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Visualizing CCA
Malcolm Slaney, Stanford CCRMA and ICSI, Berkeley, CA
History: AT&T TrueVoice Speech Enhancer
Many years ago (1993) AT&T launched a "speech enhancer" for their long-distance service. At the time there was much discussion in the TELECOM Dgest, one of the very first Internet newsletters, wondering what they were doing. AT&T spent a lot of money advertising this "invention" and a gave a pointer to a telephone number where you could hear the result. This was my analysis at the time, carefully worded to not get anybody in trouble since it seemed important and proprietary.File Attachment:13dB Miracle
I think these sounds are interesting, from 35 years ago during the development of the MP3 format.
JJ and Karlheinz wanted a demo to show the power of moving the noise into parts of the spectrum where it can't be heard. This demo shows a musical piece with noise. In one case the noise is white and very noticeable. In the second case the noise has been moved and shaped to portions of the spectrum where it is masked. In both cases, the music has the same amount of noise, 13dB!!!! Which do you like better?
I lost my copy of these sounds, and got them back last week. They are on this web page for posterity now.
Final Project: Rave Performance
youtu.be/RJral3rqcq8
Name: Rave Stage
Description: Rave Stage is an audiovisual instrument. What if one person could be the musician and lighting controller, all at once? This interactive visual provides that, with they keyboard as the medium of choice. The keys play different sounds and map to different lighting, and the user can behold different combinations of colors, angles, and lighting combinations until audiovisual patterns start to emerge!
ch 8 reading response
I’m not sure if I agree with Artful Design’s principle 8.4: Technology without poetry is but a blunt instrument. While the premise of course makes sense, since all human endeavors ultimately feed into the broader human experience, the wording seems too vague to actually delineate technology in a meaningful way. Is it possible to find an instance of technology that is not ultimately poetic? Take Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a brute tool that seemingly removes the human aspect of its mission while capitalizing on humans completely. One can argue that there exists poetry in Amazon’s mission to scale human value, while trying to strip it away at the same time.ch 7 reading response
I’m reflecting on Artful Design’s Principle 7.4, and its claim that usefulness, fullness of expression, authenticity, and transparency of use make a valuable social tool. While these four tenets make sense on the surface level, I wonder how individual users can ascribe their own usages onto a social tool. Take, for example, Facebook. Ignoring the glaring elephant in the room about transparency, one could argue that Facebook is an incredibly valuable social tool because it allows you to connect with other people more effectively, you can post anything you want, and we can authentically engage with others on the platform. However, as is the case for social media today, the authenticity factor starts to dwindle as more and more importance is placed on external validation.ch 6 reading response
I am drawn to Artful Design’s concepts of Ludus and Paidia in game design. When I think of what makes a game pleasurable, it involves two things - competition and exploration. Competition probably falls under Ludus; it has a strict goal, stimulates the player, contains a set of rules as a guiding structure of actions, and is generally striving to complete some end. Exploration is a little trickier to think about. At first glance, it seems like exploration cleanly falls under Paidia, since it is often improvised playing without an immediate goal. However, these categories also feel like they can have significant overlap.ch 5 reading response
I am interested in Artful Design’s Principle 5.4: Bodies Matter! The idea that our body is the ultimate instrument is true right now, and it’s interesting to reflect on how this concept has transformed over years of technological development. We of course started creating music with our voice and hands and limbs, and technology has opened up the scope of that. Page 210 displays some common methods of physical musical actions, like shaking, striking, plucking, tapping, sliding, and twisting. These all existed with rudimentary instruments, and the introduction of synthetic and electronic music has changed the game.
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