Direct mp3 download or play: Mysterious Sounds From Cyberspace – Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play: Mysterious Sounds From Cyberspace – Part 2

Part 2

Here are a couple of recordings of sounds exclusively from the internet. They are somewhat messy and I’ve been wondering since January if I should post them. Both parts feature live streaming audio from hydrophones (underwater microphones), several webcams with fairly high-quality audio, and radio noise from online Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio receivers. In part 1 in particular, the tones were created by feeding the VLF radio noise into a VST frequency shifter and “tuning” it until I got the repeating tones. In addition, the sound was back fed into a microphone simultaneously which captured the sound of my room. That was actually a mistake, but I decided I liked the added room ambience.

Direct mp3 download or play:  Rain and Thunder – September 15th, 2013

Finally, here in Seattle, there was a decent thunderstorm worthy of recording! I used my Sony PCM D50 digital recorder with a towel over the built-in microphones to reduce wind noise. This recording was a 24 bit wav file at 48 kilohertz. Then I transferred the file to my computer and used Adobe Audition for some clipping restoration (on the loudest peaks), boosted the high frequencies about 3.5db, and added fades at the beginning and ending. In addition, I tried to keep the dynamics as wide as possible for a more lifelike sound. Someday I may have this file available for downloading. For now it is an mp3 at 320 kilobits, 48 kiloherts, 16 bit. I used RazorLame with the LAME encoder for the highest possible quality mp3.

wav file in Adobe Audition 24 bit, 48 kilohertz unprocessed from recorder

wav file in Adobe Audition 24 bit, 48 kilohertz peak level -.33db