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Topic: Understand this audio phenomenon? (Read 7240 times) previous topic - next topic
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Understand this audio phenomenon?

Given the broad span of sectors this relates to, I can't put it into the music or scientific board specifically, and more importantly the implications of this to musicians and how rare and strange this album is, I will ask here, but move it if it is necessary.

This is a phenomenon encompassing memory, psychoacoustics, neural oscillations, and maybe the mind-body connection. I will just state at first the album I am 100% sure is based solely on it:

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

I hate to have to write anything about what I think it is about, as it is an all-or-nothing thing I must say to deliver the entire idea. However, I will say that it has possibly to do with phase and the localization of a sound source or point within the head, or a "focusing" of "energy" to certain points. The album is hardly musical and seems to serve one of a few very unique purposes, maybe related to healing. When concentrating on this sound in all of its detail, it may "gridlock" the mind and achieve certain purposes only possible in the state it can induce, with a bit of the listeners intention also. The fact that they keep going with like 20 fans and have released this on vinyl also confirms that they know what's up. I've been listening to too much music for a long time and the closest others I can say work on similar principles are:

Meshuggah - Catch 33
Devin Townsend - The Hummer

I hope someone has heard this record and can help me research or confirm this. I can't believe this is all recorded and not heavily edited/created on the computer, but godlike precision control of effects and synths at the time of recording can do it I guess. I must say, if you are going to somehow get this to quickly demo it, make sure it is high quality. I'm not sure if anything is lost with mp3 compression.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #1 –
I'm not entirely sure what you're after?

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #2 –
I'm sure the "phenomenon" gets more noticeable with the help of some wacky tobacky.

Hmm, here's a review of the album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdTJwZrCSOc

Money quote:
Quote
It probably will come off to someone new to the band as *air quotes* just noise.


Dunno if he's being sarcastic though.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #3 –
Great stoner, fine Black Sabbath followers
Orchestrations in that particular release a bit early Laibach-ian, or if you want NON (Boyd Rice' band) resemblances to me
vocal Hungarian drone

I have the release but never investigate the sound, although I enjoy listening to

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #4 –
This is the least intelligible HA thread I've ever seen.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #5 –
Hm, I did search iTunes store, and indeed didn't find the release. Probably you wouldn't like it anyway

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #6 –
Whatever Sunn O)))'s purposes are, I am sure they aren't related to healing   
"maximum volume yields maximum results" is the suggestion usually printed on their back-covers.

But it's true that their "music" takes hold on you. If you let it, it can easily become some kind of "spiritual experience".
I think brainwave and binaural beats are the terms to research here.
I love their music and "Monoliths & Dimensions" in particular.
Check out OO Void if you can find it.

Greetings
D.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Debby747 on
I think brainwave and binaural beats are the terms to research here.

In noisy genres (experimental, stoner, doom, dark ambient...) using overdriven guitars or any noise background pattern as carrier sound processed as binaural beat would be more effective then "general" binaural records, where the carrier is not so pleasant, nor natural, and easily predictable bass sound tones at 500-1000 Hz.

I processed two track from the mentioned release (2nd and 4th track) and I couldn't find any indication of binaural beats. Can you point to some link where it is claimed that Sunn O))) uses this technique?

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #8 –
Ah, I was not thinking of carrier waves -
my guess is, that a similar effect is naturally created here - "unpredictable" of course but consistently in the range possible for stringed instruments.

On the other hand, perhaps I shouldn't have estimated it at all... deep frequencies can solely do funny things to your stomach. Perhaps that's all there is to it...

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: krabapple on
This is the least intelligible HA thread I've ever seen.

Completely agree with you!
If age or weaknes doe prohibyte bloudletting you must use boxing

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Debby747 on
Ah, I was not thinking of carrier waves -
my guess is, that a similar effect is naturally created here - "unpredictable" of course but consistently in the range possible for stringed instruments.

You'll need some kind of carrier to make binaural beats work.

Processing files for binaural beat presence requires time and will. In the mean time (my reason for posting again) I suspected on "Ra At Dawn" (from "ØØ Void" Nurse With Wound remix on 2008 re-release) and indeed - presence of passages starting at delta border (0.5 Hz) and concentrating at known seductive, pain release ~2.5 Hz.
I suspected at obvious passage starting at ~18:00 min with clean 14.7 Hz, merging at ~18:47 with additional frequencies, etc. I have no reference to this frequency other than it's known to be at beta border range

Probably I'll document this release next week if everything is fine

@eevan (and co. that plan useless quoting): Please weep elsewhere. You don't have to nor can understand every post published

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #12 –
I guess it's unintelligible cause I'm not really saying anything other than to listen to it, save the line about phase positioning. Apparently slight phase differences, different amounts for different frequencies, are what give your brain information on the location of a sound around you. The first track does it the most, I think the whole thing is meant to be one song but cut up for whatever reason. I doubt binaural beats are present, but they may be.

I think the localization draws very rough but maybe specific lines or paths inside your head, literally coercing neural connections to form in that relatively primitive shape, after removing you from the rigid structures normally present there, again, by you removing yourself from them with the sounds' help. But, only if you're a type to be able to be affected, and in the right mindset. Nothing smoked, way further; or a psychosis.

I can confirm, as the effect took me one time I tried it, it ends up suggesting your breathing. Once I snapped out of it, noticing just the last 5-10 (or who knows?) seconds of it, it was keeping me at VERY slow and low volume breaths, driven by both pitch and volume. At first I thought there was no relation but it was definitely audible, the relation, but now I realize areas where both pitch and volume increase in magnitude proportionately (volume much less IIRC) is where it is driving you to inhale or exhale accordingly. I haven't listened to it consciously, looking for this yet, I just took note of the effect when I did and fell back into it halfway, as I wanted to keep listening with no thought, but couldn't "sleep" to it again because I was too excited that I was correct that it had this or some kind of effect beyond music, spending a whole day and trip preparing to find that out. It was Meshuggah's Catch 33 that suggested to me these possiblities, as I fell asleep at certain songs before taking note of the titles "Entrapment" apart from being in my peripherals and quickly skimming the track list, as well as again during other listens, before and after realizing it may have had something strange, snapping to certain realizations or finishing long trains of thought RIGHT as the song changes or pauses or climaxes, several times throughout. EDIT: Another effect I forgot was intestinal cramping during a lot of it (monoliths, I can't recall any with C33 as I was sitting more awake every time). Funny you note that, rereading I just remembered that was there too. I kind of attributed it slightly to the strange diet that day (not really).

There is another discussion somewhere that shows an illustration of the ear's function that shows multiple sensors/hairs in the cochlea multiplexing into some neurons before multiplexing into more and so on, leading to the auditory nerve. Why is it that, while choosing to focus on sound and not worrying about anything else including autonomous bodily functions, the amount of multiplexing can decrease and essentially "more" brain can choose to interface with the ears input, including that which is normally reserved for things unrelated to direct audio input? In this case the "noise" may literally be neural impulses meant for specific areas at respective frequencies, which will be locked onto by the appropriate brain "module" which only understands that pattern of input in the first place. A lot of this ability may seem impossible but for schizophrenics for example, functional or not, it is well within the repository of possibility. I use quotes a lot because all this theory applies only from some or the majority of psychological theories, such as the various modular brain function models, which break complex mental procedures into understandable circuits or machines interacting, which the majority of the population, if developed on mostly the same education and life experience should have quite similar. Or maybe it only works for a tiny fraction of the population, which supports the low breath theory -> healing -> oxygen deprivation -> less neurons -> simpler mind while still retaining subconscious access to the deadened information and pathways for called-upon problem solving versus compulsive thought cycling/psychosis.

Added on edit: Hard to understand there, I will explain what I meant about the music controlling the mind. Generally understood, the brain has, defined by visible paths of neural activity, "wires" which will commonly flow data around, while processing it. The processing happens when a neuron chooses to produce a certain output for a combination or temporal pattern of inputs. However, there are way more dendrites (the arms that pick up signals from neighbours) than commonly witnessed active pathways. This allows lateral thinking, such as an idea coming from seemingly nowhere, due to the smallest relation, or even none at all. Out of 1000 neurons sensed by one, only a hundred or ten could be the ones which determine the majority of the activity.

Now, stop thinking, essentially meditate, and what happens is the brain falls into a highly sensitive imaginatory, sensory and everything-ory network that can involve from synaesthesia to complete fantasy-reality. Upon taking too much conscious note of these very non-influential and fluid connections, they are strengthened, and from then on the neuron may take more note of a connection and increase it's weight by many orders of magnitudes.

With the sound entering, but only in a very very high and out-there level of this state, there is pretty much a contiguous network of neurons. That is, the entire brain gets every signal generated anywhere, as long the data string is compatible with some kind of pattern matching or logic processing inside a neuron or nucleus or set of them (module). The areas related to autonomous breathing, will focus only on the pulses that are given to them which at first match the input the brain's natural breathing pacemaker generates for it, before it slowly changes over a long period, as to not suddenly become disconnected from it, unfocused by it, seen as garbage data meant for another part of the brain. The role that the frequency of the sound that the specific set of pulses plays at here is simply that it enters its own area of the spectrum, and set of input nerves from the ear, differentiating the signals. They could theoretically switch different sets of pulses to different frequencies, given that the number of cycles per second of the frequency are sufficient to encode a "pulse", if it is not a single cycle already, leading to a single pulse on the basilar membrane (If I am right here), as apparently on the zero-crossing of the sound wave moving positively, a single pulse is generated from the cochlea (or more, but at the same time, dependent on the magnitude of the sound).

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: m00k0w on
Apparently slight phase differences, different amounts for different frequencies, are what give your brain information on the location of a sound around you.



Not quite, the primary cue for localization on the cone of confusion is interaural delay. Your sensitivity is about 10 microseconds, some have reported 5, both of which are easily transmitted inside a standard Redbook format.

In any case, maximum ITD (interaural time delay) is on the order of 900 microseconds.  This is not "slight phase differences", this is substantial phase difference well below 1khz, and many cycles at 10kHz or 20kHz.

Remember, a delay of phi(f,t) = 2*pi*f*t is a pure delay of time 't' in seconds, with f in Hz.
-----
J. D. (jj) Johnston

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: m00k0w on
Apparently slight phase differences, different amounts for different frequencies, are what give your brain information on the location of a sound around you. The first track does it the most, I think the whole thing is meant to be one song but cut up for whatever reason. I doubt binaural beats are present, but they may be.

I checked Aghartha and I haven't found any indicators of binaural beat. I also checked whole ØØ Void, and it seems that only Nurse With Wound remixes have binaural beats, and not Sunn O))) tracks. I'll post graph results later as I'm consulting about some parts

Maybe phase analysis is the way to go, which I don't quite understand to know how to investigate interesting uses. Strange panning effects are obviously present and my sensation effect starts almost immediately and it makes like some sort of aura around my head, but what's the way it affects the body: does brain induces other body parts, or they are induced separately or maybe body as whole? Also it seems that listening on headphones reduces the effect, contrary to binaural beats

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #16 –
so, your join date allows you to throw BS on something you don't understand nor have interest in, and that is like fine here

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #17 –
Mmm, well I guess lots of people don't understand this thread, because this is not the sort of stuff that normally gets discussed here. Perhaps it would get a more sympathetic reception if you might explain what is at issue. Or perhaps this isn't the most appropriate forum. That, by the way, is a polite remark.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #18 –
To me it's simple: OP asks about what could cause the effect induced while listening to "Monoliths & Dimensions" especially the first track, named "Aghartha"

I had this release and made initial post from which you can see that I liked this release but did not put much attention to it, but after this thread I listened more carefully in my free time and agree with OP (placebo? could be, but not much)

I know how to find binaural beats and I'm doing that in spare time but the work is slow, and it's not directly related to release in question, but some remix made on other release, ØØ Void, which also has this effect as other member (just quoted - Debby747) joined and pointed about it
So binaural beats are not to look at, but OP suspects some deliberate phase positioning (or something I don't understand nor can investigate). Their releases are heavily engineered and it may be of interest in audio forum to touch some interesting aspect on something you can sense and it's not just overdriven guitar

Of course if you don't know the authors or not interested in such music/usage nor can do analysis I don't see point of being bold and posting about BS. I mean should I go in scientific discussion and post that I don't get this post and ask poster to explain everything to me, so that I could follow the topic? I don't share that thought

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #19 –
The bass laden beginning of Aghartha sent me some shivers down my spine. Still no extraordinary effect compared to what "ordinary" music is able to do once in a while. It anyway all collapsed when the embarrassing voice started talking.

I guess if there is a desperate need to read mythical phenomena into something, then there is a realistic chance to actually "find" them. A slice of burned toast has been sufficient for the appearance of Mary. Then I think it's not too far off to expect to "find" mind-body connection related phenomena in polyphonic sound fields.

Understand this audio phenomenon?

Reply #20 –
Quote from: googlebot on
I guess if there is a desperate need to read mythical phenomena into something, then there is a realistic chance to actually "find" them.

Curiosity is not desperate digging, but noble force

Let me re-quote your sentence as a reply, till I have valid on-topic results:

Quote
If you want the number X, you can find it everywhere.
X steps from your street corner to your front door,
X seconds you spend in the elevator
When your mind becomes obsessed
you filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.
X, Y, Z, whatever.
You've chosen X and you'll find it everywhere in nature.
But, as soon as you discard scientific rigor,
you are no longer a mathematician,
you're a numerologist.