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Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

noisemademedoit.com

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Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#31

Post by Goladus »

jrockway wrote: post #27
timdorr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're attempting to do a time shift with some sort of echo-y dithering going on. Since it's digital, no dithering is needed!

Indeed. The sound starts off with a dialtone slowed down 700x but pitch adjusted. Guess what, that's exactly equivalent to the real dialone. (Instead of recording it for 1 second, you record it for 700 seconds.) This rest of the video continues in the same manner. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

The point is less what it is than how one feels when it's heard. Sounds and music are often perceived passively and subtly influence your feelings at the moment, particularly the sort of "creepy music" the linked sound resembles most closely.

If you are only analyzing the component noises there's a good chance you'll miss the emotions evoked, similar to the way a joke isn't funny if you dwell too much on the explanation.

Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#32

Post by jws »

Most of the time is the initial identification tones, followed by the line equalization phase where the modems are sorting out the exact response of the line. The sounds near the end that are sort of like white noise are the data transfer.

Part of the creepy is that the modems are using pitches that are not harmonically related. That is anti-musical (unless you are way out on the fringes) and denies you the ability to pigeon hole the sounds.

Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#34

Post by rbanffy »

Goladus wrote: post #30
jrockway wrote: post #25

Next week on Hacker News: "Hey guys, I took a picture of my cat this morning"

This is creative and unusual. Sound design is an interesting and relevant topic.

Interesting, yes. Relevant to Hacker News... debatable.

But I agree with jrockway - pictures of cats should result in immediate banning (unless it's something like http://placekitten.com/).

Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#35

Post by Goladus »

rbanffy wrote: post #34
Goladus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is creative and unusual. Sound design is an interesting and relevant topic.

Interesting, yes. Relevant to Hacker News... debatable. But I agree with jrockway - pictures of cats should result in immediate banning (unless it's something like http://placekitten.com/ ).

> Relevant to Hacker News... debatable.

So debate. I have used sounds and music while hacking. I know video game developers whose job title is "sound designer". This link, while not particularly advanced or profound, still inspired me to think about creating sounds in a way I hadn't before.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Seems well within the guidelines to me.

Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#37

Post by sodiumphosphate »

Goladus wrote: post #35
rbanffy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, yes. Relevant to Hacker News... debatable. But I agree with jrockway - pictures of cats should result in immediate banning (unless it's something like http://placekitten.com/ ).

> Relevant to Hacker News... debatable. So debate. I have used sounds and music while hacking. I know video game developers whose job title is "sound designer". This link, while not particularly advanced or profound, still inspired me to think about creating sounds in a way I hadn't before. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Seems well within the guidelines to me.

Here, here. I've been considering options for adding ambiance to my game, and I think this paulstretch thing is very interesting.

Re: Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% is 100% creepy

#39

Post by ddunkin »

Goladus wrote: post #35
rbanffy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, yes. Relevant to Hacker News... debatable. But I agree with jrockway - pictures of cats should result in immediate banning (unless it's something like http://placekitten.com/ ).

> Relevant to Hacker News... debatable. So debate. I have used sounds and music while hacking. I know video game developers whose job title is "sound designer". This link, while not particularly advanced or profound, still inspired me to think about creating sounds in a way I hadn't before. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Seems well within the guidelines to me.

Exactly, this one link provoked me to try a few things myself and I learned a few new things without even expecting it today.

I took this same app to other sounds (chainsaw, smoke detector) and it was all technically interesting. The modem tone was still the most interesting to me.

Take modem negotiation to a frequency display and zoom in, and you can actually see what the dual-tone in DTMF stands for. Heck, it looks like a piano roll if you want to take it in that direction for inspiration. Translate the row and column into a set of musical intervals and you'll be able to figure out how to play basic songs on your touch-tone phone.

Just tell me this isn't cool: http://imgur.com/sbtyY

I just found the first modem sound I could find off Google. By looking at the frequencies in the image, it is dialing 1-415-489-3565, which is still an active Earthlink dial-up number.

Small posts like this drag me in directions like this all the time. It leads me to questions I wouldn't have bothered with asking before today. This is absolutely within the guidelines and I thank the submitter for the enlightenment I received today.

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