Group items tagged

"WaveCloud-M is Matlab-oriented simulator which uses the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method to solve the linear acoustic wave-equation numerically. It originates from a simulation tool which I designed in 2010 to model rooms for my PhD thesis, which is called WaveCloud (without the M). The original WaveCloud project relies heavily on parallisation on a GPU and facilitates a means for large-scale modelling. Even though it is a powerful tool, it relies on specialised hardware and can be somewhat cumbersome as it requires some machine-specific tweaking. I have listened to feedback from many users, and accordingly, I decided to create a new version of WaveCloud, which can be run 'out of the box' from within Matlab, and does not require building any third-party components. This version only shares the name with the original WaveCloud, and its engine was re-designed from the core."

Echolocation "Experimenting with human boids during the previous sessions sparked the idea to use sound to determine the movement of our human agents. As we were looking at boids as a mean to simulate flocking behaviour of birds, it was proposed to explore also the behaviour of animals that employ echolocation to navigate in their environment, like Bats."

The project set out to give a rich and rigorous account of human perception of and response to soundscapes. To do this it used overlapping methods from a wide range of disciplines, ranging from the quantitative (e.g. acoustics) to the qualitative (e.g. social science) to the creative (e.g. sound art). Qualitative fieldwork (soundwalks and focus groups) determined that people conceptualised a soundscape into three components: sound sources (e.g. a market), sound descriptors (e.g. rumbling) and soundscape descriptors (e.g. hubbub). Lab-based listening tests along with the fieldwork have revealed that two key dimensions of the emotional response to a soundscape are calmness and vibrancy. In the lab these factors explain nearly 80% of the variance in listener response. Interview responses from real soundscapes further indicate that vibrancy can be expressed in two sub-dimensions expressing variation over time and over sound mix. Physiological validation of the main dimensions is provided by images of changes in the brain during listening from fMRI scans and by changes in heart rate. Artistic work and the public responses to it illustrate the huge range of sounds and soundscapes considered positive. Tools for simulating soundscapes have been developed and seem to be effective for several purposes, including design and public engagement - that is, sound play. The project results will lead to new metrics and assessment methods for soundscapes, new ideas for design and user engagement and, perhaps, better policy on environmental noise.

""Toward the Circle" is silent short film created during a research residency at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY. It presents a sequence of enclosures, each with a simulated burst of sound energy, that hints at an important relationship between sound and architecture. Zackery Belanger can be reached at zb@arcgeometer.com"

"This year I took part in Audio Game Jam 2. A game jam with the goal to raise awareness of accessibility issues experienced by visually impaired people when playing video games. If you haven't heard of audio games, these are games which are played mostly or solely through audio. There's lots of audio games across many genres like narrative adventures, flight simulators, RPG's, RTS games or even GTA style games."

"Today a growing group of sonic artists engage with plants as collaborators in their processes and creations. The duo Feral Practice invites audience members to sound walks in forests to reflect on ecological and social issues in the vicinity of trees. Sound artist Mileece senses signals from plants to develop sound-generating algorithms that she combines with field recordings to design immersive sound installations, a technology akin to the one used by Tosca Terán to detect activity in mycorrhizal systems which she converts into musical notes. Cristina Ochoa and Eduardo Vindiola read signalling activity in beets and modulate their rhythmic patterns to perform with them. Leslie Garcia studies plant communication to design prosthetic devices that simulate an abstract voice for plants through a process of biofeedback."

This interactive multimedia project historically and culturally situates hearing and listening in eighteenth-century Paris by re-imagining how we might present sonic artifacts to better understand auditioning subjects within pre-recording technology soundscapes. Through multiple pathways and thematic tags, the project simulates how Parisians would have interacted with the web of sonic knowledge that existed in eighteenth-century Paris. The project culls resources from across academic digital initiatives as well as popular, public platforms. This blend of sources puts into question stereotypical distinctions made between academic and public, scholarly and popular. Enjoy exploring Organs of the Soul through a choose-your-own-adventure format. And consider what constitutes your own unique auditory subjectivity.

"Acoustic Simulation and Visualization - VR Architectural Design to understand acoustic influence on design "

Artist China Blue and auditory neuroscientist Dr. Seth S. Horowitz have just finished their third session at NASA's Vertical Gun at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, recording hyper-velocity impacts in the giant near-vacuum chamber that lets planetary geologists simulate and understand the forces that have shaped terrains on earth and throughout the solar system.

"Resemble AI is among a new cohort of generative AI startups aiming to use finely tuned speech models to produce dubs, audiobooks, and other media ordinarily produced by regular human voices. But if such models, perhaps trained on hours of audio provided by actors, were to fall into malicious hands, these companies may find themselves at the center of a PR disaster and perhaps serious liability. So it's very much in their interest to find a way to make their recordings both as realistic as possible and easily verifiable as being generated by AI."

"In 1939, an astonishing new machine debuted at the New York World's Fair. It was called the "Voder," short for "Voice Operating Demonstrator."  It looked sort of like a futuristic church organ"

"Resemble AI supercharges your AI voice with a text-to-speech AI voice generator and real-time APIs to build immersive experiences."

"Crumpling a thin sheet produces a characteristic sound, comprised of distinct clicking sounds corresponding to buckling events. We propose a physically based algorithm that automatically synthesizes crumpling sounds for a given thin shell animation. The resulting sound is a superposition of individually synthesized clicking sounds corresponding to visually significant and insignificant buckling events. We identify visually signifi- cant buckling events on the dynamically evolving thin surface mesh, and instantiate visually insignificant buckling events via a stochastic model that seeks to mimic the power-law distribution of buckling energies observed in many materials. In either case, the synthesis of a buckling sound employs linear modal analysis of the deformed thin shell. Because different buckling events in general occur at different deformed configurations, the question arises whether the calculation of linear modes can be reused. We amortize the cost of the linear modal analysis by dynamically partitioning the mesh into nearly rigid pieces: the modal analysis of a rigidly moving piece is retained over time, and the modal analysis of the assembly is obtained via Component Mode Synthesis (CMS). We illustrate our approach through a series of examples and a perceptual user study, demonstrating the utility of the sound synthesis method in producing realistic sounds at practical computation times."

"I first heard about voice donation while listening to "Being Siri," an experimental audio piece about Erin Anderson donating her voice to Boston-based voice donation company, VocaliD. Like a digital blood bank of sorts, VocaliD provides a platform for donating one's voice via digital audio recordings."

"In order to design a computer game soundscape that allows a game player to feel immersed in theirvirtual world, we must understand how we navigate and understand the real world soundscape. In thischapter I will explore how sound, particularly in urban spaces, is increasingly categorised as noise,ignoring both the social signicance of any soundscape and how we use sound to interpret and negotiate space. I will explore innovative methodologies for identifying an individual's perception of soundscapes. Designing virtual soundscapes without prior investigation into their cultural and social meaning could prove problematic."

None of the music on this website exists. But don't you wish it did? The reviews that make up this preview of EAR WAVE EVENT were created by a neural network fed and trained on contemporary music press. Inverting the normal flow of music criticism, we invite artists to use these reviews prescriptively - to create realizations of musics 'imagined' by a prosthetic mind.