Interesting video on BBC about the relation between hearing and sight. Read more about the McGurk Effect on Wikipedia.

via [SoundWorks]

A film portrait of Melodyne inventor Peter Neubäcker. For more Info visit the Celemony Website.

The man primarily behind such Celemony innovations as Melodyne, DNA Direct Note Access and Capstan is Peter Neubäcker – a passionate musician, researcher and inventor, who sets unusual goals for himself and manages even on occasion to realize in practice things that in theory can’t be achieved. It was the question “What does a stone sound like?” that led Peter Neubäcker to the invention of Melodyne around 15 years ago.

Beat made ONLY with bicycle sounds. The only processing effects used were compressor, distortion, delay and EQ.

What a great example of creative use with product sounds.

via [twitter]

Outstanding work!

Resonance is the vision of SR Partners; a collaborative project with over 30 independent visual and audio designers/studios. The aim was to explore the relationship between geometry and audio in unique ways.

For more details visit: resonance-film.com

Orange is testing a Sound Charge t-shirt at the Glastonbury Festival to charge Smartphones from Music Fans with the use of Sound Waves.

The eco charging device uses an existing technology in a revolutionary way; by reversing the use of a product called Piezoelectric film, allowing people to charge their mobile phones whilst enjoying their favourite headline act at Glastonbury. Usually found in modern hi-fi speakers, an A4 panel of the modified film is housed inside a t-shirt which then acts much like an oversized microphone by ‘absorbing’ invisible sound pressure waves. These sound waves are converted via the compression of interlaced quartz crystals into an electrical charge, which is fed into an integral reservoir battery that in turn charges most makes and models of mobile phone. As the ‘device’ is worn, a steady charge is able to be dispensed into the phone via a simple interchangeable lead which fits most handsets.

via [Gizmodo]

Martin Lindstrom, author of the book Buy-ology, explains Why a Baby’s Laugh Will Make You Buy.

via [Time]

Two great reads about an interactive album created by brothers Hays and Ryan Holladay, aka Bluebrain.

On Saturday, the Washington-based band of brothers, Hays and Ryan Holladay, will release what has been dubbed the world’s first location-aware album — an app designed for smartphones that uses Global Positioning System technology to trigger different swaths of electro-pop based on physical location. Titled “The National Mall,” the app-album can be heard only in Washington by iPhone-toting listeners strolling around the monuments and museums.

via [CDM] and [Washington Post]

Realtime sound visualisation made with custom software “Partitura”
Sound by Telefon Tel Aviv

an ongoing collaboration between Abstract Birds and Quayola

Partitura is a custom software to generate realtime graphics aimed at visualising sound. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms. Inspired by the studies of artists such as Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oscar Fischinger and Norman McLaren, the images generated by Partitura are based on a precise and coherent system of relationships between various types of geometries. The main characteristic of this system is its horizontal linear structure, like that of a musical score. It is along this linear environment that the different classes of abstract elements are created and evolve over time according to the sound. Partitura creates endless ever-evolving abstract landscapes that can respond to musical structures, audio analysis and manual gestural inputs. It is an instrument that visualises sound with both the freedom of spontaneous personal interpretation/improvisation and at the same time maintaining the automations and triggers of mathematical precision.

Partitura defines a coherent language of its own for the creation of new contemporary abstractions. It is within this system that Partitura creates worlds that expand from a single dot to multiple galaxies, from minimalism to complexity, from rigid to elastic, from solid to liquid, from angular to smoothness, from tentative to boldness, from calm to agitation, from slow to fast, from desaturated to saturation, from dark to lightness, from predictable to unpredictability. Literally ‘everything’ and its opposite… just like a musical flow.

Great summary at CDM of all the Music and Sound Nominees for this years Oscar.
Read the  whole post here.

Nice article on visualnews.com about the piano in modern music.

A fixture of both classical and modern music, the piano has been around since the early 1700s, and its predecessors, the harpsicord and clavichord, for much longer. Originally invented because it was able to produce more varied tones and volumes than what came before, it revolutionized music. However, it was only recently that the way a piano could be played was re-imagined, giving it far more tones… and in some cases, bringing into question whether it is even still a piano.

via [twitter]