Echolocation in humans

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Echolocation is the ability to sense objects using reflected sound. A handful of animal species do this – most bats, some whales and even a few humans. Some blind people use echolocation to navigate the world they can’t see. Some make a clicking sound as they walk. Others use the sound of their footfall. In fact, all humans, sighted and unsighted, do it. Adam meets BBC’s Damon Rose, who is blind, and they compare skills.

Marnie Chesterton travels to Southampton University’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research to meet Daniel Rowan. His team have recently isolated some of the factors necessary to echolocate. The work involved an anechoic chamber – the quietest place on earth and the sound equivalent of nothing.

Listen to the clip from BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science programme here:

In Search Of The Ideal Music Venue

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Trevor Cox Professor of Acoustics from Salford University goes in search of the best venues for different types of music. Trevor is fascinated by the effect that the acoustics have on the enjoyment of different types of live music. He visits various music venues and tries out their acoustics by playing his saxophone. He talks to musicians, sound engineers and experts in acoustics about the venues and the effect that their design has on the audience’s enjoyment of music. He asks whether the size and shape of venues has had an effect on the way music is composed. And he travels to Finland to meet Professor Tappio Lokki who can replicate the sound of famous concert halls in his laboratory.

With contributions from acousticians Adrian James, Rob Harris and Niels Adelman-Larsen, sound engineer Derrick Zieba, and musicians Jessica Cottis and Trish Clowes.

Listen to the BBC Radio 4 programme here:

Sound Architecture: The Spaces That Speak

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Science broadcaster Professor Trevor Cox explores the science of aural architecture – the relationship between sound, design and human experience.

Building design and city planning is dominated by the visual. But a new science has emerged which explores the relationship between design, acoustics and the human experience, called aural architecture. Every space has its own unique soundscape, created by a combination of the overall design, the materials used in construction and the way that space is used by humans.

Until very recently, few architects ever gave much thought to what affect that soundscape might have on the people inhabiting the space, be they office workers, school pupils, teachers or shoppers. This has resulted in railways stations where train announcements are unintelligible, restaurants where you have to shout to be heard and open-plan schools in which teaching is all but impossible. More recently, research has shown that a poor aural experience can have a considerable negative effect on how we feel and behave, even at a subconscious level.

Professor Cox hears for himself how some spaces ‘speak’ and meets architects, designers and researchers hoping to transform our aural experience for the better.

David Attenborough: My Life in Sound

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lnzxh

MONDAY 16th December 2013 at 11.00am on BBC Radio 4

In an exclusive interview for Radio 4 David Attenborough talks to Chris Watson about his life in sound.

One of Sir David’s first jobs in natural history film making was as a wildlife sound recordist. Recorded in Qatar, David Attenborough is with wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, there to make a film about a group of birds he is passionate about, The Bird of Paradise. It is in Qatar where the worlds largest captive breeding population is and it is in this setting Chris Watson takes Sir David back to the 1950’s and his early recording escapades, right through to today where David Attenborough narrates a series of Tweet of the Day’s on Radio 4 across the Christmas and New Year period

Guest Lecture – Mike Harding – Touch

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Blog post by Senior Lecturer Dr Dean Lockwood.

On Friday 18th October, Mike Harding, founder and supremo of Touch, came to LSM to talk to Audio Production students taking the critical studies module, Auditory Culture. Given that some of the key concerns of the module are debates around the concepts of noise and the soundscape, it was a great opportunity to talk to someone intimately involved with a label which has specialized in promoting artists exploring precisely these areas. As quickly became clear, Touch has a philosophical orientation which propels it way beyond the narrow exigencies of the music industry. Touch has always been conceived as an art project rather than simply a label. Because of its obsessively experimental ethos, it has survived pretty much on its own terms and has never fit well with the complacent mainstream and its genre categories. As Mike explained, Touch was established in the early eighties in the wake of punk. Capitalizing on the energies generated by the so-called ‘New Wave’ independent scene, Touch was a key post-punk project, its first releases heavily involved in early cassette culture and the ‘mixtape’ phenomenon. With cassette magazines such as Feature Mist and Ritual: Magnetic North, Touch presented sophisticated cut-ups and powerful work by bands such as New Order, Einstürzende Neubauten and Cabaret Voltaire, as well as musics from around the world (before such a thing as ‘World Music’ existed). ‘No one ever said no’, which stands as a great testament to the label’s reputation and integrity. Mike took us, in the first part of his talk, through the early history of Touch, spicing things up with personal anecdotes, and in the second part addressed Touch’s present concerns. It is the home of artists such as Christian Fennesz, Bruce Gilbert, Ryoji Ikeda and Chris Watson. Mike played us a good selection of pieces which some of these artists have put out on Touch. These artists have in common, I would suggest, what we might term an ecological sensibility, a particular attention to the relations which comprise acoustic space, sometimes through glitch aesthetics, sometimes through field recordings or other means.

On Saturday 19th, Touch presented two world premieres at Lincoln Cathedral as part of the Frequency festival. The evening, after Mike’s introduction, commenced with Anna Von Hausswolff’s performance of an austere, resonant new score for the organ, titled Källan. Chris Watson and Hildur Guðnadóttir then presented a stunning new collaborative multi-channel sound work, titled Sönghellir (The Cave of Song), which I think captivated everyone present. Touch’s website describes the work as ‘a sound journey from under the waters of Faxafloi, Iceland, alongside some of the largest animals on the planet. Up, onto the lava beach, across the lava fields and reindeer moss to the foot of the snow mountain, Snaefellsnes. The journey continues up and then into the mountain, ending inside Sönghellir, the song cave…’ It was a perfect example of the art of acoustic space that Touch releases exemplify.

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Abbey Road Studios

Cultural commentator Paul Morley explores a history of popular music through some of the iconic recording studios in which classic albums were created.

Without them music as we know it would simply not exist. There’d be no technology to capture the sounds envisaged by the musicians and created and enhanced by the engineers and producers… and there’d be no music for the record companies to market and distribute. But more than that, the studios actually played a crucial part in the structure and fabric of the music recorded there – the sounds enhanced by the studio space itself… the potential and shortcomings of the equipment and technology housed in the cubicles… and the ability and ‘vision’ of the engineers and producers operating it all to find the new sound that makes the recordings sound different and fresh.

Today he visits the world’s first purpose built recording studio, and possibly the most famous: the one at No 3, Abbey Road, a stone’s throw from a much photographed zebra crossing in London’s St John’s Wood. Opened by Sir Edward Elgar conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in a recording of “Land Of Hope And Glory”, the studios went on to record everyone from Adam Ant, The Bolshoi and Nick Cave… to XTC, Diana Yakawa and the Zombies – to say nothing of Pink Floyd and the Beatles.

But that’s not what’s drawn Paul Morley to these historic recording rooms – it’s the continuing work in capturing the sound of orchestras that is put under the spotlight in this programme. With the help of engineers and producers, composers and those that keep the studios running on a day to day basis, Paul explores how the relationship classical music has with the recording studio differs from the one that pop music enjoys.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.

Listen to the BBC Radio 4 programme here

DYNAMIC RANGE DAY

MARCH 16th is ‘Dynamic Range Day”


see: http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk

According to this campaign,”The Loudness War is a sonic “arms race” where every artist and label feel they need to crush their music onto CD at the highest possible level, for fear of not being “competitive” – and in the process removing all the contrast, all the light, shade and depth – ruining the sound.”
(taken from dynamicrangeday.co.uk)

THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS MORE

Big-name CD manufacturers are distorting sounds to make them seem louder. Sound quality suffers.

What is Dynamic Range Day ?

The “Loudness War” is built on the idea that “louder is better”. However this concept is fatally flawed. The goal of Dynamic Range Day is to reveal this flaw and spread an alternative message:

The fatal flaw of the “Loudness War” sound

In a nutshell: it doesn’t sound good.

Research shows there is no connection between “loudness” and sales
People don’t notice loudness when comparing songs
Dynamic music sounds better on the radio – here’s the proof
Modern music players undo loudness by using ReplayGain
Most listeners just turn loud music down !
So – “loud” music on CD has no benefit on the radio, online, on an mp3 player, or in your CD player. That’s why I call it a legend – the “Loudness War” makes no sense, in 2012.

Flying Robots play James Bond Theme

Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame. The quadrotors play this “couch guitar” by flying over guitar strings stretched across a couch frame; plucking the strings with a stiff wire attached to the base of the quadrotor. A special microphone attached to the frame records the notes made by the “couch guitar”.

These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments.

Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is home to some of the most innovative robotics research on the planet, much of it coming out of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab.

Hearing the Past

Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores what the past would have sounded like to our ancestors, and investigates how it is helping us to improve our acoustic designs of the future.

We hear what a singer in Coventry Cathedral would have sounded like before it was bombed in 1940, and how a Stonehenge ritual four thousand years ago had a bass-synthesiser effect going on that Depeche Mode would have been proud of!

Designers of modern concert venues are learning lessons from the layout of Stonehenge and we also learn how better acoustics in today’s buildings improve our quality of life, and can even save lives.

Producer: Jane Reck
An Alfi Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Click here to listen