soundboard episode 004

00:00 // introduction

[ soundboard is a production of the austin audio lab ]

Gabe: Sound recording makes its way to space and we help you imagine what it was like. It’s all happening now, on soundboard, with Mark and Gabe.

[ opening track ]

Mark: Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 4 of soundboard. soundboard is an audio production podcast hosted by myself, Mark Stelter, and man recently voted best human by his dog, Clementine, Gabe Alvarez.

Gabe: On today’s episode, Mark will be taking you out of the past and into the future of recorded sound with Part 2 of his History of Recording series.

Mark: And as recorded sound returns to us from the Martian surface Gabe breaks down what a spaceship voyage to Mars might sound like. So with that, let’s countdown and blast off.

[ tape transition ]

 01:04 // history of recording, part 2

written by Mark Stelter

On the last episode of soundboard we talked about the early developments in sound recording from the recovered wavelengths of Eduard-Leon Scott de Martinville to wax cylinders refined by Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta Laboratory all the way up to the commercialization of flat shellac discs in the 1920s that resemble the vinyl records we are familiar with today. 

Before we continue on into the modern era, I wanted to first give a little more context to the introduction of the gramophone and shellac records. Emile Berliner, a German immigrant to the United States in 1870 first invented and patented the gramophone in 1887 which utilized the flat circular discs we are now accustomed to. While his initial patent described using cylinder recording similar to the phonograph, Berliner opted to use the flat disc method in practice, as they were easier to reproduce in large quantities. In 1888 Berliner used a recording method, in which a stylus traced a line through a very thin coating of wax on a zinc disc, which was then etched in acid to convert the line of bared metal into a playable groove. These “master discs” could then be stamped and reproduced on materials such as hard rubber. 

These gramophone records would be the primary competition to Edison’s phonograph cylinders up through 1929 when the flat disc approach eventually came out on top once the cost of materials allowed their production to be more cost effective. Think of it as the competition between beta max and VHS tapes, or if that’s too old of a reference for you, the competition between HD DVD and Blu Ray. And if that’s too old of a reference for you, “how do you do fellow youths?”

There would be several more major developments through the 1930s and 40s including the introduction of stereo sound as well as 4 and 8 track recording methods, but the next big change would occur in 1948 with the introduction of commercially viable vinyl records. There were two competing formats, the LP or Long Play and EP or Extended Play. LPs are 12” in diameter and run at a speed of 33.5 RPM, Revolutions Per Minute, whereas EPs are 7” in diameter and run at a speed of 45 RPM. For a fun experiment, most modern turntables allow for a selection between both speeds, so if you have one available, try playing a larger LP at 45 RPM or a smaller EP at 33.5 RPMs and get ready for some Alvin and the Chipmunks or slow motion sounding hilarity. 

While LPs and EPs initially competed directly against one another, the two formats would eventually diverge into their own markets. LPs were able to store more sound, roughly 25 minutes per side, but were more expensive than EPs. EPs on the other hand were cheaper, but could only hold about 7 and a half minutes per side. LPs would be the predominant way to record full albums and EPs could act as samplers or “singles.” If you’ve ever wondered where the term, “hit single” came from, you can thank the EP. 

Now, as you might be able to tell at this point, there is a significant lag between the invention of a new recording medium and the ability for it to become commercially available to most people. As such, the vinyl record would continue to dominate the recording industry through the 1970s, even though both 8 track and cassette tapes were actually first introduced in the 1960s. 

Part of their development and success would stem from the booming automotive industry that was able to install the compact playback devices into cars. Tapes would be the go to choice for listening on the go. However, unlike the competition between LPs and EPs, 8 track tapes would be outclassed by the utility and overall improvement of sound quality from cassette tapes by 1983. 

As we approach the current era, we now arrive in recording territory that you might be familiar with. In a similar flurry of invention to the late 1800s and early 1900s we see the invention of CDs, MP3s and fully digital recording. The first patent for a device resembling the CD would be granted to American inventor James Russell in 1970, and his approach hearkened back to the very first recorded sounds of Eduard-Leon Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph over 100 years prior. As Leon’s phonautograph used a vibrating stylus to record a soundwave onto a piece of glass coated in soot, Russel’s invention used a photosensitive platter to capture binary code in lightened and darkened intervals which could then be read by a computer and converted into an electrical signal that could then be played back. 

Sony released the first commercially available CD player, the CDP-101, in 1982 and with continued improvement in digital sound encoding throughout the 1980s, the CD would lead the market for audio recordings by 1991. At the same time, a man named Karlheinz Brandenburg was in the process of developing the MP3 format as one of the first digital audio files that could be easily and cheaply decoded. Now that we have the ability to record digitally as well as the commercial viability of a digital audio file in the MP3, digital audio workstations or DAWs would rival the magnetic tape recording process of the previous generation. In fact, I’m using a DAW right now in the form of Reaper and there are many other options available from Pro Tools to Ableton to Garage Band. 

And this basically brings us up to date with how sound is actually recorded and processed. Of course, the CD has gone the way of the cassette today and streaming services are a very popular medium to listen to audio production, but the nuts and bolts of digital recording have been fairly solidified. However, the application of digital recording recently made history by the capture of audio from NASAs Perseverance rover and it’s successful landing on Mars. Perseverance is equipped with two microphones, one included in it’s SuperCam system which is currently in the process of running operational diagnostics for its data collection mission and another that might surprise you. First off, the SuperCam system is a major part of the rover that is going to be used for rock and soil analysis of the Martian surface. The inbuilt microphone provides another tool that can help scientists determine the exterior coating of Martian rocks in what might be the coolest way possible. By recording the sound they make as they blast through the rocks with a laser. Seriously. By recording laser sound micro explosions. 

The second microphone is actually a commercially available product called the 4006 Omnidirectional Microphone made by the Danish company DPA microphones. The microphone is mounted on the exterior of the rover and connected to a MMA-A Digital Audio Interface on the interior. The MMA-A's job is to digitize audio recordings in the highest quality and send it to a computer in the Rover through a USB connection. And that’s it. Other than some tweaks in mounting and location, no other major changes were made. A microphone that you can buy yourself if you wanted to, just went to Mars and successfully captured sound of the surface. And this all happened within the span of 164 years. The entirety of recorded sound.

I’m sure the process of digital recording will continue to be refined as the years go on, but could something entirely new replace it, just as many other recording methods have been overtaken since Martinville’s phonautograph? Only time, Curiosity and Perseverance will tell.

[ tape transition ]

10:04 // sounds of ships

written by Gabe Alvarez

Last episode, I built my own blaster sounds from scratch, and while I captured that experience, today I wanted to document the process of designing a sound. So, today, I’m making a spaceship.

I’m going to walk you through my process for creating this sound sequence, from the actual sounds I used to the ideas that directed me. And by the end of this episode, I think you’ll be able to make your own spaceship sound. But we’ll have to change the mood first.

When I sat down to do this, I knew only two things: I wanted to make a spaceship sound and I wanted to use sounds I already had. But what kind of ship am I making? Are we landing or flying by? Are we in space or on a planet? I had no idea what I was ultimately trying to create, which meant I had no idea where to start, and when you have no idea where to start, it’s time to experiment.

I went into our Industrial Sound Pack and grabbed the first ceiling fan I saw. It’s fine. Sounds like a ceiling fan. But I know I want to use multiple layers to make this ship, and this has way too much low end for me. I ran a high pass filter and attenuated everything under 100Hz. Yeah, this is a good place to start. We could be inside the cabin with this, I don’t know yet. But I know it needs more.

So I grab my trusty vacuum cleaner. I love this sound. It’s got that high pitched whine that just sounds like engines or turbines or something. I ran a low pass filter and attenuated everything over 1000Hz. And that sounds pretty cool. And when you layer them up. Okay, sounds alright.

What ends up really grabbing me is the end of the vacuum cleaner, it’s got this great spin down, this great natural musicality to it. I’ve got to use it.

This ship is landing.

And I realized something -- my vacuum cleaner is hitting a note. Pretty close to an A natural. Since I decided to design a ship coming in and landing, I was going to need a really beefy low end for when it got in close. So I pulled up a nasty synth and hit a really ugly cluster chord -- Ab, Bb, and B natural. I figured the dissonance of the chord and the quality of the synth would introduce a technological element to the two mechanical pieces we already had. To blend it in, I rolled off everything over 1000Hz and got a nice digital grumble.

And when I put it all together… pretty cool. For a start. But I need context.

To give us some motion, and a sense of what we’re working with, I automated the volume, the panning, and the pitch to evaluate how our new sound was coming.

It sounds pretty cool, but it’s also kind of flat. There’s no texture, there’s no interest. It needs more. So I ran outside and grabbed some recordings of my car. What I really wanted to add was something to the landing part of the sequence, when the engines cycle off. So I grabbed that segment, dropped the pitch, and I was pretty happy to get this. But the entire recording sounded awesome, it was too good to leave out. So I went back to my ship baseline and added this in.

Getting back to where we were, this ship is starting to sound pretty cool. But it needs more.

We’ve got a pretty heavy duty ship flying in, but I’m not hearing the context. Since this ship is coming in and landing, it needs some landing gear and it needs some maneuvering thrusters.

So I grabbed some metal hatch sounds from our Industrial Sound Pack again and some white noise from a helicopter air vent.

I pitched up the air vent, automated some random pitch adjustments, and chopped it up to get a sense of motion, this sense of something big and heavy coming in low and trying to do these little precise adjustments. To cut through the ship engine sounds a little better, I boosted the high end.

With the metal hatch sounds, I raised the gain and dropped the pitch way low and rolled off the high end. These came out super ugly and harsh. I just mashed them together, really frankenstein, just got a really ugly background texture but that’s okay because I don’t care, this is background texture, this is ship buckling or shifting or something and it’s going to be washed out pretty heavily by all these engine sounds. I just need the texture. I need the sense that there is something big and something real operating in space.

And suddenly it occurs to me that I need some more buckling metal. I need a way to know that the landing gear is coming out, that this ship is flying in and hovering for a second while it prepares to touch down. So I run to the garage and open the door a couple of times.

I’m not really concerned that this sounds very obviously like a garage door opening. I drop the pitch and suddenly it’s got a new personality. I’m loving this dynamic moaning and groaning of the motor mechanism and these random squeaks underneath it. I grab two of these door opening sequences and I add them to the ship scene.

They don’t cut through the mix, and that’s good, it’s almost like I went back for a second and added gesso to my canvas before putting my paint back on it. And I like that, but I need more. I’m still not hearing the landing gear, and I do need that to come through.

I would love some kind of long hydraulic whine. I want to hear some kind of servo assembly deploying these gears. I can’t think of anything around my house that I’ve got that would fit that, so I go back to my vacuum cleaner. I pitch it down, roll off the high and low frequencies and end up with this. Throwing that into the landing sequence, we get this.

It sounds okay, but it’s still missing something. I’m not sure exactly what it needs, so I do a little experimenting. I take another pass at my garage door track. The engines I already designed are pretty solid in terms of their presence, so I want to break this up a little. First, I add some auto-panning to get this shudder effect. And I’m liking it. I’m starting to believe this is a functional piece of equipment. I end up tweaking the rate of the auto pan and automating the pitch to really lock down this feeling of heavy machinery shutting down.

And doing that gives me an idea. I grab my vacuum cleaner AGAIN, pitch it way up, automate some pitch adjustments, and add the shudder effect to characterize the ship’s approach. All of my pitch automations so far have given us this doppler effect of a vehicle approaching, which is nice, but I really want something to GRAB your attention as soon as it starts. So I throw it in and listen to what I’ve got.

And it needs MORE. I know it. You know it. This ship doesn’t touch the ground. I need to hear a big thud as this thing touches down. So I go to my original field recordings from when I was trying to make blasters. I went to my “rejected” pile of sounds, a hammer on a slack telephone wire. Oh yeah. Immediately, I know this is it. I grab a few of these and layer them with a little offset, and drop the pitch way down. Perfect. I add this in and it’s done!

One fully designed sound sequence wrapped up and in the bag, using only sounds I collected myself, using things around my house or around my neighborhood. And hopefully this gives you some ideas when it comes to producing your own sounds or navigating your own creative process. If you decide to design any ship sounds of your own, we’d love to hear them. Tag us on Twitter @austinaudiolab and let us what you’ve created. And if you’re curious to hear more sounds that we’ve worked on, go ahead and check out the links in today’s show notes or on our blog at AustinAudioLab.com.

22:36 // closing

Mark: Thanks for listening to this episode of soundboard! If you couldn’t tell by now, we love space. Space is the place. So Elon, if you’re listening, we’re available.

Gabe: You can find links to the gear we used, the sources we referenced, and the sounds we made for today’s episode in the show notes, or, on our blog post at austinaudiolab.com. This is the Austin Audio Laboratory, signing off for now.

[ music fades out ]