Audio

Related to my musical interests, obviously, but more focused on the tech.

Stradivarius' secret

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While I’ve never had the opportunity to hear one in person, nearly anyone involved in the world of music is aware of the near-legendary quality of the instruments created by Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari. It appears that scientists may have narrowed down one intriguing factor in what makes a Stradivarius sound the way it does — it’s all in the wood.

…a tree-ring dating expert at the University of Tennessee and a climatologist at Columbia University offer a new theory — the wood developed special acoustic properties as it was growing because of an extended period of long winters and cool summers.

[…]

Grissino-Mayer at Tennessee and Dr. Lloyd Burckle at Columbia suggest a “Little Ice Age” that gripped Europe from the mid-1400s until the mid-1800s slowed tree growth and yielded uncommonly dense Alpine spruce for Antonio Stradivari and other famous 17th century Italian violinmakers.

[…]

“I think it is very, very interesting, and it seems to me a valid observation,” said Helen Hayes, president of the New York-based Violin Society of America, which hired Grissino-Mayer to examine “The Messiah.”

“But on the other hand, nobody in this field … would ever say that if you put the best wood in the world in the hands of a mediocre maker that you would get a good instrument,” she said. “So it is never a complete explanation. Nor is the varnish nor any of the other things they have talked about. I would dare say there is no one piece of the puzzle.”

(via Marginal Revolution)

Kung-tunes is back!

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I took a little time last night to get Kung-Tunes back up and running again — as before, there’s now a ‘Music of the Moment’ box displaying whatever .mp3 I’m listening to, updated every 30 seconds so that it’s always current.

Technical details follow…

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Music, music, music

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I found a fun little toy to play with today — a little program called Kung-Tunes that ties into iTunes (my .mp3 player), grabs whatever song I’m listening to at the moment, and writes a small text file to my website. That file is then integrated into the page whenever someone hits my site, giving them an instant readout of whatever I’m listening to if I happen to have any music playing when they visit.

Useful? Not in the least. Just cool.

Music industry wakes up

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It’s about time some of the music companies started realizing that, cliched as the phrase may be, “if you can’t beat ’em — join ’em!” According to a story in the LA Times, Universal and Sony will be offering low-cost, unencrypted music downloads over the ‘net. Individual tracks for 99 cents, albums for $9.99 — and they can be freely (and legally) burned to CD once they’re downloaded. Hopefully it will work well enough that the other studios will follow suit….

[From Usenet: 1.18.94 0513]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the rec.arts.movies Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

In article <1994Jan18.042438.17...@midway.uchicago.edu>, s...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Charles P. Samenow) writes:

What are the differences between: DTS, Digital Dolby, Dolby, Dolby SR and THX?
-Charles
s…@midway.uchicago.edu

Well, I’m no expert, but here’s what I’ve gathered…

  • Dolby – uses the same techniques as your Dolby cassettes…noise reduction, basically.
  • DolbySR – the noise reduction, plus better placement of where the noises appear to be coming from in the theatre. Stands for Dolby Spectral Recording.
  • Digital Dolby – in addition to the normal sound track, a digital track is printed between the sockets of the film. When a theatre is equipped to read and reproduce this track, it results in near cd quality sound (no background hiss and pops), and also uses six tracks to place the sounds…one center, two front (left and right), two rear (left and right), and one subwoofer channel. End result-some of the best quality sound I’ve ever heard in a movie theater. When it’s used effectively, it can be really mind-blowing.
  • DTS – a similar technique to Digital Dolby, only developed by Sony (if I remember correctly) and Lucasfilm…which can cause some licensing conflicts in theatres already set up with Digital Dolby. Competing systems and all. Major difference…instead of using the space between the sprocket holes, the digital track is printed in a small strip on the edge of the film, which means the actual print can’t be quite as wide. I recently saw Schindler’s list in DTS, though, and didn’t see any noticeable difference in the width of the image.
  • THX – developed by Lucasfilm. Not so much an improvement in the sound itself, THX uses special placing of speakers and translation of the audio tracks to make sure no matter where in the theatre you sit, you get the true stereo effect…something which can suffer greatly towards the edges of a theatre in a non-THX environment.

Where’d I get all the info? Lots of reading, and working in the only theatre in Alaska to have Dolby Digital installed. Anchorage’s Fireweed theatre was (this may have changed by now) at the time the biggest Dolby Digital installation on the West Coast…the auditorium sits over 900. Digital installations has been done before, just not in an auditorium that large. Was a more than $10,000 upgrade to the existing system. Plus, though I don’t work there anymore, the licensing agreements have been settled to the point that it now has DTS also.

Incidentally, except for the DTS (because it’s from a different company), all of the systems are compatable. Using digital negates the need for normal Dolby (noise reduction for digital sound?), however it’s perfectly possible (and has been done) to have a movie recorded in both Dolby Digital and THX, and I suppose in both DTS and THX. Sounds incredible, too…