Latest music technology PodPosts...

Spain does seem to be a hotbed of audio research these days; the Univesitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona brought us the ReacTable, and now engineers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia have devised a method of bending sound around an obstacle so that it effectively becomes inaudible…

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Sennheiser are currently running a sound design competition – or, more specifically, an audio logo competition. This is an interesting challenge for any musician, particularly if you’re looking for a new angle to fuel your creativity – as it’s an audio logo, it must be no more than eight seconds long…

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Synaesthesia is a condition (or ability) whereby two or more senses are experientially intermingled; synaesthetes often perceive letters as having a particular colour, or can experience music not only as sound but also as having form, texture and colour. Although synaesthesia is typically an involuntary congenital condition, a research group are developing a device that may allow blind people to ‘see’ by converting video images to sound…

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While the idea of a nude version of Lucas’ classic movie may have some appeal, today’s post presents a rather different angle on two popular pieces of music. I mentioned Radiohead’s release of Nude in stem form a while ago, and while many excellent remixes emerged, the one featured below is easily the most unusual I’ve heard (or seen)…and in a similar vein, we have a floppy disk playing the Emperor’s march from Star Wars…

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In my last post I advised that it may not be necessary to purge your home studio of all external sound – in fact, room sound may be beneficial to your recordings. However, it’s also a good idea to test for obtrusive resonances, as these can impair your ability to accurately balance a mix…

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Home studios have been popping up everywhere over the last decade. This is largely because computers became powerful enough to run sophisticated sequencer software, and the hardware required for a DAW also became affordable for hobbyists. One of the requirements of a professional studio is that it be perfectly soundproof and acoustically treated; however, it may not be either reasonable nor beneficial to attempt to achieve this at home…

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The standard audio CD plays back at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a bit depth of 16. As this is the highest resolution the vast majority of listeners will ever experience a recording at, and considering the fact that the upper threshold of human hearing is about 20 kHz, is there any real benefit to running your DAW at 96 kHz? Well, actually, yes there is…

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It’s very difficult to predict how people will respond to a given piece of music; everyone values music in a slightly different way, and at the heart of our musical taste is a largely undefinable emotional barometer. However, I suspect that a live performance by Terje Isungset, a Norwegian artist who plays instruments carved from pure ice, would send a shiver down anyone’s spine…

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What do calculus, the telephone, oxygen and sunspots all have in common? These are discoveries or inventions, of course, but are further united by one peculiar fact: they were all discovered or invented by at least two different people at the same time and completely independently…

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David Byrne has written many songs about buildings and food, but now he has converted an entire building into a musical instrument. His latest installation allows the public to perform on the Battery Maritime Building in New York…

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