Flat Panel Loudspeaker

Unlike a conventional speaker, which is in essence a highly-controlled piston-like structure, the flat panel speaker goes back to first principles in sound reproduction. Those simple experiments with a tuning fork at school, tell us that the tuning fork itself, when struck, can hardly be heard. Yet rest the fork on a surface e.g. desk, filing cabinet, etc, and the surface comes alive and reproduces a tone essentially at the frequency set by the tuning fork. The loudness of the sound will depend on how stiff and heavy the surface is. These surfaces are creating sound, not by being a highly controlled piston, but by vibrations that are occurring across the entire surface.

Amina has taken this one stage further in order to achieve an unobvious or invisible source. Using the skills and techniques developed over the last six years from the commercial installation market, Amina has created a true in-wall speaker which is skimmed over with plaster. Both the composite panel structure and the thin layer of plaster and paint or wallpaper on its surface, become the vibrational soundboard. In fact in a stud wall, or a ceiling, the vibrations spread out beyond the boundary of the panel into the surrounding plasterboard. Just like the acoustic musical instrument (e.g. the sides of the piano), these vibrations are not as active as the main panel area, but they still make a valuable contribution in generating sound energy in the room, thus making an even more consistent sound field in the space. And just like the piano in the concert hall, such a surface can fill a very large space.

Plague of Noise

"And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visitation to prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance: viz., that it is impossible to know the infected people from the sound, or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves."

- Daniel DeFoe. Journal of the Plague Year

Inspired in part by Leif Elggren's Virulent Images/Virulent Sound (if images can be virulent, can sound be virulent too?), blackdeath is the first open hardware/free software noise synthesiser with the plague inside.

Embedding epidemic and plague simulations amongst other data generation algorithms for granular re-synthesis of incoming audio signals or self-generated feedback, blackdeath represents a virulent yet highly controllable noise/audio engine with built-in, switchable distortion.

Alternatively you can abandon the plague carrier and code your own sampling software to make use of resident 512 Kb RAM (64 seconds of audio sampled at 8000 samples per second), 8 bit DAC (Digital Analogue Convertor), and digital switched distortion(s). A prototype area is provided to design, test and run your own distortion designs.

Right to silence?

The infuriating ring of someone else's mobile blights many a night out at the cinema or theatre. France has decided to jam phone signals to allow audiences to enjoy shows in silence - could the UK follow suit?

The trill or bleep of a mobile has become an all-too familiar recreational hazard for theatre and cinema-goers. In France they've had enough and the government is allowing venues to use mobile phone jammers to block incoming signals.

'Quiet zones'

Instead of electric jammers, the solution could be "wallpaper" containing complex metal patterns which block some signals but let others through. Its use is a legal "grey area" in the UK. This could soon be on the market, for use in airports, hospitals, prisons, military establishments or indeed any building which needs a "quiet zone", says technology firm Qinetiq. Just think of how schools could benefit from putting a stop to text-crazy pupils, suggests a Qinetiq spokesman.

Very interesting to think about the link between Erik Satie's Furniture music, which was otherwise somtimes refered to as wallpaper music, by which he insisted that the audience attempt not to listen:

"In the midst of an art opening at a Paris gallery in 1902, ambient music was born. Erik Satie and his cronies, after begging everyone in the gallery to ignore them, broke out into what they called Furniture Music—that is, background music—music as wallpaper, music to be purposely not listened to."

Musique d'Ameublement
Literally, "furniture music," the phrase coined by Satie in 1917, where he identifies sound
as drapes, tiling, wallpaper - items belonging to the environment - and changing it simply by being in it, by actually becoming elements of the space. The idea being that, since you don't notice the sound right away, it becomes, in a sense, part of the furniture.

NoiseGard – This is how it works

The NoiseGard™ technology developed by Sennheiser is used in many cockpits all over the world. It is based on the principle that unwanted low-frequency noise can be eliminated by adding phase-inverted anti-noise. Fot this, small microphones (usually in the ear cups) pick up the ambient noise. The NoiseGard™ electronics then generate an identical signal – but phase-inverted by 180°. Thus the two noise signal waves cancel each other out to a very large extend, and music can be enjoyed to the full.

MICHAEL PRIME L-fields

Some records will please you, others will disturb or mystify you. And then some rare specimens will extend your conception of life. Michael Prime's L-fields is of the latter category. The source material on L-fields consists of bioelectrical recordings of hallucinogenic plants. Yep. Prime records the fluctuations of the electric guitar field of a plant, fluctuations that trigger an oscillator. Prime later compresses, overlays, and integrates sounds from the surrounding environment to the signal and voilà: through a work aesthetically close to electroacoustics, the listener is invited to hear a plant live its life!

Listen to an extract here: Contour of a Forgotten Landscape

Janna Levin: The sound the universe makes

WHAT A GEOPHONE DOES

A geophone converts seismic energy inputs (or vibrations) into electrical voltage which can be accurately measured. The term geophone derives from the Greek word “geo” meaning “earth” and “phōnē” meaning “sound”. A geophone is a passive device requiring no additional power which converts seismic energy (ground displacement) into an electrical signal producing an output voltage which is proportional to the geophone velocity.


The instrument is based on the principal of a spring mounted coil which moves within a magnetic field. The geophone’s coil remains stationary due to its inertia and the case moves in relation generating a voltage as the coil windings move through the magnetic field. Compared to active (powered) sensors a geophone offers the advantage of extreme low noise having only Brownian motion noise. The bandwidth of a geophone is generally defined from its natural frequency to the spurious frequencies which are unwanted parasitic resonances present in all geophones and caused by the sideward motion of the coil.

Soundbug turns flat surface into speakers

It may be more famous for making typewriters, but Olympia has just revealed what some observers are calling one of the sexiest gadgets of this year's CeBit: a small device that can turn pretty much any flat surface into a soundboard.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-860746.html#ixzz1Gn65YpIp

Found - Cybraphon

Preview at SWG3 Saturday 14th April


The objects which were sourced for this piece came from the incredible collection of Michael Bennet Levy's collection in Monkton House, described in an article of the Edinburgh Evening News and the catalogue of all the items which were sold at auction by Bonham's on the 30th September 2009, which included a collection of 20 pre-war television sets (rarer than a Stradivaius violin), is available to view here.

Triste Tryst, a tango for Cybraphon by Bernd Rest from Cybraphon on Vimeo.