Noises from the Arduino

The Arduino is a little programmable doo-hickie that can be used for lots of things. I was playing with mine recently and hooked the digital outs up to an analog sound board. This is a common thing to do with the Arduino. You can coax the thing into making analog-like sounds through the digital output. Since it is digital, everything is a square wave.

All of these sounds were made with a little routine I got from the sample code for making a sound:

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {
  for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(tone);
  }
}

Here are a few little audio samples that I made tonight whilst fooling around. The first one is just random frequencies:

long i = 0;
  
i= random(5, 100);
playTone( i*i, 100 );

 

Arduino Random

The rest are just a sweep using different durations:

 
for(int i = 5; i < 100; ++i ) {
    playTone( i*i, 50 );
  }
for(int i = 100; i >= 5; --i ) {
    playTone( i*i, 50 );
}

Arduino Sweep Slow

Arduino Sweep Medium

Arduino Sweep Fast

Arduino Sweep Very Fast

It has digital and analog inputs as well, so my next goal is to use some sort of control voltage to make noises. More to come!

M.

Ring Modulated Rhodes Line Out of Context

While sorting through dusty clips from live performances I came across an angular Rhodes line that sounded quite odd removed from the context of the original set.

I decided to loop the line to create a forty second phrase. Afterward I ran it through distortion, ring modulation, reverb and delay. I also automated the fine tuning setting on the ring modulator to create a sweeping pitch shift.

Rhodes Line Out of Context

 

Happy Anniversary Audio Cookbook

I registered the AudioCookbook.org domain in December 2007, but the first few entries on the site happened on January 14, 2008, which I am hereby declaring as the birthday of ACB making it one year old as of Wednesday. It has been an interesting year. In July, 2008 I started the One Sound Every Day project. Creating at least seven sounds a week with written accompaniment has been at times exhausting and exhilarating. Regular readers, commentary and contributions from around the globe have kept it fun and inspiring for me along the way. Thanks to sponsorship from Unearthed Music, who provide the hosting for ACB, we are non-profit and free of advertisements.

I would like to thank all the readers / listeners who have set their eyes / ears on ACB. A special thanks goes out to everyone who has commented, either with words or sound, keeping the discussions alive. A very special thanks goes out to the contributors including Simone Giuliani, Michael Koppelman, Nils Westdal, Leafcutter John, and Tom Player. I’d also like to thank Peter Kirn for helping to legitimizing ACB on his site Create Digital Music. Here’s a link to one of Keston and Westdal’s most popular tracks from the late nineties, Sonny’s Cut, off of our first album, Super Structure Baby.

Sonny’s Cut
from Super Structure Baby (2004, Unearthed Music).

Resonant Drone

Here’s another example of audio that was recorded for the purpose of live looping during a performance.

The clip is dated from August 18, 2006 and is a typical example of how I often use a resonant drone with cutoff frequency manipulation through delay to create textures.

Resonant Drone

 

vintage sci-fi retro sounds

Vintage laserHey again. More from the Lost Track archives! As my last contribution focussed on the huge NZL14 Yacht, I thought what better than to continue where I left off…

This sound is not an original discovery, but it certainly feels satisfying one you know where it came from – I’ve heard many techniques on getting this sort of sound, including striking telegraph poles. In this instance, it came from a large steel mainstay cable which was very thick and under several tonnes of pressure. After being struck, they started to move metal rings up and down, giving a raspy sound. I’ve got hours of this stuff!

Sci Fi retro laser gun sound!