The Sound of a Comet...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

From NASA...

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/rosettas-singin ... GOYLIe77ct

I messed with the audio in MachFive-3 (what else) a little and played the sound in a few different octaves. I'm using one part (not heard here) in the sound design for a theater design I'm working on for a January 2015 opening. There's a nice wind kind of sound around :22 to :26 in the original NASA file (linked at the NASA site above). That's what I'm lifting for my sound design. Director loves it (and the origins) and it works incredibly well in the cue in question.

The sound is pretty new to our civilization and I suspect no one has done too much manipulation. What I discovered that is so interesting is if you lower the pitch you almost get the exact same pulse tempo underlying and at fast tempos, you still hear the same rhythm except in the extremes where it either sounds like a '63 Buick Rivera (in low register) or a mosquito (in the upper) and some variation in-between. That may need some clarification but please don't ask me for it. Put another way, when you slow the sound down, you can here pulses that were not immediately audible when played faster, but they're there. If you read the article, you'll learn that the actual sound is a few octaves below what they out one the site, and subsequently below human hearing, so it's already altered. It also sounds like they added some "design elements" like reverb at the end to make it more mysterious. I'd really love to hear the "un-redacted" version and mess with that a little.

Also, when I try to edit the sound in MachFive, it tends to cause a break and distortion in the audio regardless of where I place the cuts. The soundbite display "flatlines" causing audio crapola. It's al It’s almost as if you’re trying to break a strand of DNA and it just won’t let you without destroying it in the process. I find it fascinating to think of sound itself as being living thing. I haven't tried editing in DP8 yet, but when I have more time I want to really play with this.

Here's the beginning of the sound being messed with in M5. Can't wait to put it in IRCAM stuff.

http://www.midilifecrisis.com/Music_and ... t_test.wav

This is way cool and actually a landmark in the history of our civilization. It's a good time to be alive! I wonder if the sound feels the same way?

[Prime Mover]

Damnit! I wish I could get ahold of the original raw file, as I doubt that's all they have. I'm working with a guy who produces sounds for people to fall asleep to, and we've found that random noise samples things like this are really popular. I would do a lot of manipulation. Any idea how I could get ahold of the originals?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Any easier questions. I assume it's PD. Most NASA stuff is but this is ESA as well.

[cuttime]

Any easier questions. I assume it's PD. Most NASA stuff is but this is ESA as well.

I wouldn't assume that it is PD:
http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2014/ ... comet-data

[Shooshie]

I'm working with a guy who produces sounds for people to fall asleep to...

Yeah, me too. Only not intentionally.

[BKK-OZ]

Spacey.
Echoes of Telstar.

How can anyone copyright the sound of a comet?
Or, put another way, anyone want to buy a plot on the moon they are for sale you know.

[Shooshie]

Kudos to ESA (or NASA, or whomever) for picking up sinusoidal activity at 1/10,000 hz. Kudos to ESA for planning and carrying out a mission to orbit a ship and land a probe on a space rock traveling at thousands of miles per hour. The analogies with slingshots or even precision rifles are simply too strained to appreciate the staggering technology that goes into such journeys.

But foo on ESA for being so slow with the pictures. I understand their need to keep the home advantage to their research, but they could release scaled-down pictures and just keep us informed on what's happening, WHILE it's happening, while the interest is high, while people are excited and willing to learn. Releasing it a year later, or even 6 months, will catch most people long after they've forgotten "comet who?"

Meanwhile, those are pretty nifty sounds. It's like Space Whales. I hope they learn how the sounds are being produced. My guess is that outgassing passes through cracks and fissures, possibly even "pipes," setting up the vibrations as molecules of gas move from pressure to vacuum, accounting for the multiple overtones or pitches in the sound, along with the variations and fluctuations. Or it could be ringing from space collisions. At its temperatures, it could ring like a bell for years after a collision with a small rock. But how are they measuring it? Laser reflections on the surface? If so, then how much of those vibrations could be from the spaceship itself, also changing dimensions (vibrating) as it flies alongside the comet? Oh well, I presume they've got all that worked out, since it's an obvious problem that was surely anticipated.

Interesting stuff. I can't wait to hear about what they find.

Shooshie

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Yeah. Exciting stuff!

[BKK-OZ]

According to NASA, the sounds were picked up by the 'Rosetta Plasma Consortium'.

I used to like that group, but only their early stuff.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Yeah. After 2.56 billion BC they changed.

[Shooshie]

Yeah. After 2.56 billion BC they changed.

Is that when they went to soft-rock?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Either that or their "It's a Gas" period.

[Shooshie]

Or maybe that was when they started that heavy-metal comet-vomit stuff. Gross!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Then again I hear they are working on a new project, "blowin' off steam." Cool. I mean, hot!

[Shooshie]

Then again I hear they are working on a new project, "blowin' off steam." Cool. I mean, hot!

I dunno, man. I think they reached their apogee years ago. But there's no question they are picking up speed again, now that they've got that Eurotrash reality show.