Humans Turning Up Volume In Oceans [NPR “Science Out of the Box”]

A new report shows the way in which sound travels through the ocean has been impacted by global warming. A growing community of artists are working in media like sound to address environmental challenges. But it seems the planet is making some “sound art” of its own. Curious to hear what people think of the report.

Amidst some of the gimmicky options, some serious tools are making their way to Apple’s mobile platform. Case in point: Faber Acoustical, a developer of audio analysis and acoustical tools for the Mac, has new iPhone apps for generating and analyzing signals.

SignalScope is a real-time spectrum analyzer and oscilloscope. Interestingly, it’s not just for sound – you can even analyze signal from the built-in accelerometer. That should make this a prized educational tool. You can zoom in and pan analysis displays with multi-touch gestures and save images to the iPhone photo album. US$24.99.

SignalSuite is a signal generator with basic waveforms, session saving, and per-channel left/right control. “Suite” is a bit misleading, as it’s just one app. (Well, I guess it’s a suite of waveforms.) But it should be useful for testing purposes. US$9.99.

Faber Acoustical iPhone Products

Thanks to Tommy Birchett for the tip. He writes, “I’d love to see a synth that takes advantage of the iphone’s multi-touch and motion detection for changing frequency, amplitude, pan, etc. maybe even utilize the GPS somehow.” I agree – and if we see better sound synthesis capabilities on other mobile devices (Android, perhaps?), this could be a possibility on mobile platforms in general.

We did see one accelerometer-controlled synth in the form of iPhone Synth, as spotted in our iPhone round-up. That isn’t an official App Store app (yet, at least), but it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.

In other news of “serious apps,” on Create Digital Motion we take a first look at a DMX controller for lighting rigs and other devices. It’s really a full-blown app, with a price to match — US$99.99.

Luminair: Gorgeous DMX Controller on iPhone, iPod Touch Runs Your Rocking Light Show

Suzanne Ciani, the synthesis pioneer, multi-Grammy nominee, and composer of everything from New Age music to classic 70s jingles and sound effects (including the distinctive synthesized Coke-unbottling sound), explains the fundamentals of acoustics and synthesis in terms children could understand:

A Prophet figures prominently, but other than that it’s almost an all-Buchla show. She’s a virtuoso at patching a Buchla patch. And between her and the host, I guarantee you’ll be extremely calm within the first few seconds.

For many of us, our studio and our home are one and the same. The speakers we use to monitor mixes are the ones we use for rehearsals, improvisations, and casual listening. I first got interested in the Anthony Gallo A’Diva series speakers partly because I’ve long admired Gallo’s home speaker products, but also because the Gallos seemed to be comfortable walking this home/studio line.

Normally, engineers steer far clear of home audio equipment when it comes to monitoring. But producer Neal Pogue has been using the A’Diva speakers for just that, including five songs on the new Stevie Wonder album, and projects for Nelly Furtado, Indie Ari, Earth Wind and Fire, and Outkast. (See studioexpresso profile, or a 2004 interview in Electronic Musician for more about Pogue’s production background.) That’s pretty unusual for speakers aimed at the home market.

Having lived with a 2.1 set of the A’Diva Ti satellites for a while, I’m impressed, as well. The sound is uncolored and clear, with really gorgeous high-frequency definition. It makes these speakers sound both much larger than they are (you can fit them in your hand), and much more expensive. (They run just over US$200 a speaker, but you could easily fool someone into thinking they went for more.) That could make these ideal for complementing your existing set of monitors. I got to talk to Anthony Gallo, the speaker’s creator, about his background and, most importantly, why the speakers are spherical in the first place.

A’Divas on Test

First, if you’re like me, you’ve probably had some less-than-amazing experience with small speakers. There are plenty of small speakers that sound great at lower levels, but become harsh as you drive them. I was able to crank my A’Diva Ti setup to nearly painfully-loud levels without losing any clarity. It’s actually a little spooky: normally, “transparent” sound refers to the acoustic properties of speakers, but in the case of these two little spheres sitting on a shelf, there’s something unnerving about little tiny speakers making so much sound.

The drivers on the speakers are a combination of titanium and paper, hence the name and greater treble extension performance. There’s a 1″ voice coil for greater dynamic range, and to me, part of the reason these sound so good has to do with dynamic range and not just frequency range. I moved them around my living room studio and tried them both as traditional monitors and in a home stereo setup, and was pleased with the results for both. They’re small enough, as well, that you could easily mount them even in close quarters. Normally, that would allow you to set up a home theater, but it also happens to make them ideal as a secondary set of monitors for a studio.

The A’Diva Ti 2.1 setup I received for testing was mated with a 250-watt TR-2 subwoofer. Subwoofers are where home equipment tends to really reveal itself as a home product, but the TR-2 sounds terrific: rather than sounding boomy, it retains dynamic clarity right through the low end. (It’s good enough, in fact, that it revealed all kinds of nasty low-end mastering errors in my DVD collection, particularly with TV shows. Some disturbing up-mixing and down-mixing tends to happen when shows get tossed on DVD.) And, of course, those 250 watts are powerful in a way that’s incompatible with Manhattan living; after some brief fun in the middle of the afternoon, I decided I had to turn the level down as much as I could just to avoid getting evicted. (+6 dB boost? Uh, no, thanks, say the people on the fourth floor.) I think the 100-watt TR-1 would probably be fine if you’re in an 850 square-foot apartment. But if you want theater-sized bass and happen to live in the suburbs, you might look at the TR-2.

Just as with the satellites, the subwoofer eschews a rectangular design for a cylindrical enclosure. Unlike most subwoofers, the result feels well-crafted and looks quite lovely on its own. I was also pleased to find some decent options on the TR-2: low- and high-level I/O, plus EQ and a continuously-variable knob for phase.

Back to the original question, though: why am I bothering talking about “home theater” speakers on CDM in the first place? I can see a number of reasons why these would make sense. First, while I wouldn’t rely on them as my only studio monitors, they make a perfect second set, particularly when you want to experience what a 2.1 setup will do to your mix — but without the added coloration and, frankly, poor performance of a lot of inexpensive home speakers. Second, their size and shielding are perfect any time you need flexible placement. I’ve been looking for good speakers to use for installations, so I’m interested in them even for that. But when you’re in cramped quarters, even studio placement becomes an issue. Lastly, a lot of us have limited budgets and need speakers for our home setups. You want those to sound as good as your studio monitors, and you want them to be able to occasionally do double-duty. For me, at least, the A’Diva Ti’s fit the bill.

Now, I’m a fan of a very simple monitoring philosophy: listen in as many different ways as possible. I wish I still had my old Volvo 240 so I could try out mixes on its blown-out cassette and stereo system; if a mix worked there, it worked anywhere. “Mastering” is a pretty misleading concept because it suggests you know what people will listen on, when you don’t. So, I’m still going to hook up mixes — especially anything I’m considering for surround delivery — to some low-end setups, as well. But having the A’Diva setup to hear what’s going on across the frequency and dynamic range in more detail, and hear it the way it will sound in a 2.1 or 5.1 configuration, and have the setup for listening for enjoyment — that, to me, is the ideal.

I would never make a speaker recommendation blind (or is that deaf?); Gallo gets wide distribution so odds are you may have a set nearby you can go hear for yourself, and compare to some of the other available offerings. I will, however, stand by my feeling that you need more than one set of speakers to give your mix a good listening. And I’ll say, as well, more affordable surround setups like the Gallo could be just what we need to dip into surround, which has largely remained elusive to the home musician.

Of course, the one major downside of the A’Diva line is that they are configured as 2.1, which may rule them out as your primary monitors. Gallo is aware of this feedback, though, so perhaps we’ll see speakers geared for the studio in the future.

A’Diva Speaker Series Product Page (I evaluated the slightly higher-end Ti series with titanium drivers)

TR-2 subwoofers; Full surround line

Conversation with Anthony Gallo

Anthony Gallo Acoustics really is the result of the designs of an engineer named Anthony Gallo. I always enjoy talking to the people who actually design the stuff, so I was pleased to get to talk to Anthony a bit about his background and the thinking behind his designs.

Anthony began building sound equipment early in his teenage years, designing speakers as young as 13. He told me that his early work with electrostatics had a big influence on his current designs. (He notes in the company history that he got a “shocked a zillion times.” Well, they are electrostatics, after all.) I’ve found most designers I’ve talked to got started with childhood tinkering, all the more reason to encourage Make Magazine-style experimentation in the next generation of young men and women.

A brief excerpt from our conversations:

Peter: It seems like there’s a resurgence of DIY electronics, after a long lull. Do you see more people becoming interested in DIY electronics?

Anthony: It’s harder to know if there are more DIY’ers out there today. It seems like there are because of the internet. You notice a lot more of them, but to say it’s a trend I’m really not sure. I’m glad to see there are a lot of people out there that have the same passion as I do.

Peter: Did those early experiments impact your work today?

Yes it does. However, when I was experimenting on my own over 20 years ago I didn’t have the resources to develop drivers or even enclosures that I knew in my heart would sound much better than wood. Such as utlra-rigid spherical structures and enclosures with curves. They are inherently much more rigid.

Peter: There’s a lot of confusion, it seems, about speaker wire. I know you sell your own wire for your speakers. What kinds of differences do you hear between different speaker wire; what differentiates yours?

Anthony: For every person you ask, everyone will have a different opinion on the sound of wire. I have selected a wire that is cost-effective and sounds excellent with our products. And in general, I tend to like solid core wire, rather than a lot of the stranded alternatives.

Depending on the type of wire, it could range from a grungy, bloated sound quality, to a crisp, clear transparent on the other extreme. And then there is every variation in between.

Peter: For the layperson, why spheres? And can you talk about how you personally came across spherical cabinets?

Anthony: Firstly, it is the lowest coincidence of external diffraction. External diffraction is what occurs when sound leaves the driver and wraps itself around the enclosure. If there are sharp projections, such as edges on a box speaker, it will interfere with the propagation of the driver and projects different frequencies. Also, the sphere is the most rigid enclosure and since it’s so rigid, the wall can be made very thin, which saves internal air volume and allows the speaker to be smaller than wooden/plastic boxes.

I read about it back in the 70’s, however it’s been well documented as early as the 30’s, that the sphere is the optimal shape for sound. (See attached the graph with frequency response for various enclosure shapes). Since I discovered this, I started seeking out hollow round structures that could be used.

Finding this graph in a textbook was an “ah-hah” moment in his own designs, Anthony says.

I know some readers here build their own loudspeakers, so I’ll be curious to see your own non-commercial designs, as well — and if we now have Anthony as a CDM reader, you can share them with someone who’s well-known in the business!

We’ll keep an eye on the new designs coming from Gallo in the future, as it sounds as though they’ve become more interested in the audio/music production market as well as home theaters. In the meantime, as usual, I expect there are many of you who know more about this than I do, so we welcome comments as always.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/01/29/gallos-right-round-adiva-ti-speakers-and-a-chat-with-the-designer/feed/ 6 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/08/09/16th-century-music-tech-11-yo-sirena-huang-on-design-marvel-of-violin/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/08/09/16th-century-music-tech-11-yo-sirena-huang-on-design-marvel-of-violin/#comments Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:33:13 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/08/09/16th-century-music-tech-11-yo-sirena-huang-on-design-marvel-of-violin/

We hear lots of discussion of how to make better digital instruments. But to fully understand instrument design, it’s often best to look at instruments from around the world that have evolved over centuries. (Hey, these synthesizers and such, by comparison, are mere infants.)

Here’s a fantastically virtuostic performance from 11 year-old Sirena Huang, via June Cohen on the TEDtalks blog. Following the music, she discusses in frank terms why the instrument is such a timeless design. She’s got a smart audience for such thoughts: the performance comes from the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference, a legendary gathering of “thinkers and doers”. And while Sirena feigns surprise that her violin would be included with “real” technology like an iPod, I think she recognizes the violin is the better design by far.

Embedding their videos doesn’t seem to work, so I suggest checking out the story directly:

Sirena Huang on TEDTalks [Video links and comments, TEDblog]

Thanks to our friend Matrix of Matrixsynth fame for this. The TEDblog has plenty of other music coverage, including a similarly virtuostic video of pianist Jennifer Lin, not to mention lots of other general cool tech and non-tech topics.

Notably, on the topic of violins, the blog has a mini review of the book Stradivari’s Genius by Tony Faber, exploring the history of the most famous of violins.

Will digital instruments ever match an instrument like the violin? I tend to look at it the other way: watching a great performance is as much about the player as it is the design of the instrument. Practice your favorite digital instrument for a lifetime, and see what happens. And keep in mind that “easier” isn’t always better. A violin is anything but intuitive, and sounds awful when you first play it.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/08/09/16th-century-music-tech-11-yo-sirena-huang-on-design-marvel-of-violin/feed/ 7 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/07/18/powerful-piano-tuning-on-windows-mobile-pocket-rct/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/07/18/powerful-piano-tuning-on-windows-mobile-pocket-rct/#comments Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:15:53 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/07/18/powerful-piano-tuning-on-windows-mobile-pocket-rct/

Tuning pianos involves some heavy science and art. In other words, Reyburn Pocket RCT has absolutely no relation to that simple guitar tuner you’ve got in your gig bag. It’s a US$900 powerhouse of visual tuning:

Reyburn Cyber Tuner / Pocket RCT, for PocketPC (Windows Mobile)

This is probably old news if you’re a piano tuner (either this or the Mac/Windows laptop version), but I saw it this weekend while I was staying at my parents’ house and a tuner came over to adjust our Baldwin grand. The tuner was more than happy to show it to me. You can’t tell in this screenshot, but the UI pulses like some sort of alien eye as you near the pitch. The software was able to guess that the piano was a grand of more than six feet just by listening to the harmonic content of the sound (already impressed); it can compensate tuning for the size of the piano. The system uses aural tuning, meaning it looks not only at the fundamental but directly samples and matches partials, which is the way tuners are trained to work.

The tuner was especially pleased by two features: first, that you can keep records of tunings of different pianos, giving the tuner virtual “medical records” of the way a piano has held its tuning over time. (That helps diagnose how the piano itself behaves, and how it responds to the environment.) She was also happy that she could perform extremely accurate overtuning that would anticipate how the tuning would settle over time; because of the enormous sensitivity of pianos, they don’t hold their initial tuning exactly.

I know a couple of musicologist friends who would love playing around with this, particularly the 57 historical tunings from Owen Jorgensen. Now you can finally play the Well-Tempered Clavier on a piano that’s actually well-tempered. For those learning to tune professionally, the software even includes exams, but it sounded as though pros could comfortably use the technology to augment rather than replace their existing craft and experience.

We have at least a couple of pro tuners reading CDM, so I’d love to hear what you think of this. Maybe some of you think this new-fangled tech is useless; I don’t know.

Updated: Via comments, Veritune is a formidable competitor to this product. The concept is the same, but Veritune has a real-time spectral display, multiple simultaneous partials, far more notes measured (76 vs. 6), note switching for all notes, no required measurement step, and other features. It’s also available in an integrated, rugged hardware unit as well as for your existing PocketPC, and Veritune claims it’s easier to use. Anyone who’s used one or the other, let us know what you think. Thanks to Carl Lumma, formerly of Keyboard Magazine.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/07/18/powerful-piano-tuning-on-windows-mobile-pocket-rct/feed/ 7 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/12/hearing-like-humans-do-new-methods-yield-better-sonic-analysis-clears-through-noise/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/12/hearing-like-humans-do-new-methods-yield-better-sonic-analysis-clears-through-noise/#comments Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:09:42 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/12/hearing-like-humans-do-new-methods-yield-better-sonic-analysis-clears-through-noise/

Hearing over the din of noise is something that humans do a lot better than computers. A new mathematical technique promises to provide highly accurate models of sound, even with broadband noise in the picture. Why does this matter, aside from mathematical curiosity? For one, better sonic analysis could mean more realistic models of instruments and more flexible sound editing tools, inspiring a new generation of music software.

From our friend kokorozashi:

‘In a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcelo Magnasco, professor and head of the Mathematical Physics Laboratory at Rockefeller University, has published a paper that may prove to be a sound-analysis breakthrough, featuring a mathematical method or â€Å“algorithmâ€Â? that’s far more nuanced at transforming sound into a visual representation than current methods. â€Å“This outperforms everything in the market as a general method of sound analysis,â€Â? Magnasco says. In fact, he notes, it may be the same type of method the brain actually uses.’

Full article:
New mathematical method provides better way to analyze noise [Physorg.com]

This certainly wouldn’t be the first time new algorithms yielded scientific advances and musical advances alike. Even the famed (or infamous) AutoTune plug-in benefits from data processing techniques used in oil exploration. (Lesson: it takes a lot of science to make Jessica Simpson sing in tune. Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Of course, the converse is true, too: better sound processing can be very useful to a broad range of sciences, because, well, sound is just about everywhere.

[Updated] Tom Duff has managed to hunt down the actual paper so you can get this straight from the source:

Sparse time-frequency representations,
Timothy J. Gardner and Marcelo O. Magnasco [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]

While I wouldn’t normally say this of academic papers, it has really pretty pictures. (Seriously: visual renderings of the analyses not only illustrate the point, but also happen to look gorgeous.)

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/12/hearing-like-humans-do-new-methods-yield-better-sonic-analysis-clears-through-noise/feed/ 6 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/02/01/hemispherical-loudspeaker-ultimate-performance-speaker/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/02/01/hemispherical-loudspeaker-ultimate-performance-speaker/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2006 05:00:00 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/02/01/hemispherical-loudspeaker-ultimate-performance-speaker/ If you frequent experimental music concerts and performance art events, you might have seen them: mysterious, spherical and polyhedronalish speaker arrays, looking a bit like an unmanned space probe or an alien soccer ball.

Now you can have one of your very own: Electrotap has announced they’re shipping the Hemisphere speaker array. And forget the odd looks of other speakers for a second: this sounds downright practical. It weighs just 17 lbs., but contains six Polk Audio db525 fullrange drivers. It sits on a surface. Sound fills the space, but it actually comes from the location where you’re playing. And at US$599, many of you can afford it.

Most importantly, with the flat base on the new model, you can finally discourage alien beings attending your gigs from trying to play interdimensional space hockey with it. I get kicked out of more clubs that way . . .

(Don’t miss the history of the device assembled there, with shots like the 1997 model shown below — bless those Princeton sound wizards!)

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/02/01/hemispherical-loudspeaker-ultimate-performance-speaker/feed/ 1 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/12/29/can-bias-peak-make-your-sound-sound-better/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/12/29/can-bias-peak-make-your-sound-sound-better/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/12/29/can-bias-peak-make-your-sound-sound-better/ Converting sample rate and bit depth to lower-resolution data, as you’d do when a project was finished for output to CD and online files or when converting prior to assembling a project, is a dangerous task. It’s the moment at which you can lose a lot of what you put into your sound: the spectral content that gives the result the extra ’sparkle’ you want.

A test performed by Mac developer AudioEase recently took a shot at the sound quality in BIAS Peak, the flagship audio editor and perennial Mac fave. I’ve chatted with BIAS about this, and needless to say they were unhappy about the AudioEase tests and wanted to investigate (partly because they thought they’d have no problem refuting them). Now it’s their turn to fire back, with an extensive white paper and sound fidelity test of the new Peak Pro 5 and how it converts sample rates. Peak’s new SRC engine should not only sound better than competing products, but it also drives Peak’s new tape scrubbing feature, a feature competing editors lack that sounds better than anything I’ve used. (It’s great fun, scrubbing to find exact edit points like you would with analog tape.)

I have to say, the results are pretty compelling: their evidence seems to suggest that Peak 5 has the cleanest sample rate conversion available. The results are subtle — images like the one shown here have been modified to bring artifacts into relief — but they would be audible. I’ve been very happy with the SRC I did with Peak, and with POW-r dithering for bit rate conversion, plus batch processing features, it could become your primary file converting powerhouse if you’re on the Mac.

Still skeptical? BIAS has released a full explanation, and lets you not only download their white paper but try to reproduce their results. I’d love to hear someone more knowledgable than me on these matters weigh in.

BIAS Resampling White Paper Page

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/12/29/can-bias-peak-make-your-sound-sound-better/feed/ 5 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/11/30/gbp15-doppler-effect-for-windows-more-freecheap-windows-goodies/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/11/30/gbp15-doppler-effect-for-windows-more-freecheap-windows-goodies/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/11/30/gbp15-doppler-effect-for-windows-more-freecheap-windows-goodies/ In response to yesterday’s Doppler Birthday Roundup, Adrian Anders points us to a terrific-looking Doppler plug-in for just GBP15:

Spacestation [Windows VST]

My colleagues at Computer Music like it, but here’s my kind of endorsement (from KVR: “. . . I spent the evening in front of my monitors listening to the same noise swirling around in space again and again.” I could give you more specs, but doesn’t that say it all?

Lots of other cool stuff over there, like endless audio effects, experimental filters, and freeware plugs. Just the motivation I need to go fix my poor Windows PC. It’s okay: I occasionally enjoy the perverse pleasures of reformatting. See you on the flipside, Windows fans.

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