Members asynchro_nous Posted July 26, 2006 Members Share Posted July 26, 2006 Fascinating stuff: "Since Marco Polo it has been known that some sand dunes have the peculiar ability of emitting a loud sound with a well defined frequency, sometimes for several minutes. The origin of this sustained sound has remained mysterious, partly because of its rarity in nature. It has been recognized that the sound is not due to the air flow around the dunes but to the motion of an avalanche, and not to an acoustic excitation of the grains but to their relative motion. By comparing several singing dunes and two controlled experiments, one in the laboratory and one in the field, we here demonstrate that the frequency of the sound is the frequency of the relative motion of the sand grains. The sound is produced because some moving grains synchronize their motions. The existence of a velocity threshold in both experiments further shows that this synchronization comes from an acoustic resonance within the flowing layer: if the layer is large enough it creates a resonance cavity in which grains self-synchronize." Check out text, video and audio at: http://www.lps.ens.fr/~douady/SongofDunesIndex.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25find.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members XorAxAx Posted July 27, 2006 Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 Dude, that is some crazy stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kooki_sf Posted July 27, 2006 Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 wholy poop. moving sand as a resonant cavity?! crazyyy... really lush sound tho, makes me wanna experiment with sand resonating tanks (mmm reverb) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members asynchro_nous Posted July 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 It is thought-provoking, isn't it? I can listen to the chaotic sound of water flowing over and through rocks for hours, too -- drives my son crazy when we go for a hike in the woods........ Doesn't Reaktor have algorithms that are evocative of this sort of thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kooki_sf Posted July 27, 2006 Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 i would assume reaktor would have some sort of granular implementation. then again i wouldnt really know, cause im a max/msp person. i would sure hope it did. nathan wolek's granular toolkit for max is pretty awesome (and simple (and free!)) to use..... if your down with the whole max thing. really good for making clouds that would resemble this kind of sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John B NYC Posted July 27, 2006 Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 If i was walking in the desert and heard that it would seriously freak me out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members asynchro_nous Posted July 27, 2006 Author Members Share Posted July 27, 2006 Yeah, really -- would remind one maybe of the giant sandworms of Dune coming........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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