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 “algorithmâ€Â? that’s far more nuanced at transforming sound into a visual representation than current methods. “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.)

Fashion and sound usually involves pumping soundtracks on the runway. SHOWstudio, an “online fashion broadcasting company,” has its own idea: they’re taking leading garments from this season into an anechoic chamber, where they’ll record the literal sound of the garments. “Feathers, sequins, glass crystals and beads, nylon, taffeta, leather, velvet, jacquard, zips and metallic chains” will all get recorded in this pristine audio environment. (They’re spaces that are almost entirely without echo; check out this Bell Labs story for more. John Cage was so taken by hearing the sound of his own body in a chamber that it helped him develop his ideas about silence.)

And, of course, since the thing looks so cool they’ll be filming the recording process.

The Sound of Clothes: Anechoic [SHOWstudio, via 21f Yahoo Group]

Live broadcast June 1, and I expect there will be archival shots, too. Oh, and don’t miss the clothes.

By architectural music, I don’t mean some sort of funky digital installation. David Byrne’s new installation uses the pipes, metal beams, and girders of the Färgfabriken space in Stockholm as a musical instrument. It is definitely an installation (though the curator tries to say it’s not): there are automatic blowers forcing air through pipes, motors vibrating crossbeams, and solenoids (mechanical devices for, well, hitting things) striking the columns.

But David Byrne’s installation is as notable for what’s not there as what is: no amplification involved. All the circuitry is exposed. It’s basically just a building, controlled by an organ. And you get to play it — cool. Come at 6pm to hear the former Talking Heads front man speak, then come back at midnight for the party. Anyone here from Sweden? Let me know how it goes!

Playing the Building [Färgfabriken, Description, photos, curator comments, opening party]

Via We Make Money Not Art

Two things most people don’t care to understand: physics and how the heck your car works. But you’re different. Why, you probably already know that phase cancellation occurs when a sound source is delayed slightly (by a real-world reflection, or in recording and mixing), so that two coherent waveforms of opposite phase are superimposes and cancel each other out. (Er, in plain english: one wave’s crests cancel out the other’s troughs and vice versa.)

Now, did you know this principle is what keeps your car’s exhaust from making a racket?

How Mufflers Work [Howstuffworks]

Basically, the muffler is a chamber designed to create lots of echoes, and thus lots of destructive interference.

See an extended discussion above, plus some variations on the design used in luxury automobiles (think active cancellation, as in noise-reducing headphones). And, of course, this is exactly what doesn’t happen when your remove a muffler and get that ear-splitting noise.

Got other candidates for acoustic science in the real world? Let me know!

Rope and Sound is an installation that uses rope tension to control sound. Pull on a cord, and the change in tension triggers electronic thuds and mellow chimes. The trick is conductive fibers braided into the rope; as the tension changes, the conduction of the rope changes, as well.

I got a chance to try out the installation at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The show is up through October 30 and well worth a visit if you’re passing through town. The installation is beautiful and the concept brilliant, but the sound aspect was somewhat disappointing. The sounds themselves were compelling, but the ropes act like simple buttons: sounds are triggered as you cross a set threshold. If the whole point is the ability to monitor stress, why doesn’t that translate into sound? A velocity-sensitive keyboard is more expressive. That said, I think the underlying concept is terrific, so expect to see more use of conductive fibers in new sound interfaces.

If you’re near Emoryville, California, you can meet up with the Squid Labs folks who built this and other projects. (via O’Reilly Radar) And you can even one-up them by showing your own project. If you go, let me know what goes down!

[UPDATE:] I went to the source and asked Ben Recht (MIT Media Lab) about why the strings weren’t sensitive. In fact, they were! The reason they modulated timbre and not velocity was that he felt velocity was too hard to calibrate for different visitors. (And, obviously calibration is an issue, since I didn’t notice the timbre modulation.) This certainly demonstrates the challenges in designing new interfaces. And it also suggests that even with new designs, you need musicians to become adept at using the interface expressively.

Before the invention of radar, you'd need a large dish or
horn to track sounds of your enemy. "Acoustic radar" (aka "acoustic
locators" or "sound mirrors") captured sound via large dishes or walls,
or steerable horns not unlike the cones on early record players.
Douglas Self has a reference guide to this curious technology with links as part of his Museum of Retro Technology. (via near near future) Check out the fluidic gramophones, too!

I know what you're thinking: could you sample the sounds captured by
such a dish? I leave it up to our UK readers to head over to the ruins
of some of these things to try it out. Let us know.

Hartmann is making its MODELmaker software free to software Neuron VS users, so they can take their own samples and convert them to Hartmann's fascinating Neuron format.

Huh? What? What did that just say? Erm?

Imagine a synth package that uses new adaptive algorithms to create new
sonic morphing possibiltiies, and you're beginning to scratch the
surface — Hartmann's Neuron
package does that, and now instead of being limited to preset samples
you can add your own. See their site for more. CDM is working on a
review as part of our soon-to-be-launched Reviews section. If we can
devote enough neurons to it, anyway.

At long last, one of the most beloved and unusual Mac sound
creation applications has made it to OS X, with vastly expanded
features. The brainchild of Bryce creator Eric Wenger, the first
version of U&I Software's MetaSynth was popular with the likes of
Aphex Twin for its far-out, one-of-a-kind sound production and the
ability to generate audio by painting or importing pictures. This
builds on that tradition:

• Completely new Image Synth architecture for creating sounds from images with new signal sources and plenty of other changes
• Image Filter 'room' that takes all the features of Image Synth and applies it to filters
• An entirely new synth built on spectral granular synthesis, unlike, well, anything you Earth creatures have yet used
• Envelope-controlled DSP effects (wild granular effects were one of the most underrated features of MetaSynth 2)

Existing users will be glad to know there's finally real-time editing,
full-fidelity preview, up to 24-bit performance, and save-to-disk
capabilities, correcting annoyances in the previous version. And while
the software appears to have a steeper price, built-in MIDI and audio
multitracking mean you don't have to buy a separate app like Xx (though
those are due for an update, too, say U&I).

See the MetaSynth product page, or check out full details on what's new. More when I get some time with it; there's a demo available.

Cost: US$499 (16-bit); $599 Pro (24-bit, audio recording
Compatibility: OS 9/X; Pro is OS X-only
Availability: Now