Cymatic Sounds

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One thing that I think we don’t do enough is record amplified synthesis with microphones. I must admit to recording an unhealthy portion of my work direct. There’s a reason. It’s much easier. It’s clean. It’s fast. But some really great qualities can be achieved by going the extra mile. Some of my favorite sounds were made by plugging my Pro-One into my Leslie cabinet and using the motor speed for expression. During our cymatics tests last week I recorded some of the sounds made by the oscillators, and the agitated granules with my PCM-D50 and my mobile phone. Here’s a combination of those sounds layered into an ambient microtrack.

Cymatic Sounds

Mustard Seed Activity at 73Hz

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Getting these mustard seeds to scatter and converge in this cymatics test took tuning the cycle~ object in Max to around 73 Hertz. The spherical shape of this material lends itself well to this sort of experiment. The next time we attempt this we will be using a more controlled environment with a leveled, more sensitive membrane between the speaker and the seeds or grains.

Cymatics Test: Mustard Seed and Max

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After a few attempts and creating cymatics with the WSG, we switched to creating a simple Max patch that we used to generate the frequencies. This allowed us to isolate specific frequencies that worked well to excite the mustard seed on the platform. This time it is much easier to hear the hissing sound of the mustard seed as is vibrates on the platform. It sounds a little bit like white noise, but brighter and less consistent

Cymatics Test: Mustard Seed and Max

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