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You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

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Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#51

Post by aric »

pistle wrote: post #38
aric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It invokes a mood. It distills a spirit of night and cities that never sleep. Urgent events from a police scanner play upon a feeling of social connectedness. Combining that with ethereal music plays upon senses of tranquility, danger, peace, haunting, calms before storms, and life transpiring. Dramas like Blade Runner, The Killing, and True Detective, as a few examples, achieve many of their most beautiful moments t…

Dystopian coding soundbed? Sure, it works. However, I don't think this is the distillation of the spirit of night or sleep. Cities have their own sounds. This completely removes any actual sound and replaces it with mood music. It then completely removes actual humanity and suffering, and replaces it with dispassionate narration of management of human activity. I'm not sure you could get less connected to the city. T…

I said it partly distills a spirit of cities that never sleep, not of sleep. :) Not everyone lives in dense urban areas. And many who do don't want to listen to the actual noise of their environment. It's often distracting. That's the point of setting a mood. It's escapism. You try to choose how you want to feel. Beyond altering the immediate space around oneself via sound, lighting, scents, physical comfort, scenery, and ambiance in general, one may want to remain tuned into the larger, active world through real-time streams yet not have it be distracting. That could come through web sites, visuals, music, television, radio, shortwave, or any other medium that creates a sense of 'living information.' It can be comforting. It can be greatly humanizing.

One may be deep in the heart of a sardine-packed city, feeling disconnected. No setting is exclusive to the shaping of one's feelings except to those who may not care to shape their own positive perception.

> It then completely removes actual humanity and suffering, and replaces it with dispassionate narration of management of human activity.

It depends on the person being affected. Speaking only for myself, it's the opposite of dispassion. Sure, I love dark, dystopic, cyberpunk moods with the best of 'em. Personally, however, and I'm sure this rings true for others here, I'm always left with overwhelming sense of hopefulness in those moments of unease. It's a feeling that humanity can come together to resist and overcome obstacles. It's entirely empathetic and passionate. On the topic of police scanners, indeed, upsetting moments occur. Suffering occurs. Humorous moments occur too. It's interesting. My constant worry and sincere hope goes out to people in need even at the mere sound of an ambulance. The presence of critical information is not fuel of sadism. It's fuel of concern, curiosity, connectedness, and awareness.

News functions greatly in this respect. Heavy news affects those who are willing to bear witness to it. It's humanity's suffering. News of the world's plight causes a rollercoaster of emotions. As much as it brings pain, shock, tears, pessimism, and cynicism, it so too brings cause, unity, hope, struggle, and awareness. The electricity of urgency has its own presence regardless of how different people objectify it. People who tune-out of it altogether could be equally objectifying, depending on their attitude and perception. Tuning out can be healthy just the same. Emotions are 'pluralistic' amid extremes of peace, fear, love, happiness, and curiosity. Lightning, though terrifying, remains electrifying.

> That said, I have code to do... so on with the suffering!

Hilarious! I'm entering a more upbeat mood now. A mix of violent gangsta rap blended with the life-affirming moans of highway traffic will suffice. A.B.C.

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#52

Post by aric »

pdknsk wrote: post #37
aric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It invokes a mood. It distills a spirit of night and cities that never sleep. Urgent events from a police scanner play upon a feeling of social connectedness. Combining that with ethereal music plays upon senses of tranquility, danger, peace, haunting, calms before storms, and life transpiring. Dramas like Blade Runner, The Killing, and True Detective, as a few examples, achieve many of their most beautiful moments t…

This is very strange to me. How can it not distract? Some guy beats up his wife, or worse, and knowing so helps you coding? I would have never guessed it. I understand the notion about a certain mood, as in Blade Runner, but that's carefully arranged fiction. This is real life. (The last sentence probably reads more dramatic than intended.)

Sometimes it does. It depends. For instance, if I'm listening to NPR, Democracy Now, or other news shows and podcasts, those are usually too distracting. I can't get any real work or reading done if it's too engaging. "Silence" can be golden. Then there are other forms of vocal information that seem to recede well enough in the background yet remain there just enough to decide whether to actively listen.

It might be put in terms of working around others. Ideally, the noise others make will enter subconsciousness enough to concentrate yet remain aware of anything 'worth' listening to or someone snapping in my face. Basically, you just have to experiment on yourself. Do what feels right for you. If someone's constantly fighting for concentration against surroundings, then that person needs to change surroundings. And moods constantly change.

Emotions are humanity. Life is real life. Moreover, good movies are far more than mere fiction or the sum of their parts. To people with vivid imaginations and deep empathy, any [medium of information], "fact" or fiction, powerful enough, can be experienced viscerally as with "real life" even if only in that moment.

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#53

Post by gknoy »

pdknsk wrote: post #37
aric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It invokes a mood. It distills a spirit of night and cities that never sleep. Urgent events from a police scanner play upon a feeling of social connectedness. Combining that with ethereal music plays upon senses of tranquility, danger, peace, haunting, calms before storms, and life transpiring. Dramas like Blade Runner, The Killing, and True Detective, as a few examples, achieve many of their most beautiful moments t…

This is very strange to me. How can it not distract? Some guy beats up his wife, or worse, and knowing so helps you coding? I would have never guessed it. I understand the notion about a certain mood, as in Blade Runner, but that's carefully arranged fiction. This is real life. (The last sentence probably reads more dramatic than intended.)

You might be able to work around that by using dispatches in a lunguage you don't know. Russian or Swedish police radio chatter would have similar sense of urgency, etc, but you wouldn't know the specific Bad Things that are happening.

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#55

Post by mwexler »

fredley wrote: post #8
mkal_tsr wrote: post #3

[ SomaFM SF 10-33] http://somafm.com/sf1033/ Ambient music mixed with the sounds of San Francisco public safety radio traffic. [ SomaFM Mission Control ] http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/ A mix of ambient and experimental music mixed with the historical sounds of the space program.

Soma FM is one of my favourite things. Their stations are among my top listening while working. The lack of ads/interruption and excellently compiled playlists make for wonderful listening that truly augments my mood and ability to concentrate.

They are amazing, and afaik live off of donations. As each of you guys discover Soma, please consider a small donation to the station to keep them going.

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#56

Post by numbers »

xtrmntr wrote: post #47

Thanks for listening to my site everyone. It's crazy that 3+ years after launch it's still finding new listeners every day! Feel free to @ me on twitter with any questions (@idontlikewords)

When the music player slides away, how do I bring it back?

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#57

Post by aric »

grimgrin wrote: post #35
aric wrote: post #21

Bookmarked. I already occasionally listen to local and nonlocal police scanners via Broadcastify with my own playlists of atmosphere and ambient-shoegaze music. No joke. I'll use this. Some beautiful, fresh music on the roll here.

Mind sharing any of your playlist? I loved your explanation: "It invokes a mood. It distills a spirit of night and cities that never sleep. Urgent events from a police scanner play upon a feeling of social connectedness. Combining that with ethereal music plays upon senses of tranquility, danger, peace, haunting, calms before storms, and life transpiring."

Thank you! I'd be honored. Likewise, I'll be eager for any music from you, especially as you're even willing to ask. It should be noted that I truly love all forms of music and sound without reservation.

Would be nice if HN had a simple forum or messaging/alerts for these moments. My lists are a disastrous mess in Foobar. It's time to finally get up to par and organize what I can on Spotify or whatnot for these situations. Any way to message, or just check back in a few days?

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#58

Post by thinkt4nk »

fredley wrote: post #8
mkal_tsr wrote: post #3

[ SomaFM SF 10-33] http://somafm.com/sf1033/ Ambient music mixed with the sounds of San Francisco public safety radio traffic. [ SomaFM Mission Control ] http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/ A mix of ambient and experimental music mixed with the historical sounds of the space program.

Soma FM is one of my favourite things. Their stations are among my top listening while working. The lack of ads/interruption and excellently compiled playlists make for wonderful listening that truly augments my mood and ability to concentrate.

Let's not forget the Christmas Lounge!

Re: You are listening to New York – police radio and ambient music

#60

Post by jwallaceparker »

fumar wrote: post #45
jwallaceparker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, great work. Listening to it now. What toolset or DAW did you use to create these?

This was all done with Ableton live 9 on Surface Pro 3. I did use some field recordings and a few micro samples from Bill Evan's album, Moonbeams.

Wow great to hear.

I've been learning Ableton Live 9 on my Mac, along with a Push controller, which I can't recommend enough.

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