the video on mute. I disagree. The guys in the video look stupid even with the sound on. But you might not care about how you look once you’ve tried living a life with sound effects. You can order Mega Stomp Battle from ThinkGeek for $40 (USD).
Apr 12
A young man named Kenneth Guglielmino is one step closer to living in a 90s sitcom. He hacked together a suit jacket that emits cliché audience reactions at the push of a button.
Kenneth packed an Arduino, an Adafruit Wave Shield and a small speaker into a suit jacket. I’m not sure what he used as a controller or if he made one from scratch, just that he can change samples and switch between sound banks using different buttons. The sound effects he installed include a booing sound, an awwww sound, an air horn and of course the ol’ canned laughter.
Great job, Kenneth. Now you just have to invent robot co-stars that embody various stereotypes and you’re all set!
[via Adafruit]
Apr 10
So, uh, this is an uncomfortable one. You know the dinosaur sounds from Jurassic Park that framed the way you imagined every dinosaur ever? They were actually recordings of animals boning, or just about to bone. More »
Nov 21
If you need any other proof that the filmmakers behind Lincoln went above and beyond the call of duty to make the film as authentic as possible, sound designer Ben Burtt tracked down one of Lincoln’s original pocket watches and recorded its actual ticking sound. That’s dedication. More »
Nov 05
In case you haven’t noticed, everything is a remix. Good artists and inventors stock up on influences and material from other sources. If you’re a musician or if you want to make your own sound effects or if you just want something to listen to when you’re wasted, you can compile sounds wherever you go with the Kaleidoloop.
The Kaleidoloop was invented by Critter & Guitari, maker of the popular Pocket Piano synthesizer. The Kaleidoloop lets you record sounds and then manipulate those sounds on the fly. The sounds are recorded as .wav files on an SD card (the Kaleidoloop comes with a 256MB SD card). It also has a 3W speaker so you can listen and tweak the sounds you recorded on the go.
Here’s a trippy explanation of the Kaleidoloop:
You can order the Kaleidoloop directly from Critter & Guitari for $299 (USD). I wish they’d come up with a cheaper version; I’ll only use it to record my friends’ favorite expressions and a laugh track so we can pretend we’re in a sitcom.
[via DudeIWantThat]
Sep 26
Fabricated: Scientists develop method to synthesize the sound of clothing for animations (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Developments in CGI and animatronics might be getting alarmingly realistic, but the audio that goes with it often still relies on manual recordings. A pair of associate professors and a graduate student from Cornell University, however, have developed a method for synthesizing the sound of moving fabrics — such as rustling clothes — for use in animations, and thus, potentially film. The process, presented at SIGGRAPH, but reported to the public today, involves looking into two components of the natural sound of fabric, cloth moving on cloth, and crumpling. After creating a model for the energy and pattern of these two aspects, an approximation of the sound can be created, which acts as a kind of “road map” for the final audio.
The end result is created by breaking the map down into much smaller fragments, which are then matched against a database of similar sections of real field-recorded audio. They even included binaural recordings to give a first-person perspective for headphone wearers. The process is still overseen by a human sound engineer, who selects the appropriate type of fabric and oversees the way that sounds are matched, meaning it’s not quite ready for prime time. Understandable really, as this is still a proof of concept, with real-time operations and other improvements penciled in for future iterations. What does a virtual sheet being pulled over an imaginary sofa sound like? Head past the break to hear it in action, along with a presentation of the process.
Fabricated: Scientists develop method to synthesize the sound of clothing for animations (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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