The explosion of interest in filtering out sounds of the vuvuzela has spawned some interesting discussions. Most amusing to me is the notion of some sort of anti-vuvuzela bias. The simple matter of the fact is, recorded (and broadcast) sound are not the same as the sound you hear when you’re physically in a location. If you’re at a sporting event, you hear all kinds of noise. Your expectations are differently calibrated, and you have 360 degrees of (real world) sound spatialization. Watching TV is different. You want background sound, yes, but not to the point that it drowns out commentary. In effect, you want the broadcaster to create an artificially well-balanced soundscape. What’s really striking about the World Cup is that the planet’s largest broadcasting companies all seem to have been caught unprepared for the vuvuzela cacophony.

Which brings us to Waves. So, yes, I took some cheap shots at Waves’ pricing on their plug-ins in yesterday’s massive round-up, and yes, I did actually … hear about it.

First, I want to be clear that in the avalanche of responses to the vuvuzela, there are a number of different techniques – not all notch filtering, though, as my headline hinted, the fact that “notch filtering” is a phrase coming up in mainstream media, blogs, and sports coverage is itself newsworthy.

Waves’ approach involves their noise suppressor. What I said about pricing may have been unclear in regards to the presets: the custom-developed preset chain, made by Waves for broadcasters (and apparently in collaboration with one, specific broadcaster Waves has not named), is entirely free. The cost to which I referred is the noise suppressor itself (US$2900) and the parametric EQ ($300).

And no apologies here for pointing out the gap: compared to most audio software, $2900 is indeed a lot to pay for a plug-in. One of the strange things about audio is that there are sort of parallel dimensions of value/cost equations and markets. In this case, I’m sure the broadcasting market is absolutely willing to pay $2900 for audio software – looking at the cost of, say, a World Cup license, the cost of the equipment used for that broadcast, the human hours that go into plug-in development, and the limited number of potential broadcast customers, Waves’ pricing is actually pocket change. But that further illustrates the disparity: it’s pocket change to the BBC or ESPN, whereas an individual, home audio producer might well use tools that are entirely free as an alternative.

Waves isn’t even, as [someone] pointed out to me, the pricey end of that spectrum – not by a longshot. France’s Canal+ hired an entirely private commission to do what, for Waves customers, at least, was free. [article in French] The result: a non-TDM custom effect solution from a local developer with what was likely a very, very high price tag.

But you can also judge this for yourself: if you’re curious to try out the Waves solution, both WNS and Q10 provide a 7-day demo. It’s definitely the posh steakhouse of plug-ins, to the “street vendor sausage cart” alternatives I mentioned. Pricing is economics, not a quantification of value – such is the nature of the beast. But you can determine how much that market-driven pricing translates to the software. What Waves gives you is certainly a friendly interface, some sophisticated tools tailored to the task, and what’s likely, out of the box, to come closest to producing broadcast-quality sound. Naturally, I also think that delivering that broadcast-quality sound ought to be the job of the broadcasters, not someone at home with a TV set. The question of which tools are relevant for music production, rather than covering the World Cup with an entire network TV crew, can be saved for another day.

While we’re clarifying, I think the most interesting of the long list of solutions I mentioned, apart from Waves’ solution, is the plug-in from the Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary, University of London. Dan Stowell notes that, while some of the other techniques mentioned do indeed involve notch filtering, what’s at work here is “a bit cleverer, kind of tuned median-filter.”

The C4DM plug is truly free software, under an MIT-style, open source license. It’s actually a pleasure to browse through the code – bless you, digital signal processing, as mathematically, tasks like this look pretty readable in C and C-style code. No, such things aren’t comparable to, say, a Waves plug-in. At the same time, at their heart, they are fundamentally the same animal. We’ve seen this basic technique (digital signal processing) packaged in wildly different forms. We have academic research centers, which one might argue should engage in open code if they’re publicly funded. We have free code that comes from people who aren’t in academia. We also have businesses that naturally spawn around catering to a very different customer, for whom value is easy to justify given the potential revenue from the product (a sports broadcast), and who likewise have higher expectations of user interface, real-world performance, and support.

But such is the broad spectrum (ahem) of sound software today. Take something as simple as filtering out a drone at a particular frequency, and you see a broad set of potential uses, an audience literally as large as the entire planet’s sports fans, tools on every conceivable platform and operating system, and markets that range from interested academic researchers and programmers to broadcasters with deep pockets.

All over a cheap plastic horn.

It’s a reminder of all kinds of disparities. There’s the economics of sound software, scaling from hobbyist to academia to business, from code that people give away to highly-priced custom services that make Waves plug-ins look like $2 iPhone apps. But more important than that, while specialization in sound software remains the domain of a tiny niche of society, but the ultimate market – human ears – is in the billions. Perhaps while we hide out in our blogs and trade magazines, we forget that.

Vuvuzela Orchestra Demo from Pedro Espi-Sanchis on Vimeo.

It’s an extraordinary sporting event, one in which the spirits of the many nations of the planet come together, driven by a passion for one thing.

No, not football. Notch filtering, apparently. It’s not very often geeky audio matters cross onto the mainstream radar, but such has been the case in the divisive case of South Africa’s beloved vuvuzela horns. Yesterday, I used the whole thing as a teachable moment for learning Linux audio routing, but since then, my inbox has been bursting at the seams.

Along the way, we learn more about the instrument, how to play it, we meditate to the sound of its drones in an electronic remix, and (at top) even hear an orchestra of the things.

Here’s what you may have missed.

A meditative vuvuzela serenade:

First, let’s consider the beautiful, otherworldly sound of a swarm of vuvuzelas, droning. That’s what composer Alec Vance did, and the results are, frankly, gorgeous. Remember how yesterday I was talking about mindfulness? Who needs chanting monks when you’ve got this sound:

Vuvuzela.mp3

More on a post on his blog, though it may be a bit painful if you’re an England fan:
Vuvuzela! (USA Wins 1-1 vs England)

More, more, more vuvuzela:
How to play the vuvuzela and get a good sound [The Guardian]

http://www.vuvuzela.fm/ for 24/7 Vuvuzela radio, because you just can’t get enough of the sound

But wait — there’s more. So. Much. More.

Analysis and coverage

Boing Boing covers the physics of the sound and why it’s annoying:
Acoustic engineer explains why vuvuzelas are annoying

Isophonics explains what’s happening in the sound spectrum, and provides their own plug-in:
What’s all this about the vuvuzela?

The Beeb talks vuvuzela controversy:
BBC receives 545 vuvuzela complaints over World Cup [BBC News]
Can you block out the blare of vuvuzelas? [BBC News Magazine]

Ars Technica has a good round-up: Enjoy a vuvuzela-free World Cup, thanks to technology

Filtering solutions

http://vuvuzelafiltering.com/, an entire website devoted to the topic

Pocket Lint on filtering on your TV, plus a EUR2.95 filtering sound

Samsung TV: EQ using on-screen controls

Windows/Mac Ableton Live set

Mac LADSPA (works with Audio Hijack Pro), Linux LADSPA, Windows VST: Free Isophonics plug-ins [compiled plug-ins at the bottom of their how-to]

Mac, AU: Free Prosoniq VuvuX filtering plug-in [sonicWORX]

Mac, AU Free Isophonics plug-in [direct download link]

Mac, AU / GarageBand: How to filter Vuvuzelas using GarageBand

Mac how-to and links in Italian; cross-platform VLC tutorial in Italian

Mac, Logic: Vuvuzela-Filter how-to, in German

Mac/Windows, TDM + native: Waves has a “pro” solution that it developed “in conjunction with a major television broadcaster,” which works in conjunction with Pro Tools, Waves MultiRack, and Cubase. Of course, this being Waves, unlike every other solution listed here, it costs a load of money (to the tune of US$2900 for the noise suppressor and $300 for the parametric EQ), requires a dongle, and could get you sued if a sting operation catches you pirating it. Sorry, Waves, I couldn’t resist. You were an open target. A bit like a UK goalpost. BOOM! (okay, I’ll stop, before I get hatemail from Waves Audio AND the nation of England)
Waves Introduces Vuvuzela Noise Reduction

Mac, Soundflower + free app Vuvuzela noise filter app for Mac OS X [Albert Feller]

Mac, Soundflower + your TV: Mikkel writes in comments:

On Mac, I used SoundFlower in combination with AU Lab (comes with Apple Developer Tools, eg XCode).
You have to make an aggregated device containing the SF input and the Default System Output. Then route your tv-sound to the SF Output.
In AU Lab, you can make a new document with the aggregated device. Then double-click on the audio output and select Stream 2 in the Output Settings. You should now hear the tv-sound coming through. Then you can insert whatever effects on the input track. I used some of Apple’s AUParametricEq with frequencies 233, 466, 932 and 1864 Hz from the http://fetzig.org/ article, and it did seem to help.
I used a test video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5kByJPZos

Mac: Lifehacker covers one of the Mac tutorials

Mac, Windows, PreSonus Voodoo One gets its own file

Windows, Winamp [German] Vuvuzela Filter Kostenlos!

Windows, Reaper: Vuvuzela Filter Windows

Windows, entirely using free (as in beer) software: Vuvuzela audio filter using (free) Windows software

Windows, VLC [German]: Vuvuzela Filter für VLC

Windows, Mac, Linux in a free Pd patch: http://puredata.info/Members/anechoic/patches/pluginvuvuzela.pd/view [Kim Cascone]

Windows, Mac, Linux – another free Pd patch, this one with copious blog documentation, too:
http://joaomartins.entropiadesign.org/2010/06/15/vuvuzela-filter-a-puredata-approach/ [Ricardo Lameiro]

And, of course, previously on CDM, Fedora and Ubuntu instructions:
Filter The Vuvuzela Horn Out of the World Cup; Learn JACK Routing on Linux

Okay, does anyone have time left to actually watch the games?

Are you a World Cup fan annoyed by the constant sound of the South African vuvuzela horn? Wish you could remove that sound from your World Cup viewing experience? Do you want to learn a little bit about powerful modular effects routing can be on Linux? Either? Both? Call it “football”? “Soccer”? Any way round, we’ve got you covered.

(Disclaimer: I have nothing in particular against the vuvuzela. But here you go, anyway.)

Updated: Via comments, here’s a Mac plug-in for filtering the horn, also a notch filter, and a sign that this is getting a little carried away. (Mostly, I think this is a useful way to learn about JACK, something you can use after the World Cup. But knowing football fans, “after the World Cup” may not be a phrase with any meaning at the moment.)

JACK is a powerful audio API on Linux, and thanks to rich application support for the tool, you can route sound arbitrarily between software tools, making everything on your computer into a kind of virtual studio. (Mac users should check out the excellent JACK OS X implementation.)

Felix Kaechele, a German-based Fedora community member and Fedora Ambassador, uses JACK to filter out sound from his live World Cup feed. If you’re curious about how JACK works and how to add effects to your system (or record a system audio feed, etc.), this is the way to go. The trick here is that PulseAudio, the default sound API on Linux, actually gets routed right into JACK.

Read the full instructions here:
Vuvuzela Filter using Fedora [Felix' Blog]

Fedora is a superb distribution, and intelligent JACK packaging is a particular strong suit. (Check out the Planet CCRMA project for more.) But part of the strength of Linux is that it is open, so you’ll find these same instructions work on other distributions. In fact, so long as you replace “yum install” with “apt-get install”, you’ll find most of these packages have the same name. (Only “ladspa-swh-plugins” is missing on Ubuntu, though there are other LADSPA plugs available.)

Note that on vanilla Ubuntu, I did need to do one extra step when setting up JACK. When you launch, JACK will actually advise you to do so right in the message window, but here it is, as a reminder:

Please check your /etc/security/limits.conf for the following lines
and correct/add them:
@audio – rtprio 100
@audio – nice -10
After applying these changes, please re-login in order for them to take effect.

These steps tweak real-time performance for better JACK sound results.

Also, I generally like to launch JACK Control with the following command, in order to disable PulseAudio:
pasuspender qjackctl

But in this event, you’d actually install the Pulse module and route Pulse into JACK, as in the instructions.

Setting up Ubuntu is a topic for another article, but there’s a preview. But the musical applications here should be clear: JACK makes it easy to set up a modular rig. Want to add effects to a Pd patch? Record audio from a system application for sampling? Route together some effects to make a virtual stompbox rig for your guitar? Having JACK is a bit like having an extensive patch bay for software.

Let us know how these tips work out for you, or if you’ve got ideas of your own. (And if someone wants to do a Mac version of the tutorial, let us know!)

Via OSTATIC; thanks, Brad Linder!

Free software, a webcam, and some stickers printed on an inkjet can turn any object into a real-world controller. That’s what Paul Rose of Institut Fatima and his team did with a soccer ball (translation for the civilized world: football). The software is powered by the same framework used for the reacTable, but in this case there’s no table and no projector: just a ball.

Institut FATIMA uses a Fussball as (des-)controller for triggering drumsamples. The camera detects the symbols on the ball, kicks numbers into the sequencer, the sequencer matches goals. The goal is always music. Software used is reactivision and ableton live. Do it at home.

As it happens, reacTIVision just got a significant update, with more improvements planned. You can read up on the full details on Create Digital Motion:

Free Tangible Tracking: reacTIVision 1.4 Here, TUIO2 Coming Soon

Martin Kaltenbrunner, co-creator of the framework (and the reacTable), has some tips for working with tangible interfaces and music, and where to find more inspiration.

In addition to TUIO, reacTIVision also has an alternative MIDI mode, where you can map the appearance of fiducial symbols to note ON and OFF events, as well as their X,Y and rotation angle to a control channel value. Quite a few people have been using this for the creation of cheap web-cam based MIDI controllers.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reactivision+midi

Using TUIO, you have more alternatives though, you can currently use Max/MSP, Pure Data, Quartz Composer, Processing, Java, C++, C# and so on to receive the object & finger tracking data. Here are a few cool musical projects, that have been built using reacTIVision:

http://modin.yuri.at/tangibles/?list=7

Patrick H. Lauke (patch pictured, from Flickr) has a video on YouTube that shows some of the basic workflow for combining the free patching environment Pd with TUIO and reacTIVision. He cautions:

this may not be pleasant from a musical point of view, but it only serves as a first test for further experimentation.

Hopefully this gives folks some ammunition if you’re getting involved in the tangible interface hackday! [Project site | on CDMu]

Just in case you think you might extract any respectability from this $299 novelty guitar, there’s more: interchangeable face masks. Multiple colors for matching your favorite team (you’ll have to provide the logos — guess they didn’t pony up for a license). A built-in speaker, just in case an amp looks too, you know, professional. And the pièce de résistance, football-shaped guitar picks.

Helmet Guitars

Any pride left? Well, how about filming a demo video playing this,(inexplicably) shirtless. Hint: do not tell, say, potential dates or job interviews “Last night, I took off my shirt and started totally wailing on my helmet guitar!” That could be interpreted in way too many ways, none of them not wrong.

Hey, at least Miesel Stringed Instruments doesn’t have any illusions. They promise the guitar “will have you rockin’ all the way from your rec room at home, college dorm, tailgate party, to the Super Bowl after party!”

Will you see anything this fun at CES? I don’t think so.

But if I sound in any way critical, it’s only because I think the Helmet Guitar can’t begin to compare with the same builder’s aquarium acoustic guitar (among others).

Tune in January 17-20 for live coverage from the NAMM show in Los Angeles, from the awesome to the awesomely strange. And stock up on donuts, because you may start craving them.