I want to make this random off-topic comment: For years I've been collecting various audio clips, where "environmental" sound (voice, noise, etc.) transitions into music, or vise versa, in songs, movies and TV shows. I've searched the web and the closest term I can find is "diegetic switch", but not quite. Here's the (short) list:
It's a video game, but Yoshi's Island's title screen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkbxyPl83yI) has sound effects which fade out into a musical theme (which adds instruments after the noises stop). It fits cleverly into the SNES's 8 channels of audio which might not have been able to play ocean spray, birdsong, and multiple overlapping xylophone/melody lines at once.
Waves on the shore transitioning into song: Luke the calf - Iona https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLx2bKdQIJA - though I'm not sure that one counts as the waves are all through to the end.
>Open the song Aerodynamic and fast-forward to 2:28, start listening to the passage. I hear the higher pitch on my right and the lower one on my left ear. What about you?
tbh I'm not sure which notes they're referring to here. There are a couple overlapping high/low pairs in that segment, and I'm not sure which is the octave/those frequencies.
One seems like higher is more in my left, but it clearly follows the left speaker on my headphones. The others warble around for me, though I'm pretty strongly right handed.
left ear right ear
-------------------------
high (nothing in right ear)
low
high
low
or something else? I mostly hear:
left ear central right ear
--------------------------------------
high low low
low low high
high low low
low low high
I'm definitely hearing "low" while hearing "high" on the opposite ear, though it feels like there's a basically constant central "low" as well. The high tone clearly moves between sides.
Maybe worth mentioning: I've had a hearing test in the past year and I'm essentially completely balanced, so there likely isn't a tone-deafness issue on one side that could cause a reception imbalance. Could the illusion just be hearing damage? And then handedness just follows which ear takes more damage due to more noisy things happening / less protection on that side? That could also explain why left-handed people are less strongly sided, as they're forced to do things more balanced due to right-hand-only stuff existing.
It's the Shepard tone effect running in the background of the actual notes, which produce a mild illusion that they're ascending when they're not, but nevertheless they're moving up and then down in pitches so it's not a brilliant example. I think the author is a little confused in this short essay about a few things. His "talking piano" effect is just standard vocoding, which has made me think this is all fairly new to him and he's not an expert.
I've heard of an effect where brain synthesises lower tone from the higher harmonics, might that be reason why I hear the low tone in both ears at once?
people are hearing what you hear. It's the simultaneous tones, one low, one high, low in the left, high in the right. It's not that it's panning (one at a time), it's together (or within ms of each other when mixed with other techniques). Once you understand this, then the concept of just flipping it makes even more sense. Then get creative and flippity floppity the high/low left/right dance.
But I heard the lower tone in the middle of my head and higher tone bouncing from left to right. Not the "low on one side, high on the other side" article mentioned.
Kinda interesting to think some people might hear completely different thing in same song...
One that mix engineers use a lot and that is not mentioned is the Haas Effect. (micro delay between left and right channel that gives a stereo sensation to a mono source)
First off, I love Daft Punk and I’ve heard all of these song countless times.
But, sorry, I don’t buy it. I am aware of the talking piano effect, but even the wiki page [0] says it’s a vocoder, which is something entirely different.
Similar to other commenters here [1], I don’t hear the pattern described for the octave effect either.
I wonder how many folks that spend thousands of hours in front of a synthesizer or making electronic music or beats have identified similar illusions but don't really think of it as something 'interesting'. Like, 'oh yeah if you do this it kind of sounds like that'. Probably a whole catalog of tricks.
Happens all the time. Most common one for me is when you're making a patch on a synth and by chance dial in those frequencies that align with formants (similar to the Robot Rock effect the post mentions).
Yesterday I was working on a bass drum beat, and after adding some synths playing on top of it, I started to hear the bass drum echo. So, my first thought was I had accidentally enabled some kind of reverb or echo effect on it while I was setting up the synths. After confirming I hadn't and isolated the track to ensure the bass drum was sounding as intended, I chalked it up to some weird illusion between the synths and drum that was making it sound like an echo. I know it's not there in reality, but I can't unhear it.
In this case, I went back and added a little echo to the drum to make the effect intentional, which turned out to sound good, but sometimes I'll try to make the illusion reality and it doesn't have the same effect.
When I was 14 years old, I noticed how pure saw waves make fast transient sounds go "whooshy".
1. Play a pure saw wave sound for several seconds, it has to be loud (use headphones), then
2. hit the keyboard keys, or snap your fingers, or make other sounds with fast transients, and the transient is no longer snappy, it "whooshes". It's hard to describe but there is like a flanging effect on it.
I guess there is some scientific name for this phenomenon, but I don't know what.
There's entire books and blog posts and youtube channels that go into all of this. Music production is all about creating a "space" and a lot of what producers do is create the illusions that sounds are coming from particular places, and that sound like they're from a "big" source or whatever.
A common thing to do is to pan a synth to one side, then add a very short (milliseconds) delay panned to the other side, which makes it sound like a very large sound played from a large distance away.
Another is stacking up a bunch of oscillators that are slightly detuned from each other, which again, makes the sound "big", because it sounds like many sources playing together, rather than one source.
Just using a "reverb" is generating an illusion of being in a large, echo-y space.
I do think that most producers don't really think of it as creating illusions, and more as making "cool" sounds.
Would someone please send him a tweet telling him that you can start videos specific timestamps on YouTube by adding "&t=0s" where 0 is the desired number of seconds to the URL? I'm not making a new Twitter acct just to contact a person who has "Contact
Follow me at Twitter: @ugu_rs" as the only means of such on their blog
for the Robot Rock one, the author should've clarified that it's not referring to the actual `rock. robot rock` voice part, but the part where the guitar chords sound like that. skip to about 1:50 in the linked video to hear the robot voice, then listen to how similar just the guitar chords after 2:00 sound like the robot voice saying `rock. robot rock.`
I would bet money there's still a vocoded guitar in that section, but about 18db below the regular guitar. It also sounds like they're running it through a resonant filter, probably their MS-20, which is probably helping the formants sound like it's speaking compared to a regular guitar.
Also, in that particular example, I don't think they made the guitar emit the voice-sounding sounds, but rather generated it electronically. It's not even obvious that the voice comes from guitar sounds... it actually sounds like a plain voice with effects.
I wouldn't call this an illusion as much as an interesting effect. Put on a good pair of headphones and listen to the intro at moderately high volume. There's a buzzing note in there that seems to resonate in a way that feels like it's coming from inside your head or maybe even your throat.
When my fiancee showed me this, it took me almost a dozen watches to finally hear the one I didn't initially hear. I don't remember for sure which one I could hear at first, but I think I only heard "green needle", which was higher pitched, and it took me a lot of concentration to block that out and focus on the lower pitch enough to be able to parse out some semblance of speech. If my recollection is correct, my troubles with the lower pitched sound is a little ironic because I play bass and often try to point out bass parts I like to my fiancee, but she sometimes has trouble parsing out exactly what I'm referring to due to not having had any musical training and it not being as obvious to her which part is the bass when I'm showing her a song with lots of different guitar and keyboard tracks and lots of heavy bass drum.
I’ll have to figure out which Daft Punk song I’m thinking of, but there was this segment where I swear there’s this really swingy chord progression but when slowed down to study it turns out to be the same chord repeated over and over. It’s the other voices that are progressing.
it sounds like you're referring to Daft Punk's "Giorgio by Moroder" from their album "Random Access Memories." The segment you're describing involves a repetitive chord progression, but the perceived variation comes from the evolving layers and elements surrounding the chords. This technique creates a sense of progression while maintaining a consistent base.
There's one weird thing that I've noticed with Daft Punk's The Brainwasher, my brain has two different interpretations for the main loop offset:
If starting here, I hear a loop that starts with fast notes and then has a silence.
(warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=91
If starting a few seconds earlier, the previous melody seems to fuse with the part that starts at 1:30, and it sounds different, like a bit slower.
(warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=80
Not sure if that makes sense, hopefully some one else also hears both versions! I'm assuming it may have to do with interpreting the last note of the loop as part of the next one, but it could be something else too. It really is a brainwash :P
One of my favourite comments on Youtube I saw was on some RATATAT song (probably Wildcat?), AFAIR:
"Those guitars are definitely trying to tell me something. I can't get a word but they do sing!"
And if you enjoy Daft Punk but never heard of RATATAT then you def should try, first albums for a more raw and hard sound, later ones for more electronic sound.
I have a weird auditory illusion that happens to me ; I have tinnitus, and a super weird auditory response thing that happens to me occassionally:
So when I cant hear the high-pitched tinnitus squeal (very low volume, but still hear it) - there is something weird that happens which is that I can "hear" some sort of radio station - which plays music in the really faintest and far away sounding volume...
The other thing that happens, is that when laying in bed, attempting to sleep - there are times that when the house makes a "creak" sound of settling or whatever (you know how your wall may 'pop' or 'creak' at times - but the weird thing is that it simultaneously coincides with a pop and a flinch of my body, or 'sound' in my head.
There are times when this happens and I get a bright flash in my closed-eyes...
Anyone know what this is? Sodium defficiency? or aliens?
I don't hear radio stations, you might want to get your antenna checked. But I get the same sounds when I am laying in bed before I fall asleep and they also coincide with twitches or flinches and sometimes visual flashes.
Not sure if it counts as an illusion but one that comes to mind is Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood. There's a line "remember that it's all in your head" that was mixed in a way that phase cancellation will make it inaudible on mono playback.
> was mixed in a way that phase cancellation will make it inaudible on mono playback.
That’s just what happens to the surround channel in audio tracks produced using Dolby Stereo, when, as you say, they are naively mixed to mono. This happens all the time.
Funny about them: I can hear the words either as "Mexican lucky" or "to get lucky" (the correct lyrics) depending on what I want to hear. Usually, once you know the right words, you can't hear anything else.
I've always liked the incorrect lyrics "we're robot Mexican monkeys". Not sure who first came up with that. I remember reading it on reddit back when the short preview clip of Get Lucky was released to great excitement.
This article is horribly written and executed for many reasons, but the primary one being that the vast majority of the music credited as Daft Punk is just sampled music from other artists. You can eloquently see this broken down here: https://youtu.be/lBSWw7RdZLk
You seem to have a bone to pick with the idea that artists who sample can be colloquially credited as the songwriters of the songs they wrote. It's a surprising position to take; most people get by just fine saying that MC Hammer wrote You Can't Touch This, as one of many examples.
i have always felt some unexplained effect while listening to Veridis Quo [1].
the melody start sounding different from the 0:38 mark, just as the kicks come in. it seems like some supporting keys are added with the kicks, to make the sound more full, but at the same time it could be my brain getting tricked.
sorry for botching the explanation, i have never studied music.
nerf0|2 years ago
- https://youtu.be/9j9bVl3rfNk?t=29 In The Defenders, repeated piano note transitions into background music.
- https://youtu.be/isZyX1xd1VQ?t=159 (The Great American Nightmare - Rob Zombie)
- https://youtu.be/pU_mZ1X69Ho?t=364 (Out of Control - Miraculix)
- Justice League the movie where the song "Everybody Knows" transitions into the ambulance siren. Sorry I can't find this footage.
mgdlbp|2 years ago
- the chant in The Dark Knight Rises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxw-zXRqOs&t=130s
Probably a lot of variations in musicals, but most will be mundane.
jcims|2 years ago
- https://youtu.be/IXdNnw99-Ic (Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd)
Slow_Hand|2 years ago
I’d start with his Big Sun record. Listen to ‘Birds, Pt. 1’ and you’ll get it right away.
He also does these compositions he calls “ultrascores” where he’s composing to scenes from TV shows. Here’s one he did for The Wire:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bV1lY1UsEng&pp=ygUQQ2hhc3NvbCB...
nyanpasu64|2 years ago
defrost|2 years ago
John Cage - 4'33" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
mnw21cam|2 years ago
Waves on the shore transitioning into song: Luke the calf - Iona https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLx2bKdQIJA - though I'm not sure that one counts as the waves are all through to the end.
fh973|2 years ago
Groxx|2 years ago
tbh I'm not sure which notes they're referring to here. There are a couple overlapping high/low pairs in that segment, and I'm not sure which is the octave/those frequencies.
One seems like higher is more in my left, but it clearly follows the left speaker on my headphones. The others warble around for me, though I'm pretty strongly right handed.
---
Even after reading and listening to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave_illusion I'm totally lost as to what this post or wikipedia are describing. Are people hearing like:
or something else? I mostly hear: I'm definitely hearing "low" while hearing "high" on the opposite ear, though it feels like there's a basically constant central "low" as well. The high tone clearly moves between sides.Maybe worth mentioning: I've had a hearing test in the past year and I'm essentially completely balanced, so there likely isn't a tone-deafness issue on one side that could cause a reception imbalance. Could the illusion just be hearing damage? And then handedness just follows which ear takes more damage due to more noisy things happening / less protection on that side? That could also explain why left-handed people are less strongly sided, as they're forced to do things more balanced due to right-hand-only stuff existing.
gizajob|2 years ago
THIS is a talking piano: https://youtu.be/muCPjK4nGY4
ilyt|2 years ago
Here is better video for that illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMsK9rjBWo
I've heard of an effect where brain synthesises lower tone from the higher harmonics, might that be reason why I hear the low tone in both ears at once?
gabereiser|2 years ago
ilyt|2 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMsK9rjBWo
But I heard the lower tone in the middle of my head and higher tone bouncing from left to right. Not the "low on one side, high on the other side" article mentioned.
Kinda interesting to think some people might hear completely different thing in same song...
x3n0ph3n3|2 years ago
aatd86|2 years ago
monkpit|2 years ago
But, sorry, I don’t buy it. I am aware of the talking piano effect, but even the wiki page [0] says it’s a vocoder, which is something entirely different.
Similar to other commenters here [1], I don’t hear the pattern described for the octave effect either.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Rock_(song)https://en....
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37104083
MAGZine|2 years ago
[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/52t5WCspFuFkow374P88wA (but also Ep 1 and 3).
ugurnot|2 years ago
jcims|2 years ago
v64|2 years ago
Yesterday I was working on a bass drum beat, and after adding some synths playing on top of it, I started to hear the bass drum echo. So, my first thought was I had accidentally enabled some kind of reverb or echo effect on it while I was setting up the synths. After confirming I hadn't and isolated the track to ensure the bass drum was sounding as intended, I chalked it up to some weird illusion between the synths and drum that was making it sound like an echo. I know it's not there in reality, but I can't unhear it.
In this case, I went back and added a little echo to the drum to make the effect intentional, which turned out to sound good, but sometimes I'll try to make the illusion reality and it doesn't have the same effect.
jnurmine|2 years ago
1. Play a pure saw wave sound for several seconds, it has to be loud (use headphones), then
2. hit the keyboard keys, or snap your fingers, or make other sounds with fast transients, and the transient is no longer snappy, it "whooshes". It's hard to describe but there is like a flanging effect on it.
I guess there is some scientific name for this phenomenon, but I don't know what.
empath-nirvana|2 years ago
A common thing to do is to pan a synth to one side, then add a very short (milliseconds) delay panned to the other side, which makes it sound like a very large sound played from a large distance away.
Another is stacking up a bunch of oscillators that are slightly detuned from each other, which again, makes the sound "big", because it sounds like many sources playing together, rather than one source.
Just using a "reverb" is generating an illusion of being in a large, echo-y space.
I do think that most producers don't really think of it as creating illusions, and more as making "cool" sounds.
whiddershins|2 years ago
anArbitraryOne|2 years ago
pests|2 years ago
adamrezich|2 years ago
squeaky-clean|2 years ago
glandium|2 years ago
As opposed to, say, Mark Rober's talking piano.
ugurnot|2 years ago
brookritz|2 years ago
sublinear|2 years ago
Com Truise - Fairlight
I wouldn't call this an illusion as much as an interesting effect. Put on a good pair of headphones and listen to the intro at moderately high volume. There's a buzzing note in there that seems to resonate in a way that feels like it's coming from inside your head or maybe even your throat.
beautifulfreak|2 years ago
saghm|2 years ago
Waterluvian|2 years ago
mergejoin|2 years ago
MAGZine|2 years ago
-- by chatgpt
stigz|2 years ago
https://youtu.be/p_IHotHxIl8
gzalo|2 years ago
If starting here, I hear a loop that starts with fast notes and then has a silence. (warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=91
If starting a few seconds earlier, the previous melody seems to fuse with the part that starts at 1:30, and it sounds different, like a bit slower. (warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=80
Not sure if that makes sense, hopefully some one else also hears both versions! I'm assuming it may have to do with interpreting the last note of the loop as part of the next one, but it could be something else too. It really is a brainwash :P
justsomehnguy|2 years ago
One of my favourite comments on Youtube I saw was on some RATATAT song (probably Wildcat?), AFAIR:
"Those guitars are definitely trying to tell me something. I can't get a word but they do sing!"
And if you enjoy Daft Punk but never heard of RATATAT then you def should try, first albums for a more raw and hard sound, later ones for more electronic sound.
otherme123|2 years ago
samstave|2 years ago
So when I cant hear the high-pitched tinnitus squeal (very low volume, but still hear it) - there is something weird that happens which is that I can "hear" some sort of radio station - which plays music in the really faintest and far away sounding volume...
The other thing that happens, is that when laying in bed, attempting to sleep - there are times that when the house makes a "creak" sound of settling or whatever (you know how your wall may 'pop' or 'creak' at times - but the weird thing is that it simultaneously coincides with a pop and a flinch of my body, or 'sound' in my head.
There are times when this happens and I get a bright flash in my closed-eyes...
Anyone know what this is? Sodium defficiency? or aliens?
jannyfer|2 years ago
I read about it on Hacker News, and then later realized I had it... and now I can't un-hear it!
I also hear music when there's white noise around me (white noise maker machines or a showerhead). That one is called Musical Ear Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_ear_syndrome
Groxx|2 years ago
Also perhaps most famously: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucille-ball-fillings-spie...
SpaceNugget|2 years ago
jrmg|2 years ago
joecool1029|2 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_xRb0x9aw&t=176s Now go and install: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/soundfixer/ and set output to mono and replay it.
teddyh|2 years ago
That’s just what happens to the surround channel in audio tracks produced using Dolby Stereo, when, as you say, they are naively mixed to mono. This happens all the time.
AlbertCory|2 years ago
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-mexican-lucky-and-w...
p00dles|2 years ago
I wonder how many people knew the correct lyrics before this commercial, I certainly did not
bloopernova|2 years ago
tagyro|2 years ago
mhh__|2 years ago
"Rob a Mexican" etc
hydrok9|2 years ago
rvieira|2 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rFYbMhcG8&t=345s
distantsounds|2 years ago
At least get the original works correct.
sowbug|2 years ago
Please tell us more.
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
eyluo|2 years ago
teolandon|2 years ago
0x008|2 years ago
wantguns|2 years ago
sorry for botching the explanation, i have never studied music.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCd6PfxOy0Y
gzalo|2 years ago
milleramp|2 years ago
jonbell|2 years ago
a-dub|2 years ago
IndySun|2 years ago
I like Daft Punk, but I, and they, I'm sure, never described themselves as such. It's worth addressing this sentence, it being an early sentence.