Category Archives: sound

Superdeep Borehole Samples Create Non-boring Music

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In the 1970s, the Soviet Union decided to dig a hole for science. Not just any hole, the Kola Superdeep Borehole reached a depth of over 12 kilometers, the deepest at the time and the second deepest today by just a few meters. Since this was one of the few holes dug this deep that wasn’t being drilled for oil, the project was eventually abandoned. [Dmitry] was able to find some core samples from the project though, and he headed up to the ruins of the scientific site with his latest project which produces musical sounds from the core samples. …read more

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Modular Violin Takes A Bow

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They say the only difference between a violin and a fiddle is the way you play it. If that’s so, this modular violin will need a new name, since it can be broken apart and changed in ways that make it sound completely different, all within a few minutes.

The fiddle is the work of [David Perry] and has 3D printed body, neck, pegbox, and bridge. While it might seem useful on the surface as a way to get less expensive instruments out in the world where virtually anyone has access to them, the real interesting qualities are shown when …read more

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Submarine to Plane: Can You Hear Me Now? The Hydrophone Radar Connection

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How does a submarine talk to an airplane? It sounds like a bad joke but it’s actually a difficult engineering challenge.

Traditionally the submarine must surface or get shallow enough to deploy a communication buoy. That communication buoy uses the same type of radio technology as planes. But submarines often rely on acoustic transmissions via hydrophones which is fancy-talk for putting speakers and microphones in the water as transmitters and receivers. This is because water is no friend to radio signals, especially high frequencies. MIT is developing a system which bridges this watery gap and it relies on acoustic transmissions …read more

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The VU Meter and How It Got That Way

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Given its appearance in one form or another in all but the cheapest audio gear produced in the last 70 years or so, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the ubiquitous VU meter is just one of those electronic add-ons that’s more a result of marketing than engineering. After all, the seemingly arbitrary scale and the vague “volume units” label makes it seem like something a manufacturer would slap on a device just to make it look good. And while that no doubt happens, it turns out that the concept of a VU meter and its execution has some serious …read more

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