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How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

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Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#41

Post by m463 »

egypturnash wrote: post #28

Lately I've been spending a lot of my working-with-a-laptop-at-a-cafe time at places that have outdoor seating. And another chunk of that time has been sitting outside at a very nice park I live nearby. There is no music except for occasional snatches of it from passing cars. Instead there is the wind in the trees, various birds having their conversations, and perhaps kids playing if I'm near the playground. It's rea…

The rainforest cafe does jungle and even an occasional thunderstorm.

It's quite successful too. (There's one right outside disneyland in Los Angeles)

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#42

Post by yellowapple »

creaghpatr wrote: post #11
shantly wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall multi-floor department stores employing actual elevator music in their elevators 20+ years ago. Haven't been on an elevator in one recently, so can't comment on whether they still do it.

Elevators have gotten really fast now, it probably made sense for 70+ story buildings where you might be on the elevator for more than 60 seconds back in the day but many modern elevators are going 10 floors/sec at their max speed.

10 floors per second? Assuming 1 floor = 1 story = 3.3 meters, that's highway speeds.

Really fast indeed.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#43

Post by Godel_unicode »

Ancalagon wrote: post #6
pmoriarty wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, people are already almost completely isolated even without headphones. With or without headphones, the only strangers who come up and talk to me are people who want something from me, like beggars, people seeking directions, or people trying to sell me something. As someone who's not very social around strangers, I rarely initiate conversations with strangers myself. Listening to my own music just m…

You and the parent both have excellent points, and I frankly agree with both of you. I think, at least in the US, many public spaces are trending towards isolation of the population. Specifically I'm thinking of gyms (where its no longer OK to interact with someone with headphones on), or bars/clubs where the music is literally so loud you cannot talk to someone standing right next to you. I believe all of this is in…

Alternatively, those are all examples of refusing to allow vaguely annoying extroverts to force their views of how the world should be on everyone around them. I just want to drink/lift/eat, please stop talking to me.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#45

Post by zrail »

smush wrote: post #24
zeta0134 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones in fuel pumps are the worst. In my town I make a point of avoiding any gas station that has sunk to that level, but they seem to be harder and harder to avoid especially when traveling.

YMMV but at least here in the southeast USA, the default GSTV signal can be turned off by pressing a combination on the 4 soft touch keys on the outside of the screen. If your buttons are like so, 1 | CONTENT | 5 2 | CONTENT | 6 3 | CONTENT | 7 4 | CONTENT | 8 try the sequence 5 6 5 . Here where I am at, that mutes the sound. Sometimes 7 8 7 also turns the screen off. But! You need to put it back to screen on, sound…

Around here it seems like I just have to push one button to turn the sound off. Presumably it comes back for the next customer but I have no idea.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#46

Post by Scoundreller »

wffurr wrote: post #26
brontide wrote: post #10

…startup Mutebox The anti-jukebox that lets you mute restaurants' ambient music to bring back the vitality of your surroundings. For when your favorite cafe is playing experimental electronic music and you really came for the sound of espresso machines and light background noise while you crank out that TPS report. Or, the jukebox that exclusively plays John Cage's 4'33". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″

Like a noise canceling speaker I could place on the table to eliminate the music from that area?

The problem with that is the time differences between when things hit your ears, the speaker and the source.

I suppose it could work if your ears are always in a known place.

That’s why we can only make noise cancelling headphones.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#47

Post by johnchristopher »

SignalsFromBob wrote: post #44

I look forward to the day that society treats combating noise pollution with the same level of seriousness as combating other types of pollution. It appears that day is still far off.

Things are slowly moving at the European level but some initiatives were recently taken. See https://ec.europa.eu/environment/noise/directive_en.htm and https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/75/air-an...

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#48

Post by Scoundreller »

ourmandave wrote: post #4
pmoriarty wrote: post #2

"ambient music for shopping spaces, these days, is meant to soothe you or pump you up, and generally nudge your habits toward consumption" Fortunately, we do have some resistance to this in the form of portable music players. I virtually never hear any music at any of the venues or stores I visit, because I'm always listening to my own.

Walmart plays music depending on the demographic that shopping at a particular time of day (thanks to their endless analytics). I've gone there at times I wouldn't normally, like Sunday at 6 AM because I put it off and need something now, and it's like I'm on the wrong radio station. So if you're ever at a Walmart and don't like the music, you're just not shopping at the right time apparently.

Once went to a new Walmart after it opened before they had the sound system set up and boy was it eerie.

Re: How Ambient Chill Became the New Silence

#50

Post by mordechai9000 »

Hello71 wrote: post #30
brontide wrote: post #10

…startup Mutebox The anti-jukebox that lets you mute restaurants' ambient music to bring back the vitality of your surroundings. For when your favorite cafe is playing experimental electronic music and you really came for the sound of espresso machines and light background noise while you crank out that TPS report. Or, the jukebox that exclusively plays John Cage's 4'33". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″

this already exists. it's called Muzo, and ElectroBOOM reviewed it as an obvious scam.

I was curious if this was possible, and I did some quick research. From what I gathered, it's just not practical. There are a multitude of mutually interfering sources and reflective surfaces in a noisy real world environment. You just can't plop a mic down - or an array of mics - and cancel the audio it receives. You have to put the mic and the cancelling audio as close to the ear as possible, and isolate the listener as much as you can. Which we already have, in noise cancelling headphones.
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