GlitchDS Sample Pack: The Sounds of Mortima T #1 (Universe)
May 28th, 2008Here’s my first sample pack for the really cool up and coming DS homebrew music/sound app DSGlitch. It’s a sequencer and sound glitcher based on John Conway’s Game of Life where each position in the grid can trigger one out of six samples.
The sound is kind of random and I like it so much that I’m planning to make a concept album with sounds processed by the program, with the corresponding sample pack to go with it. (I’m making some tight ass samples for it!)
Until then, I’m going to release a number of sample packs based on the incredibly jazzy and moody sounds of Mortimer Twang’s Amiga mods. More packs coming when I feel like it!
Watcha waiting for?
First grab a copy of GlitchDS for your Nintendo DS
Then grab the Mortima T samplepack
Update: To the best of my knowledge, here’s the first track using samples from the pack: Just For Her by Litebritedeath
.txt:
The Sounds of Mortima Tee
=========================
what: sample pack
for: glitchds
samples from: universe.mod (#1)
this is the first in a series of sample packs
based on the ameega mods by sweet fatha mortima
twang. The sounds were exported as played in the
mod, sliced when necessary and given minor edits
this first pack contains samples from universe,
a moody downtempo mod with a nice vintage sound
consisting of beautiful strings and a bass line
made with a double bass sample
these packs will be made in respect to mortima's
moody, jazzy, trippy, groovy sounds. to listen
to the original mods, pay this website a visit
http://www.mono211.com/modsoulbrother/mt.html
original sounds by mortimer
twang aka lukas nystrand
compiled by: nitro2k01
This sample pack is licensed with the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. It gives you the right to share and remix the work if the resulting work is non-commercial and attribution is given to the original creator. (That is, Mortimer Twang!)
Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating vs 50 Cent - Ayo Technology (Who sampled who?)
May 13th, 2008I saw this video where it is claimed that Timbaland (And in the extension 50 Cent) stole the riff for Ayo Technology from Crystal Castles’ Courtship Dating. An interesting assertion, but allow me to demonstrate why this is most likely not the case. I’ve already written a previous post about CC and the copyright controversy, and I’ve got a few search enginge hits with queries like “Crystal Castles Timbaland” so why not sort this out once for all?
Quick Lesson: Sampling vs Sequencing of arpeggios
Time to analyze the sound. First a quick lesson about what the sound consists of. The characteristic chip effect heard in both song is a fast arpeggio, ie a number of notes played in quick succession. This technique was used to play chords on old sound chips because they only had a limited number of channels. (Often 3 or 4) Arpeggios were (and are) so widely used in classic video game music that they have become reminiscent of that era. (And they are still being used in today’s chip music, of course)
In essence, an arpeggio is nothing but a melody, although a fast one. Usually arpeggios in old-style trackers (which is what these music sequencers are called) the arpeggio are in sync with the general tempo of the song. This is design choice was not made for estethical reasons, but for practical ones. It’s simply hard to program software that plays an arpeggio out of sync with the global tempo of the song. (When targetting a low spec computer platform)
The main point is that a sequenced arpeggio will keep its tempo regardless of the key the chord is played in.
If you sample something (Anything, not a just arpeggios) the situation is different. If you pitch something up or down, not only the pitch will be changed, but also the tempo*. Think of it as a vinyl record on a record player. If you slow the record down a bit you can lower the pitch by, say, a semitone, but in the same time the record will play about 6% slower.
The main point here is that when chaing the pitch of something you’ve sampled (without using special techniques) you’ll also change the tempo.
*There are ways around this, using so called time-streching, but that’s not relevant to this argument.
Who sampled and who sequenced?
What does this mean for the comparison between these tracks?
Let’s have a listen at a clip from Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating.
Download Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating
It’s a 5 bar loop, where the last bar is a repetition of the first one. As you can hear, the speed of the arpeggio is different, depending on which key it’s played in. Apart from that, the arpeggio is (grossly) out of sync with the overall tempo. This clearly indicates that CC took a sample of an arpeggio from somewhere, looped it, loaded it into a sampler and played it at different keys.
Let’s listen to a clip of 50 Cent - Ayo Technology instead.
Download 50 Cent - Ayo Technology
This is a 2 bar loop (Or possibly 4 bar, depending on which tempo you think it is) The arpeggio is in sync with the overall tempo, and the it remains the same tempo no matter which key it’s played in. This indicates that this is either an original creation by Timbaland, or if it is ripped from a C64 tune, at least he took the effort to record it in sync with the rest of the song. Pay special attention to the transition between D#m and C#m in Timbaland’s version. (See the chord notation below) It’s smooth and keeps in tempo even during that fast transition.
If he sampled it from CC, he would’ve needed to apply a lot of micro-editing in order to get it in sync with the overall tempo.
The Chord Progressions
What about the chords?
According to the comments for this video, the chord progression in Ayo Technology could be either G#m, D#m, C#m or G#m, F#, E. (D#m and F# are similar to each other, and so are C#m and E.)
CC’s version has about the same progression of chords, but the chords are played in a slightly flatter key. It’s about one semitone flat compared to Timbaland’s, but not exactly. CC’s arpeggio is slightly out of tune with regard to the standard 12-tone scale, whereas Timballand’s arpeggio is perfectly in tune with the 12-tone scale.
So, the chord progression is the same, but different in timing. Both play the brightest chord first, the middle chord in the middle, and the flattest chord last.
CC plays the brightest chord during one bar, (Corresponding to G#m above) the middle one for one bar (Corr. to D#m/F#) and then the dimmest chord for two bars(Corr. to C#m/E)
Timba on the other hand plays the G#m for the whole first bar, then a D#m/F# for the most of the second bar, and finally C#m/E for a short portion of the second bar.
Or to put it graphically:
| Bar | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Ayo Technology | G#m | G#m | D#m | D#m,C#m |
| Courtship Dating | G#m (-1 semitone) | D#m (-1 semitone) | C#m (-1 semitone) | C#m (-1 semitone) |
All in all, CC’s production is far worse than that of Timbaland. It would’ve taken alot of work in order to shape up it up to how it sounds in Ayo Tech. Considering the things CC did “wrong” (Their arpeggio is out of sync and out tune) and the things Timbaland did “right” (His arpeggio is in sync and in tune) it’s highly unlikely that Timbaland sampled CC’s arpeggio.
It might very well be that he listened to their song and decided to mimic the sound of it, but did he sample it, no, most likely not!
The Rest of the Story / the Verdict
Let’s look at the things surrounding the story. The video in the beginning of the post mentions a lawsuit where CC won over Timbaland. I’ve googled for this lawsuit and I haven’t found anything substantial. I’ve found a couple of references to the video linked in the beginning of the post, but nothing more than that. (Edit: Ooops, the video just says “Timbaland Loses”, without a reference to any lawsuit. My bad.)
The video also mentions the year for Courtship Dating is 2006, and then says “Fast forward one year to 2007″. This is a bit of a stretch. The first public appearance for this song was in December 2006 (link to video) and still a bit into 2007 they said they still hadn’t recorded the songs in a studio. I don’t remember where I read that, but if I find it again, I’ll post it here. Ayo Technology was released in July 2007. (Source) So 6 months is a better estimate I think.
Anyway, here’s my take on it: The chord progression is actually pretty generic. I think the two songs were created independently of each other, and that CC decided to jump on the train and spread a rumour when they heard Ayo Technology, to receive attention after Timbaland’s recent sampling of Janne Suni’s (Tempest’s) Acidjazzed Evening.
We might never know for sure.
Michael Jackson and the music in Sonic The Hedgehog
May 11th, 2008A guy I talked to at Microdisko told me about how he was in love with the sound from YM2612 FM chip in the Genesis/Megadrive, although most game music composers at the time didn’t know how to fully utilize the chip’s full potential. He (as well as I) love the music of Sonic 2 and beyond.
And today I stumbled upon the awesome news that some of the tracks in Sonic 2 might have been composed by Michael Jackson. Yes, that Michael Jackson, the king of pop. Apparently he composed music for the games, but then it was removed when the pedophilia accusations started to pop up. This video show a compelling argument, supported by statements by former Sega employees, that the music in fact remained in the final games.
Unfortunately, they won’t let me embed it. :/
So here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVM-l2Oku4
Instead, I’ll put a video of Streets of Rage here, which my newfound friend told me about for the music. It’s nothing actually nothing short of rave music, and I love it.
More Broccoli!
May 6th, 2008Back once again with the IRC quotes. Do watch the video!
On a related note, I think a part of the Bee March melody resembles the classic Super Mario melody. Ok, it’s only a couple of notes, but I’m still wondering if that might be where Koji Kondo got his original spark of inspiration from… We might never know!
18:31 -!- CalmDownKidder [...@user-5af482c6.sqy145.dsl.pol.co.uk]
has joined #8bc
18:31 < _2tronik01> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GabHGlGm14 An
ocarina made from broccoli!!?!?!?!
18:32 <@Dauragon> :O
18:32 <@Dauragon> oh shit son
18:32 <@Dauragon> its CalmDownKidder
18:32 < CalmDownKidder> where?
18:32 < Inkoddi> I made a whistle from a carrot once
18:32 * CalmDownKidder looks around
18:34 < CalmDownKidder> a cucumber, when inserted into a person’s
bottom can produce all sorts of spectrums of
noise
18:34 <@Dauragon> D:
18:35 < Inkoddi> broccoli is perfect for instrument making
18:35 < Inkoddi> since it is really dense
18:35 < Inkoddi> and quite hard
18:35 <+herr_prof> and has natural rythm
18:36 < CalmDownKidder> The “more cowbell” sketch was originally
“more broccoli”
Crystal Castles and Chip Music Copyright Infringements
May 6th, 2008Introduction
Here’s a little rant about Crystal Castles and their recently revealed copyright violations. First off I think I should explain why I care at all. I generally do support copyright violation, and I willingly take part in downloading as well as uploading copyrighted material to various P2P networks. However, I draw a line between the act of personally copying and sharing material for no other gain than the material itself, and using copyright violation as a means of generating a monetary profit. The previous is inevitable in today’s age of information while the latter, at least from case to case, can be seen as morally wrong.
Rant about CC and Copyright in General
Another argument that needs to be acknowledged is that sampling is an integral part of today’s electronic music scene. The story about the Amen break comes into mind. The Amen was a breakbeat from a 1969 record that was sampled and quickly grew popular in the early 90’s. It was highly influencial to at least these genres of music: Jungle, Rave, Drum and Bass, Hiphop, and probably others too. Why do I bring up the Amen here? Because it’s an example of where sampling led to innovation. It is also an example of where underground producers sampled mainstream material and turned it into something original.
Crystal Castles’ use of sampling, however, is quite the opposite: It’s an example of a mainstream producer sampling underground musicians. And it’s also an example of, should we call it anti-innovation, where something quote original is taken and being adapted to the mainstream. You end up in a situation where the newly created work is less innovative than the works being sampled.
This is not something that is unique to CC though. A number of less known artists have outright stolen materials from others, claiming it to be their own. However, more notably, hip-hop producer Timbaland sampled the song Acidjazzed Evening by finnish Amiga musician Janne Suni, and used it in Nelly Furtado’s song Do It, without any attribution to Janne. It has come to a point where “Being Timbalanded” is a common expression on the scene to describe when someone’s work is used in the mainstream without permission.
It seems like people like Timbaland and Crystal Castles think that just because the chip music scene is mostly based on altruism and non-profit sharing of one’s music, it means that the chip music is in the public domain, being free for anyone to use as they see fit.
I’m wondering if the unauthorized sampling of chiptunes is a very conscious move from CC’s side. They know they’ve got enough money to pay expensive lawyers, and in the end the sampled artists might not care about their rights. And even if the original artist does care, files a law suit and wins, a major record label has enough money to pay the damages, and in the same time CC gets attention. In the end most listeners don’t care about whether their idols sampled someone else. “All attention is good attention” , as the saying goes.
I’m even starting to wonder whether Crystal Castles as a concept is based on stealing other’s materials without permission. The new kind of punk, copyright infringement for money.
In the same time they’ve managed to popularize their music in a way the chip musicians have not been able to. Could it be that most people can not appreciate pure chip sounds, but need something else, more mainstreamed, more polished, or in other words, party music that is danceable and not too abstract. From that point of view they’re definitely filling a need, be it at the expense of others.
Claims of Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Materials by Crystal Castles
Their album Crystal Castles and Trevor Brown
It turned out that the original Crystal Castles’ album with the same name had a cover using the artwork of the graphical artist Trevor Brown, a picture of Madonna with a black eye. (Top image) The same picture had previously been used for a cassette cover released about 1999 by the Japanese label Beast 666 Records. (Bottom image)
Here’s his story in brief:
Crystal Castles used his artwork for their debut 7″ record, and T-shirts without asking Trevor Brown for permission. A friend of his notified him. He contacted CC’s lawyers to get compensation. They sent him a contract with ridiculous terms that they wanted him to sign.
You can read his full story here
“Love and Caring” <-> Covox - Sunday
I heard CC’s song Love and Caring and I immediately recognized beats from Covox’ Sunday. But what if, for the sake of argument, CC managed to produce a sound which was just quite similar to that of Covox’ song. Or heck, if they even tried to emulate the sound that he managed to achieve in Sunday.
Well, here’s the funny part. Apart from on a rare demo CD (Which I btw happen to own) it was only ever released to the public as a demo MP3 on his website. The said MP3 file is encoded with a low bitrate, which gives the sound defects that are very easy to spot with some spectral analysis. Not only could I determine that CC are using the beats from Sunday, but the patterns were so significant that I could determine that CC was using the first and second beat from Covox’ song.
These images shows the two first beats from both the songs, CC at the top, Covox at the bottom. The first thing you can notice is the overall similarity between the two. There’s a large gap between 9 kHz and 12 kHz, because of the MP3 compression. There are also some little quirks that I’ve especially pointed out. (Green circles) They are everywhere of course, since it’s the same sound, but the ones pointed out are easy to see.
Also, the hits in Covox’ song look different for each hit, because the MP3 compression takes a little differently on each hit. On the other hand in CC’s song every hit of the same type has the same quirks, meaning it’s the same beat user over and over, and this happens to be the first and second beat, coressponding a kick and hihat.
I’ll also take the opportunity to point to things with CC’s mastering. Notice the vertical lines (Marked with blue arrows) these indicate clipping of the waveform, aka distortion. Also notice the horizontal line, also marked with a blue arrow. This is an artefact from when Sunday was recorded. It’s a form of high pitched tone which I actually hear as a separate sound because of the boosting of those frequencies. (Ouch) Btw, since this tone is at a little below 16 kHz, I can tell Sunday was probably recorded off of a Super Gameboy rather than a DMG.
Covox - Sunday can be downloaded here: http://www.covox.net/?audio
Right now I don’t know a place to listen to the song in full for free, but you can listen to a portion of it here:
Download
I deem this as ok from a copyright point of view since most of the quoted material doesn’t belong to them anyway.
“Insecticon” <-> Lo-Bat - My Little Droid Needs A Hand and Covox - Sunday
Basically the same song with different pitch. Insecticon can be downloaded from their MySpace. The original song can be downloaded from Lo-Bat’s front page:http://www.lo-bat.be/. They’re using the same drum samples from Sunday.
The sampling of Lo-Bat breaks the Creative Commons license, ironically also abbreviated CC.
Here’s a comparison between the two. (Updated video)
“TV Babies” <-> X-agon - Lamerina
This one is blatantly obvious.
TV Babies: (Skip to 00:50)
X-agon - Lamerina:
X-agon - Lamerina
TV Babies is unreleased.
Everybody! I need your help! If you know of other songs which have been or might have been ripped off by CC, please leave a comment here if you find something.
More infos:
Discussion on 8bitcollective
Article on Create Digital Music
Creative Commons
Update 1
This was dug up from the thread on 8bc:
Andy, representing Crystal Castles, sent this to Lameboy, one of the admins on 8bc.
Andy:
I’m not sure if I was clear in my message to you that songs with Lo-Bat samples were left off the CC album because we didn’t have the sample clearance. Many songs were left off the CD because we needed more time to clear the samples. We are hoping to have the songs on a future release (maybe a rarities/demos/remixes compilation) and would love to clear this with Lo-Bat. If you can get a contact for him through the 8bit forum that would be great and we can finally release these tracks.
It’s a sign of courtesy, but there are still things to be sorted out. More later.
Update 2
“xxzxczx me” <-> Eat Rabbit - ???
Quoted here as being stolen from an Eat Rabbit tune. Still need details on which one.
Mr Rabbit says he can’t hear traces of his own tracks in xxzxczx me. So I’ll strike that one out.
Update 3
It has come to my attention that the track Mother Knows Best samples Lo-Bat’s track Tizzy almost off the shelf. And Covox’ drums are there in the background as usual too.
This track was released on a 7″ vinyl, and is still for sale through iTunes.
Listen to TizzyTizzy
Listen to Mother knows best on last.fm
There used to be an official video for the track on Youtube, but it was removed.
Update 4
Added this video to the section about insecticon .
Update 5
Added TV Babies to the list.
Update 6
Check out my new article Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating vs 50 Cent - Ayo Technology (Who sampled who?) which investigates the similarities between Ayo Technology and Courtship Dating.
There’s also a new Myspace profile called Crystal Theft with the purpose of spreading the word about this. Show your support by adding them to your top friends list.
Update 7
The song description for the song Insecticon on their Myspace now says “CC vs. Lo-Bat unreleased demo 2004″. Now I’m just waiting for an official announcement saying that the song will be relased under a Creative Commons license.
ADLib Tracker
March 4th, 2008More Youtube! This time it’s my Pentium 100 MHz laptop playing som AD lib tunes with ADLib Tracker ][. The tunes are Chipmunk, Comic Bakery and Super Mario Land Theme, from the collection of modules that comes with the program. Someday I'll try to sit down and track something myself. And some other day maybe I will tell the story of how I managed to use HDD in the laptop, where the CD used to be. Without the consent of the BIOS.
One American Second by Norman Fairbanks
December 4th, 2007One American Second (The Great American Radio Play) is a sort of mixtape about American culture. It consists of three episodes of about 50 minutes, of carefully arranged snippets of sound, most of it presumably all of it is from the radio. I think it represents American culture well in the sense that it touches the taboos, fears as well as the pride and values I think many Americans have about their nation. I like the playfulness of this work by Fairbanks - he has a way of playing with sounds and what they express in a way that I haven’t seen many other do. (Perhaps I’ve looked in the wrong places)
I also like how he’s able apply a different mood from what was inended in the original recordings, to each clip. This is done by changing the context by choosing the order he puts the clips in, and also by mood-creating music.
Much of the work consists of talk, and there’s also alot of music. I imagine some of it (The electro music) was produced by himself, but most of it is probably sampled radio material, and those parts, I think, is a good representation for the USA in different ways.
I imagine some proud Americans would be genuinely insulted by hearing this work. But for us other people, this is a recommended piece of art!
Pocketnoise by Christoph Kummerer - A Gameboy music program I never heard of!
December 3rd, 2007I discovered the program Pocketnoise by Christoph Kummerer today, in this video:
A quick google gave me that the ROM is not available. Does anyone know more about this program or have valid contact information for Christoph Kummerer? From what I found on the net, it seems like the guy made this program and then disappeared from the surface of the planet. Or is perhaps Christoph someone I know from the GB music community, just not under that name?
Shuffle game
July 12th, 2007I was invited by Optimus to play this little net game. You open a load of song you like in a music player of your choice, and play with shuffle on.
Then you answer how well each song fits each question, one at a time.
My problem is that I don’t use playlists, so I don’t have a playlist with favourites. I almost always handpick songs or albums. And I decided doing so would take away much of the randomness that makes this game fun.
So my last resort was to drop local HD music collection into the playlist. (14.4 GB, 3820 files, I’ve got plenty more in other dirs and on other drives)
I randomized the playlist a couple of times, set shuffle on, and clicked next…
If someone says “is this ok” then you say:
047 - Falsäljing - Jolly happy like only 047 can. Sure it is ok!
What would best describe your personality?
Gijs Gieskes - huiu_alla_hakkuh - A very chaotic chiptune. Is that me? Chaos and chip music? Makes sense…
What do you look in a guy/girl?
Tobias Bernstrup feat. Mai Ueda - Pirates Of The Internet - Actually, I don’t think I could be together with a girl who’s not a pirate.
How do you feel today?
Mortimer Twang - Fellow Mellow - A happy chippie mod by Mortima T. Fits my mood surpringly well.
What is your life’s purpose?
The dark knight (TDK) - Russian Theme - Another chipmod… (I have too many :p ) I don’t if it’s right… It changes mood over time, maybe that’s right?
What is your life motto?
Clipz - Forever Feat. Tali - A dnb tune about eternal love, (I think) which I don’t believe in. Or maybe the vocals were just shallowly placed there for no real reason. Although a great tune, I don’t think it reflects my motto.
What do your friends think of you?
Paza - Arabläkaren (Translation: The Arab Doctor) - More chip music, with weird arabic chants in top! Making stange noises, coming from another planet?
What do you think of your parents?
Jamiroquai - Main vein
What are you going to do to make me hate me
I can’t see how you can this time
A fistful of lies and a verbal decimation
It’s so sad but baby keep on trying
I got no chains or fancy aspirations
But I’ve still got a losing streak
I don’t need praise or instant admiration No no no
It takes more than you to make me weak
A funky house tune. Although the lyrics are written in a totally different context, they’re at least partially correct.
What is 2+2
Random - Give Me Your Day (Psilodump Remix Beta 1) - Makes no sense. I was actually hoping for Bud Melvin’s 1+1 = 1+1 here. 
What do you think of your best friend?
Mortimer T - Chip jungle - More chippy music. Who could’ve guessed? My best friend is into both chip and jungle music, but I don’t think he’d like this one. I was hoping for something with more of a message.
What do you think of the person you like?
Astral Projection - Sativa (Deep atmosphere sfx remix) - An AP tune about sitting in the studio smoking weed, or something like that. Hmmm, no nothing like her. (Or me for that matter)
What is your life’s story
Trance Control - In Trance we Trust - A part of my musical story longing for about 3 years, otherwise pretty inaccurate.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th - No relationship. \:
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Ikuma Morata - Fami 2 Step - No \:
What will they play at your funeral?
Psilodump - Senki Otus Part 1 - Probably not \: Perhaps a piece of classical style musical based on the main lead…
What is your hobby/interest?
Herbert Weixelbaum - Tanzmusik - A Gameboy tune, other than that not giving too many hints.
What is your biggest fear?
Psilodump - rescue.mp3 - Seems to be about drowning (Perhaps from a mental point of view)
What is your biggest secret?
Jega - Syntax Tree - Neh…
What do you think of your friends?
Benny B - Dont Touch Too Much (Sfaction mix) - About my need for intimacy and being alone?
This didn’t really work out as expected, so I’ll just start over from the question where it started to go havoc. I’ll randomize the playlist two more times and press next…
What is 2+2
Psilodump - Pocket Calculator - There we go!
What do you think of your best friend?
Acidwolf - MMM - Nah
What do you think of the person you like?
Heavens Cry - Til’ Tears Do Us Part [Flash Harry Mix] - Why not?
What is your life’s story
Norah Jones - Don’t Know Why
Don’t Know Why
I waited till I saw the sun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I left you by the house of fun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I don’t know why I didn’t come
When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand
My heart is drenched in wine
Hmm…
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Dave Koz - Together Again - Nope…
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Psilodump - The Somnambulist (Din Stalker Remix) - She’s a somnambulist and I’m her stalker. 
What will they play at your funeral?
Astral Projection - Black & White - Nope.
What is your hobby/interest?
Goblin Sound - Tetris (NES version) - Yay!
What is your biggest fear?
Nintendo - Donkey Kong (NES version) - Hahaha! No!
What is your biggest secret?
seVeneleVen - Rings Of Medusa - The Last Crusade ReMIX - Yes!
What do you think of your friends?
Ninteno - Cluclu Land - What’s up with winamp’s shuffle function?? So many nsf’s in such a short time?
So who to invite? I don’t know how many people actually read my blog, less how many people would like to participate in a game like this.
But anyway, here are my invitations: Vickei, omniuwo, pepino, Andrew Nesbitt, Elmindreda.
Alternative speakers made of flames, Tesla coils, fans and air!
June 20th, 2007Did you think that a speaker must consist of a vibrating membrane? Wrong! There are various other methods of creating sound. All it takes is something that makes the air vibrate. Or rather strictly speaking, anything that makes your eardrum vibrate. It’s possible to create an audible sound by vibrating the skullbone, and in turn the eardrum and the rest of your ear’s hearing mechanisms. Such headphones do exist and are being sold primarily to swimmers.
But even on land there are various more or less weird ways of making the air vibrate. The reason I decided to finally write this post is because of a cool link that Tiago (xernobyl) sent me. And with or without his knowledge, I’m a sucker for Tesla coils.
It’s a video of a speaker consisting of a Tesla coil. Tesla coils are generally used to produce high voltages that create sparks in the air, mad scientist style. A tesla coil should be feeded with an AC current in order for it to do its job, and this guy came up with the idea of modulating the carrier frequency to produce sound.
(Click the image to see the video)
It seems like the sound has a bit-depth of 1-bit, making it ideal for chiptunes, and sure enough in the video showcase he played both music from Super Mario Bros (The underground theme) and Gameboy Tetris Type A music. There was also a first tune in the video that I don’t recognize. If you readers have a suggestion, tell me.
As a side note. The Super Mario Bros underground music seems to be very much inspired by a riff from George Duke’s 1979 record Brazilian Love Affair (From the first song, which shares its name with the album) I haven’t listened through the whole album for more possible sources of inspiration for Koji Kondo.
However… I’d like to have on of these! I’d hook it up with MIDI or something and make it a full fledged synth. One of the first things that I’d try to do is to add polyphony. Since the modulation in question is probably only a simple PCM, I’d try to increase the virtual bit depth, so to speak. Two or four square waves isn’t too much to ask for, right?
The Tesla coil link also reminded me of another thing I’ve been planning to post for some time. I’ve found a 1970 magazine about technology, and one article caught my attention. It was about one of those crazy inventions that never left the drawing board because for reason or other.
What I found was an article about a so called flame speaker. In some weird way it uses a speaker to amplify a sound. The scanned article is in Swedish, but Google has (at least) two more useful links, with scans from English magazines from the time.
http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/May1968/Flame_Amplification.htm
http://www.4×4pride.org/Flame/Docs/FlameAmp/FlameAmp.html
Click images for full article scans (in Swedish)
I’d like to build a flame amplifier/speaker at some point. But a fair guess is that the bass response is pretty bad. What to do about that? Just go buy a sub woofer?
Not me! I’d complete it with a Rotary Woofer. In simple terms you could say that this is a fan that pushes the air back and forth, and so creating the sound.
So for the last onconventional type of speaker. It’s called a bumbimagi… No it isn’t, RastaMahn, STFU and get a life. It’s the directional type of speaker. It works not by producing any audible sound itself. Instead it produces a beam of ultrasound, which is inaudible to humans. (But is audible and even painful for dogs, and can still damage human ears, but that’s another story) The ultrasound then gets distorted in the air which produces audible frequencies.
The effect is similar to what happens when you play two notes on an instrument with a certain interval. (I don’t remember which interval now) the tones create a subharmonic. This is a technique used primarily by xylophonists. In a more controlled form the effect can, as mentioned, be used to create directed sound. The sound audible to humans is only audible within the pillar of air, defined by the direction of the speaker.
The product is being sold by the company HoloSonics, and they also have a little more information on the technology.
This post also comes with a couple of bonuses, things that I happened to find or do during the research for the post.
Here are some more scans from the Swedish 1970 magazine with article about flame amplification. (Flamhögtalare in Swedish)
The magazine is called “Tekniken idag” (Technology Today) which seems to be a special issue of “Tekniskt magasin” (The Technology Magazine)
Cover (Omslag)
The Computer, quickwitted, but dumb, spread 1 (Datamaskinen, snabbtänkt men dum, uppslag 1) - An article from back then about computers.
The Computer, quickwitted, but dumb, spread 2 (Datamaskinen, snabbtänkt men dum, uppslag 2) - Contains an image of a 1970 light pen and big big memory grid from the same year.
“Elmar” has the first artificial brain (”Elmar” har den första konstgjorda hjärnan) - An article about father of today’s robotic vacuum cleaners. However, “Elmar” is very stupid, it only uses one photocell to back off it comes to close to something… And that’s all it does I think.
There are also a few more retrospective articles about astronomy, satellite spionage, supraconduction, the Loch Ness monster, PCMI microfilm, Hikari, (the world’s fastest train at the time) an article about the future of television, (Amazingly mentioning flat TV’s) a test of a car PA, an article about Jules Vernes, and a collection of articles about space, which was the theme of the issue in question. There were also a few articles about cars and motor cycles that I didn’t find interesting enough to mention. (And whose contents are probably outdated, even from a retrospective point of view)
I can scan any of the articles mentioned, at request.
The other bonus is an album containing the complete sound track of Super Mario World, played on (mostly) acoustic instruments. Normally I tend to think that video game covers on traditional instruments tend to sound like shit, but this guy manages to do it in a proper way. The album has a professional touch to it, kind of like how Nintendo would do it to paraphrase the classic game in one of their newer titles.
So, check it out.
