The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

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Lag
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The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Lag »

There are sound bytes that make our minds flip.
I just played this and got over-emotional.
youtu.be/miZHa7ZC6Z0
Good part of it is nostalgia, but I remember loving this sound back then as well and never being able to put my finger on what makes this sound so powerful. There are a number of other ones as well. The iPhone unlock, the Win7 open-folder sound, the FB messanger piiing...
Not talking about sound effects only. Some parts of music when played individually emit a completely different vibe then when heard in a song. The phrase "This is the end, beautiful friend" by Doors is much more powerful when it stands on it's own than when heard in a song (for me at least), and this is a phenomenon frequently used for radio spots and intermissions.
So what's the magic that makes us go so insane over a 0.5-3 seconds of audio?
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Alume »

Wow its funny to hear that one again

Anyway got the same sort of thing with the oldschool internet connection sound

[youtube]http://youtu.be/UsVfElI-7oo[/youtube]

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Mslwte »

Some of the machines I work on are still running windows 95 and 98. Hideous things they are. I'm always trying to get the customer to upgrade to a lovely windows 7 PC with the latest version of our software.

That sound makes me cringe.
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Críoch »

Fanny farts.. Pure magic.
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by msl »

Big companies spend a lot of money on these signature sounds, esp the automobile industry, tv, etc. Things like the old BBC World Service or Themes Valley indents, and my all time fav the Strange Encounters of a Third Kind melody...


AFAIK thats an Apr 2600 btw

youtu.be/AphKxQ2NsQo


youtu.be/Z1RsgSBySXk
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by arc »


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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by arc »

This is slightly off-topic, but a good subreddit for this kind of stuff is http://www.reddit.com/r/soundporn.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by nicknack »

ICN wrote:Fanny farts.. Pure magic.
well i reckon you get much better sounds from a wet arse if we're talking farts, but i suspect your confused with regards to the object of your interest.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Mslwte »

ICN wrote:Fanny farts.. Pure magic.
Hahah
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Lag »

arc wrote:This.

youtu.be/OIx-e07PmyM
Sony make some of the best ones.
http://youtu.be/kWSIFh8ICaA?t=13s

This is my favorite one from Star Wars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erFcYsC6JaY

How about them monster roars?
http://youtu.be/vIu85WQTPRc?t=2m14s
http://youtu.be/MNPG68VkuPE?t=5m2s

On a side note, does anyone know how to make this kind of distortion?
http://youtu.be/z7Qy_4sWs3I?t=1m39s
TBH it sounds like they played it very loudly through a fucked up speaker, recorded it in a silent room and then EQ'd out the irritating frequencies but pretty sure that is not how it happened because I heard this kind of dist on other things/other projects as well. It has that "so loud that it's fucking up the speakers" quality in a very good way (ie . the harsh harmonics).
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by UN!T »

Lag wrote:There are sound bytes that make our minds flip.
I just played this and got over-emotional.
youtu.be/miZHa7ZC6Z0
Good part of it is nostalgia, but I remember loving this sound back then as well and never being able to put my finger on what makes this sound so powerful. There are a number of other ones as well. The iPhone unlock, the Win7 open-folder sound, the FB messanger piiing...
Not talking about sound effects only. Some parts of music when played individually emit a completely different vibe then when heard in a song. The phrase "This is the end, beautiful friend" by Doors is much more powerful when it stands on it's own than when heard in a song (for me at least), and this is a phenomenon frequently used for radio spots and intermissions.
So what's the magic that makes us go so insane over a 0.5-3 seconds of audio?
You might be interested to read this. It explains a lot of why and how music/sound affects us. We're like fish in water.

http://www.amazon.ca/This-Your-Brain-Mu ... 0452288525

I will add. Yes it is an ARP2600 in CETK.
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by Lag »

Thank you!
You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by nicknack »

as a contrast to this topic, may i point out that it is less common to experience nostalgia over a 440Hz sinewave or a length of white noise. these noises are pretty common but still no attachment. why?

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by msl »

Sounds like classic Roland D50 to me :)


youtu.be/uwC4zYOzVT8
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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by willemb »

nicknack wrote:as a contrast to this topic, may i point out that it is less common to experience nostalgia over a 440Hz sinewave or a length of white noise. these noises are pretty common but still no attachment. why?
Context and association.

The modem sound that Alume pointed out is pretty nostalgic for me, and not particularly pretty in content.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by nicknack »

willemb wrote:
nicknack wrote:as a contrast to this topic, may i point out that it is less common to experience nostalgia over a 440Hz sinewave or a length of white noise. these noises are pretty common but still no attachment. why?
Context and association.

The modem sound that Alume pointed out is pretty nostalgic for me, and not particularly pretty in content.
context and association. yes, i tend to agree with you. a test tone or white noise is associated with static or unchanging steady state. like dry paint. whereas these other signals are precursors to things we enjoy. thus the nostalgia. i have to admit that is what hooked me on the BOC albums. i watched a LOT of national geographic as a kid and a lot of their sampling was along those lines. the campfires and the rest of that natural/outdoors nonsense too. i spent a lot of time in the bush as kid and listened to pink floyed. one thing you point out is that the sound doesn't have to be pretty to like it. something that comes up for me time and again is tuning out of static noise and into something of interest like a tv channel or radio station. that squiggly noise you get as the resonant circuits are just about to catch the right frequency.

edit : i always seem to have a sample or more of this tuning sound around but fucked if i know how to work it into anything yet

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by AxeD »

The tones of the frequency shift keying on a modem are of course purely functional.
Like biphase encoding and FM etc.. It's cool that you could actually hear it though.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by nicknack »

AxeD wrote:The tones of the frequency shift keying on a modem are of course purely functional.
Like biphase encoding and FM etc.. It's cool that you could actually hear it though.
that's true. in contrast the modern adsl broadband connections work so subtly that they only leave an undesirable audible high frequency component. hence the need for an lpf on the line when simultaneously utilizing it for broadband.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by disparate »

nicknack wrote:
AxeD wrote:The tones of the frequency shift keying on a modem are of course purely functional.
Like biphase encoding and FM etc.. It's cool that you could actually hear it though.
that's true. in contrast the modern adsl broadband connections work so subtly that they only leave an undesirable audible high frequency component. hence the need for an lpf on the line when simultaneously utilizing it for broadband.
ADSL doesn't create any audible noise (ADSL carriers start above 20 kHz after all), the filter's job is to keep the ADSL signal away from baseband voice equipment and vice versa. Not sure if I'd say it works more subtly - it just works differently, dial up modems use voice band (hence not being able to make a phone call when connected) and require a call to be made every time you want to use it, whereas ADSL is always* connected at the modem. Sorry for boring explanations, I work in telecoms ;)


*unless you're like me and with Plusnet and it disconnects and reconnects about 20 times a day, but regardless of that establishing a connection doesn't generate anything audible on the phone line.

I'd argue that the reason we respond more to things like dial up modems, the Windows 95 sound etc is more the uniqueness of the sound itself than just their context. The Win 95 one was carefully composed by Brian Eno to be memorable and futuristic, and a modem is a pretty distinctive sound... whereas white noise or simple sines are static and plain sounds.

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Re: The sounds that matter (and what makes them magical)

Post by nicknack »

disparate wrote:
nicknack wrote:
AxeD wrote:The tones of the frequency shift keying on a modem are of course purely functional.
Like biphase encoding and FM etc.. It's cool that you could actually hear it though.
that's true. in contrast the modern adsl broadband connections work so subtly that they only leave an undesirable audible high frequency component. hence the need for an lpf on the line when simultaneously utilizing it for broadband.
ADSL doesn't create any audible noise (ADSL carriers start above 20 kHz after all), the filter's job is to keep the ADSL signal away from baseband voice equipment and vice versa. Not sure if I'd say it works more subtly - it just works differently, dial up modems use voice band (hence not being able to make a phone call when connected) and require a call to be made every time you want to use it, whereas ADSL is always* connected at the modem. Sorry for boring explanations, I work in telecoms ;)


*unless you're like me and with Plusnet and it disconnects and reconnects about 20 times a day, but regardless of that establishing a connection doesn't generate anything audible on the phone line.

I'd argue that the reason we respond more to things like dial up modems, the Windows 95 sound etc is more the uniqueness of the sound itself than just their context. The Win 95 one was carefully composed by Brian Eno to be memorable and futuristic, and a modem is a pretty distinctive sound... whereas white noise or simple sines are static and plain sounds.
well i would have to respond by saying that you are either "not all there" or simply cantankerous. since i'm usually an optimist, i'll go with the latter. especially since you say you work in telecoms. i might add that i too worked in telecoms. particularly in an ISP that hosted there own ADSL network. but the last thing i want to do here is get into a protracted technical argument about digital communications. i'll end up starting a new research project and i don't think that's warranted. thus i will point out that the filters are indeed there to protect both the audio from noise generated by the ADSL comms equipment and data from interfering with the other regardless of what the modulation standards say and if you deny that i may have resort to calling you stupid and referring you to google search to straighten yourself out.

as for your argument on nostalic sounds, i think i'll -- in part, at least -- stick with my former opinions on that too. yes a sound should be unique because otherwise it becomes multiply associated and thus ambiguous and also not interesting. but the context must be there otherwise there is no meaning. that is what nostalgia is after all. a memory of times past. a mapping of the mind to some past event. in this case through sound.


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