The Sounds of Failing Hard Drives

Slashdot.org has an article about a site that is hosting the sounds of thirty five different hard drives failing. Although the recording quality is generally poor there are some really interesting sounds including a Maxtor drive with a stuck spindle producing a “futuristic cell phone melody”. You can read the article and checkout the sounds here, although it might be a bit busy due to the site being slashdotted.

Also, click the image to see a video of a remix of Nude by Radiohead made entirely out of sounds captured from old computer peripherals including a dot matrix printer, scanner, cassette drive, hard drives, and so on. The remix and video was created by Glasgow based artist James Houston.

Caribbean Surf and Tide Pools

I recently recorded the sound of Caribbean surf and the gurgling of the waves as they receded from tide pools on a beach near Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, Mexico. I did my best to shield the wind from the mic, but the cheap foam wind screen I brought with me was painfully inadequate.

To try and repair the sound I edited a few instances of clipping, and ran the lot through a a high pass filter to reduce some of the wind noise. Finally I compressed the audio to bring out some of the gurgling and splashy sounds.

Caribbean Surf

Warped Space Flute

This sound is the seventh entry in my series of FM synthesis experiments. There are some very strange high frequency overtones audible in the first half of the sound. If you can bear the high frequencies, I suggest looping this sound and then listening to it for about thirty minutes.

As you listen say to yourself, “I will stop smoking cigarettes. I will stop smoking cigarettes.” If you are a non-smoker afterward and were not a non-smoker before, let me know and we’ll start a business.

Warped Space Flute

Subterranean Sonar

Number six in my series of FM synthesis experiments is a grainy, low frequency stomach growl that makes me imagine subterranean seismic activity. For this example I played a randomized patch three times at different positions on the keyboard while exploring the patch.

One word of warning: I have not filtered out any subsonic frequencies or tested the audio on equipment that is capable of producing them.

Subterranian Sonar

Spontaneous Polymerization

Number five in my sequence of experiments with FM synthesis is a bit noisier than the previous entries which is typical of sounds produced by randomizing parameters. Most of these I leave by the wayside, or edit specific parameters to make them more usable. However, this sound endeared me with is dirty and gravely characteristics. It caused me to imagine some scientific device of the future capable of materializing products or replicating a potato in a manner of seconds. This is the sound of that hypothetical device.

Spontaneous Polymerization