SOUND IN THE MACHINE: Recent Comments

Comment on The Swaying Car Door

2010-02-17T12:00:01Z

My ears are obviously not well tuned, but a friend is especially good at picking whether an engine noise down the street is a dirt bike, a road bike, a Harley, a V8 engine, and whether the car has a hot dog. Not from the sound of the door shutting, of course ... but impressive nonetheless!

Comment on Comments on Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"

2009-10-22T13:52:28Z

I agree that in general we should be "more concerned with mosquito nets, vaccines, military protection, sanitation, and commerce" and that we shouldn't need music to inspire us to do it, but most people aren't very self-motivated. They need something to draw them into action. For that, I still think the project is a good one. People who wouldn't normally be motivated to think about ways in which they could make the world better might read about this project and start thinking about ways they could shake down some of the barriers they put up around themselves. There will always be more pressing issues than coming together "as a human race," but coming together and accepting people's differences is a really beautiful thing, and I'm glad this group is working towards it.
Plus I like the song. :-)

Comment on Special: The Brian Dunning Interview

2009-10-04T15:21:18Z

What a cool interview! I enjoyed hearing the sounds and then learning what they really are. Brian Dunning is a very interesting guy. Good job!

Comment on The Swaying Car Door

2009-09-08T15:33:36Z

If you were "waiting" for them so that you could download them, I suggest soundsnap.com or thefreesoundproject. Great stuff on both of these sites.

You didn't hear them on the podcast for two reasons. The first was a cue I took from my research, that "buyers...can differentiate between cheap and luxury just by the sound of the door (Kuwano et al. 5)." Implicit in this is that buyers know what a luxury door sounds like. Related to that, the second reason I chose not to include any luxury sounds was to challenge that tacit assumption of buyers (you may remember the alteration of a Protege door sound to make it sound more 'luxurious...'). Instead of playing example after example to satisfy the audience that it has indeed heard THE luxury car door sound (hardly possible with MP3 and earbuds), I chose to present crappy sounding doors and locking mechanisms and the fact that car door sound and car quality are not necessarily correlated.

Comment on The Swaying Car Door

2009-09-08T14:27:28Z

was waiting for luxery car door sounds, but they never came. very disappointed!

Comment on Special #2: Shoebox Shots from Berlin

2009-08-16T23:18:51Z

These sounds were great. My favorite is the church bells. I want to go to Berlin again and hear them for myself! Thanks for a great recording.

Comment on Special #2: Shoebox Shots from Berlin

2009-08-12T20:53:49Z

great stuff. really liked the idea. really liked the selection of sounds and the sounds itself.
again great stuff!

Comment on Sonic Weapons

2009-07-06T16:06:03Z

Very interesting podcast!

Comment on A Sonic Boom

2009-06-14T16:15:32Z

I just learned that a clap of thunder is a sonic boom. Pretty freaking rad.

Comment on Hearing the Music and Listening to the Record

2009-05-23T00:24:41Z

Great recording that took me back a few years. I haven't heard Led Zeppelin or Bon Jovi since my children grew up! Thanks for the lessons on remediation!