DIY + Unusual Music Tech
Oldest recorded voices, haunted dolls, and more from Tempest Instruments
New sound technologies? Sure, okay, I guess. But haunted dolls of the 1890s as made by Thomas Edison? Oh, now you’ve got my attention. So in case you haven’t discovered this before, Tempest Instruments, a “small team” led by TV/film and video game composer Alex Davis, has been collected strange sound ephemera of the 19th […]
Read moreHoliday Goodies: Sampled Sleigh, Jingle Bells, Free [Samples]
We open on a Christmas Eve dinner. The goose has been stripped to the bones, the third wine glass drained to its last drops. A typical-looking family leans back. Cut to a close-up on a scraggly-looking electronic music producer. He rolls his eyes at the next question. “Why don’t you play some of that music […]
- December 24, 2013
Stories
WOW: One Album, One Really Low Sine Wave, Most Minimal Record Ever
Digital or analog, it doesn’t matter: any sound you hear is heard in the real world. The playback device, the environment, all impact the sound. For evidence, try playing a record with a single frequency and nothing else. That’s the case with WOW. Perhaps the best recorded equivalent of John Cage’s legendary four-plus minutes of […]
