Nostalgic for Sounds

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:41C62BD3.1E333D99@hotmail.com...
> http://www.calendarlive.com/la-et-sounds19dec19.story
>
> LA Times - December 19, 2004
> THE NATION
> Pressing the Mute Button on Our Daily Soundtrack
> By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
>
>
> Back in the prehistoric 1970s, one of life's little pleasures was the
> ability to slam down a telephone on annoying callers. Now, thanks to the
> rise of cordless phones, the best you can do is fiercely poke the off
> button - or, if money is no object, throw the receiver into a wall.
>
> The slamming phone, like dozens of once-familiar sounds, is headed for
> extinction. As technology advances, more and more noises - the pop of
> flashbulbs, the gurgle of coffee percolators, the clatter of home-movie
> projectors - are fading into oblivion.
>
> While audio junkies scramble to preserve samples for future generations,
> psychologists debate the consequences of this noise exodus. Some foresee
> a sonic revolution - one that could launch a surprising wave of silence
> and perhaps force Hollywood studios to rethink the way they tell
> stories.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Inside a bombproof vault a few blocks from the White House, Dan Sheehy
> is surrounded by audio ghosts: the clicketyclack of typewriters, the
> tumble of glass bottles inside a soda machine, a 1960s-era telephone
> ring.
>
> Here, sonic blasts from the past are entombed in a hodgepodge of vinyl
> records, compact discs and reel-to-reel tapes. "We are a museum of
> sound," said Sheehy, whose job is to preserve America's acoustic
> heritage for an obscure branch of the Smithsonian Institution.
>
> Sounds are like smells, he says. They can transport the listener to
> another time and place. The buzz of an airplane propeller sends Sheehy's
> mind back to hot afternoons in 1950s Bakersfield, playing in the yard
> while aircraft sputtered overhead. "The sound immediately triggers
> memories of time and temperature," he said.
>
> A handful of obsolete noises are so ingrained in our consciousness that
> filmmakers and advertisers still use them to evoke audience reactions.
> In the 2002 movie "Undercover Brother," for instance, a phonograph
> needle scraping across a vinyl record signaled an abrupt halt to the
> action.
>
> The emotional power of vintage sounds might explain the popularity of
> cellphone ring tones that mimic rotary telephone bells. "It's one of the
> biggest ring tones we sell," said Tom Valentino, president of Valentino
> Production Music, the nation's oldest sound-effects warehouse. In a
> similar vein, slot machines that pay out vouchers instead of cash often
> play a recording of cascading coins because research found customers
> missed the jackpot noise.
>
> Valentino has heard a lot of sounds come and go over the years. In 1932,
> his father got into the business by recording a milk wagon traveling
> down a New York street, the first of what is now a library of more than
> 50,000 sound effects. (The elder Valentino also worked with Orson Welles
> on "War of the Worlds" and once captured the chug of a steam train
> running full tilt by greasing the railroad tracks at Grand Central
> Station so the locomotive couldn't move.)
>
> Many of the company's recordings are now historical relics. A slamming
> car door from the 1960s, for example, sounds more metallic than today's
> rubberized thunk.
>
> Sounds are always mutating, Valentino said, but the pace accelerated
> after the advent of computerization. Electronic cash registers
> eliminated the ka-ching of their ancestors; digital cameras erased the
> traditional shutter-click and advancing-film noises of their
> predecessors; PowerPoint presentations chased away the clunks and whirs
> of slide projectors.
>
> The lifespan of sounds seems to be shrinking, Valentino said: "We sent
> our engineers to Ft. Bragg 25 years ago to record military tanks. All
> those sounds are now totally historical."
>
> So are old pinball machines, car horns and pull-chain toilet flushes.
> Even the scratch of chalk on a blackboard is being exiled by the squeak
> of markers on dry-erase boards.
>
> *
>
> A Subtle Shift
>
> For most of history, the soundscape rarely changed.
>
> "From the birth of man until the late 1800s, the predominant sounds
> human beings heard arose from nature," said Rex Julian Beaber, a
> psychologist and attorney in Century City.
>
> The Industrial Revolution upended all that, unleashing a cacophony of
> man-made noise. Today, another sonic revolution is underway. Although
> many observers fear the planet is about to become louder (check your
> local Dolby surround-sound cinema), Beaber foresees a wave of silence.
> Modern technologies are turning down the volume of our mechanized
> society, he says.
>
> So far, the differences are subtle, such as the click of a TV channel
> knob being muzzled by electronic remote controls. But eventually, when
> the roar of the internal combustion engine is muted by the whir of
> electric or fuel-cell motors, "we will return to the world from which we
> came, one in which the big sounds we hear are from nature," Beaber
> predicts.
>
> Such a transformation would be stunning, said Diana Deutsch, a UC San
> Diego psychology professor who studies the perception of sound.
>
> "If you go to the mountains today, the silence is so remarkable you just
> listen to it. We evolved under that. Our ears have not evolved to handle
> the noises we're bombarded with daily.. If indeed we were able to return
> to a truly quieter world - free from the noise of jet engines,
> bulldozers, pneumatic drills and the like - I believe it would be a
> blessing."
>
> But it could also be a bit unsettling.
>
> Although the invention of a digital leaf blower probably wouldn't upset
> anybody, other changes in the sonic tapestry might create a sense of
> loss. That's where Folkways Records enters the picture. In 1948, Moses
> Asch, an electronic engineer who spent the early part of his career
> installing public-address systems, set out to immortalize "anything that
> is sound."
>
> Most of his catalog was music (he was the first to sign Woody Guthrie
> and Leadbelly), but he also issued recordings of elevators, jackhammers,
> mosquitoes, cocktail parties, calliopes and an acetylene torch cutting
> through an automobile engine, to name a few.
>
> Before his death in 1986, Asch agreed to donate his archive to the
> Smithsonian Institution - on the condition that everything would
> permanently stay in print and be available for purchase.
>
> "Do you delete the letter Q from the alphabet just because you don't use
> it as much as the others?" he reasoned.
>
> Asch's legacy is mind-boggling. "If I did nothing but listen to the
> collection 40 hours a week, it would take two years to hear everything,"
> Folkways director Sheehy said.
>
> At the label's website (www.folkways.si.edu), visitors can buy or sample
> hundreds of acoustic oddities, from "Supervised Surgical Operation on a
> Small Boy With a Cyst in His Neck" to "Sonoran Spadefoot Toad When
> Seized by a Hognosed Snake."
>
> (At least one recording might be fake. A 1950 disc, "Sounds of the Rain
> Forest," is rumored to have been taped in a New York shower.)
>
> *
>
> Tuned In, Tuned Out
>
> Why do some antique sounds, such as steam locomotive whistles, remain
> widely missed while others go to the graveyard barely noticed?
>
> Part of it is personal taste. "Noise for one person is hi-fi for someone
> else," said Steven Feld, a professor of anthropology and music at the
> University of New Mexico in Santa Fe.
>
> Culture also plays a role.
>
> Author Nick Harrison illustrates the point in "Promises to Keep," a book
> of spiritual meditations, with a story about a Native American and a
> native New Yorker walking through Manhattan.
>
> When the American Indian says he hears a cricket amid the clamor of the
> city, the New Yorker snorts, "You're crazy."
>
> But the Native American listens again, then crosses the street, digs
> into a planter and finds the insect. When the New Yorker expresses
> amazement, the Indian replies, "My ears are no different from yours. It
> simply depends on what you are listening to. Here, let me show you."
>
> The American Indian then drops a fistful of coins onto the sidewalk and
> every head within a block turns around.
>
> Although the story might be apocryphal, the point about people listening
> differently is accurate, Beaber said: "A lot of hearing is learned."
>
> In the U.S., movies and TV have trained the human ear to think some
> studio-created sounds are more "real" than the originals. In winter
> scenes, for example, the crunch of someone walking across 50 pounds of
> cornstarch seems more authentic than the muffled noise of real snow,
> Valentino says.
>
> However, the ability of Hollywood sound engineers to conjure audience
> emotion will fade in the near future, Beaber predicts.
>
> Right now, sounds such as creaking doors help create drama on the
> screen, he said. But the day is coming when door technology, which
> hasn't changed in centuries, will switch to an airtight, silent
> mechanism like something out of "Star Trek," he said.
>
> "Once people have lived in a world where doors don't creak," that sound
> effect will lose its dramatic punch, Beaber said.
>
> It's happening with shoes. Although the clip-clop of leather soles
> against sidewalks is still a movie staple, in real life the sound of
> walking has largely been anesthetized by rubber soles.
>
> Eventually, Hollywood will have to rely more on visual cues than audio
> effects, Beaber said.
>
> *
>
> Select Significance
>
> Nostalgia for expired noises is similar to not noticing the hum of a
> refrigerator until it shuts off. "You only remember the sound in
> retrospect," said Deutsch, the UC San Diego professor. And then you
> quickly forget about it again.
>
> When compact disc players first hit the market, music lovers initially
> grew hyper-aware of all the cracks and pops on their old phonograph
> records, she noted. Some people even missed the scratches, comparing the
> background noise to the crackle of a fire.
>
> In the long run, every audio dinosaur will suffer the same fate, Beaber
> said. Air raid sirens, stock tickers, Pong video games - each one
> carries significance for the generation that grew up with it, but once
> that generation dies, the sound becomes lifeless.
>
> Imagine a newspaper story in the 1920s about vanishing noises, Beaber
> said. The prime example would be the clop of horse hoofs on pavement.
>
> "People would be talking about how the world just wouldn't be the same
> without that sound," he said.
>
> But flash forward to 2004. "Do we find ourselves longing for the sound
> of those hoofs now? Of course not," Beaber said. "Humans adapt and move
> on."
>
> *
>
> (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
>
> Becoming disconnected
>
> The list of dead and dying sounds keeps growing.
>
> One of the chief habitats for endangered audio species is the telephone.
> The busy signal has been curtailed by call-waiting. The clink of coins
> in pay phones is being overtaken by credit cards. And the soothing
> whoosh of rotary dialing has been replaced by the tones of push buttons.
>
> Even the relatively young screech of telephone modems is being hustled
> out of earshot by DSL and cable computer connections.
>
> Modernization has also taken a toll on other sonic standbys, including:
>
> The wavy electronic frequency noise heard when changing stations on a
> manually tuned radio (virtually eliminated by digital tuners).
>
> . The hum of adding machines (deep-sixed by the gentle tap-tap of
> calculator keys).
>
> . The telegraph.
>
> . The ticking and winding of watches (succumbing to digital and
> electronic timepieces).
>
> . The rat-a-tat of daisy-wheel printers (courtesy of inkjets and
> lasers).
>
> . The click and clink of pull-chain light switches (extinguished by
> mercury switches).
>

That was a really interesting article. Especially the part about what we are
trained to hear. I know being a mother, I hear everything going on with the
kids, no matter where they are in the house. And when I'm sleeping, a bomb
could go off and I wouldn't wake up, but one sound from one of the kids and
my eyes pop open.

I also found it interesting that we notice a sound in retrospect. I live on
a very busy road. Cars and trucks going by all of the time. My bedroom is on
the road-side of the house. Especially in the summer, if I take a nap in the
afternoon when the traffic is heaviest, I will start to doze off, and then
if there is a break in the traffic, with nothing passing by, I wake up. The
silence actually startles me, like, what happened...how come there isn't any
noise?

I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would be very
foreign to my children.

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:41C64C37.F78F994@hotmail.com...
> Dolores~ wrote:
> >
> > "±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:41C62BD3.1E333D99@hotmail.com...
> > > http://www.calendarlive.com/la-et-sounds19dec19.story
> > >
> > > LA Times - December 19, 2004
> > > THE NATION
> > > Pressing the Mute Button on Our Daily Soundtrack
> > > By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
> > >
> > >
> > > Back in the prehistoric 1970s, one of life's little pleasures was the
> > > ability to slam down a telephone on annoying callers. Now, thanks to
the
> > > rise of cordless phones, the best you can do is fiercely poke the off
> > > button - or, if money is no object, throw the receiver into a wall.
> > >
> > > The slamming phone, like dozens of once-familiar sounds, is headed for
> > > extinction. As technology advances, more and more noises - the pop of
> > > flashbulbs, the gurgle of coffee percolators, the clatter of
home-movie
> > > projectors - are fading into oblivion.
> > >
> > > While audio junkies scramble to preserve samples for future
generations,
> > > psychologists debate the consequences of this noise exodus. Some
foresee
> > > a sonic revolution - one that could launch a surprising wave of
silence
> > > and perhaps force Hollywood studios to rethink the way they tell
> > > stories.
> > >
> >
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Inside a bombproof vault a few blocks from the White House, Dan Sheehy
> > > is surrounded by audio ghosts: the clicketyclack of typewriters, the
> > > tumble of glass bottles inside a soda machine, a 1960s-era telephone
> > > ring.
> > >
> > > Here, sonic blasts from the past are entombed in a hodgepodge of vinyl
> > > records, compact discs and reel-to-reel tapes. "We are a museum of
> > > sound," said Sheehy, whose job is to preserve America's acoustic
> > > heritage for an obscure branch of the Smithsonian Institution.
> > >
> > > Sounds are like smells, he says. They can transport the listener to
> > > another time and place. The buzz of an airplane propeller sends
Sheehy's
> > > mind back to hot afternoons in 1950s Bakersfield, playing in the yard
> > > while aircraft sputtered overhead. "The sound immediately triggers
> > > memories of time and temperature," he said.
> > >
> > > A handful of obsolete noises are so ingrained in our consciousness
that
> > > filmmakers and advertisers still use them to evoke audience reactions.
> > > In the 2002 movie "Undercover Brother," for instance, a phonograph
> > > needle scraping across a vinyl record signaled an abrupt halt to the
> > > action.
> > >
> > > The emotional power of vintage sounds might explain the popularity of
> > > cellphone ring tones that mimic rotary telephone bells. "It's one of
the
> > > biggest ring tones we sell," said Tom Valentino, president of
Valentino
> > > Production Music, the nation's oldest sound-effects warehouse. In a
> > > similar vein, slot machines that pay out vouchers instead of cash
often
> > > play a recording of cascading coins because research found customers
> > > missed the jackpot noise.
> > >
> > > Valentino has heard a lot of sounds come and go over the years. In
1932,
> > > his father got into the business by recording a milk wagon traveling
> > > down a New York street, the first of what is now a library of more
than
> > > 50,000 sound effects. (The elder Valentino also worked with Orson
Welles
> > > on "War of the Worlds" and once captured the chug of a steam train
> > > running full tilt by greasing the railroad tracks at Grand Central
> > > Station so the locomotive couldn't move.)
> > >
> > > Many of the company's recordings are now historical relics. A slamming
> > > car door from the 1960s, for example, sounds more metallic than
today's
> > > rubberized thunk.
> > >
> > > Sounds are always mutating, Valentino said, but the pace accelerated
> > > after the advent of computerization. Electronic cash registers
> > > eliminated the ka-ching of their ancestors; digital cameras erased the
> > > traditional shutter-click and advancing-film noises of their
> > > predecessors; PowerPoint presentations chased away the clunks and
whirs
> > > of slide projectors.
> > >
> > > The lifespan of sounds seems to be shrinking, Valentino said: "We sent
> > > our engineers to Ft. Bragg 25 years ago to record military tanks. All
> > > those sounds are now totally historical."
> > >
> > > So are old pinball machines, car horns and pull-chain toilet flushes.
> > > Even the scratch of chalk on a blackboard is being exiled by the
squeak
> > > of markers on dry-erase boards.
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > A Subtle Shift
> > >
> > > For most of history, the soundscape rarely changed.
> > >
> > > "From the birth of man until the late 1800s, the predominant sounds
> > > human beings heard arose from nature," said Rex Julian Beaber, a
> > > psychologist and attorney in Century City.
> > >
> > > The Industrial Revolution upended all that, unleashing a cacophony of
> > > man-made noise. Today, another sonic revolution is underway. Although
> > > many observers fear the planet is about to become louder (check your
> > > local Dolby surround-sound cinema), Beaber foresees a wave of silence.
> > > Modern technologies are turning down the volume of our mechanized
> > > society, he says.
> > >
> > > So far, the differences are subtle, such as the click of a TV channel
> > > knob being muzzled by electronic remote controls. But eventually, when
> > > the roar of the internal combustion engine is muted by the whir of
> > > electric or fuel-cell motors, "we will return to the world from which
we
> > > came, one in which the big sounds we hear are from nature," Beaber
> > > predicts.
> > >
> > > Such a transformation would be stunning, said Diana Deutsch, a UC San
> > > Diego psychology professor who studies the perception of sound.
> > >
> > > "If you go to the mountains today, the silence is so remarkable you
just
> > > listen to it. We evolved under that. Our ears have not evolved to
handle
> > > the noises we're bombarded with daily.. If indeed we were able to
return
> > > to a truly quieter world - free from the noise of jet engines,
> > > bulldozers, pneumatic drills and the like - I believe it would be a
> > > blessing."
> > >
> > > But it could also be a bit unsettling.
> > >
> > > Although the invention of a digital leaf blower probably wouldn't
upset
> > > anybody, other changes in the sonic tapestry might create a sense of
> > > loss. That's where Folkways Records enters the picture. In 1948, Moses
> > > Asch, an electronic engineer who spent the early part of his career
> > > installing public-address systems, set out to immortalize "anything
that
> > > is sound."
> > >
> > > Most of his catalog was music (he was the first to sign Woody Guthrie
> > > and Leadbelly), but he also issued recordings of elevators,
jackhammers,
> > > mosquitoes, cocktail parties, calliopes and an acetylene torch cutting
> > > through an automobile engine, to name a few.
> > >
> > > Before his death in 1986, Asch agreed to donate his archive to the
> > > Smithsonian Institution - on the condition that everything would
> > > permanently stay in print and be available for purchase.
> > >
> > > "Do you delete the letter Q from the alphabet just because you don't
use
> > > it as much as the others?" he reasoned.
> > >
> > > Asch's legacy is mind-boggling. "If I did nothing but listen to the
> > > collection 40 hours a week, it would take two years to hear
everything,"
> > > Folkways director Sheehy said.
> > >
> > > At the label's website (www.folkways.si.edu), visitors can buy or
sample
> > > hundreds of acoustic oddities, from "Supervised Surgical Operation on
a
> > > Small Boy With a Cyst in His Neck" to "Sonoran Spadefoot Toad When
> > > Seized by a Hognosed Snake."
> > >
> > > (At least one recording might be fake. A 1950 disc, "Sounds of the
Rain
> > > Forest," is rumored to have been taped in a New York shower.)
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > Tuned In, Tuned Out
> > >
> > > Why do some antique sounds, such as steam locomotive whistles, remain
> > > widely missed while others go to the graveyard barely noticed?
> > >
> > > Part of it is personal taste. "Noise for one person is hi-fi for
someone
> > > else," said Steven Feld, a professor of anthropology and music at the
> > > University of New Mexico in Santa Fe.
> > >
> > > Culture also plays a role.
> > >
> > > Author Nick Harrison illustrates the point in "Promises to Keep," a
book
> > > of spiritual meditations, with a story about a Native American and a
> > > native New Yorker walking through Manhattan.
> > >
> > > When the American Indian says he hears a cricket amid the clamor of
the
> > > city, the New Yorker snorts, "You're crazy."
> > >
> > > But the Native American listens again, then crosses the street, digs
> > > into a planter and finds the insect. When the New Yorker expresses
> > > amazement, the Indian replies, "My ears are no different from yours.
It
> > > simply depends on what you are listening to. Here, let me show you."
> > >
> > > The American Indian then drops a fistful of coins onto the sidewalk
and
> > > every head within a block turns around.
> > >
> > > Although the story might be apocryphal, the point about people
listening
> > > differently is accurate, Beaber said: "A lot of hearing is learned."
> > >
> > > In the U.S., movies and TV have trained the human ear to think some
> > > studio-created sounds are more "real" than the originals. In winter
> > > scenes, for example, the crunch of someone walking across 50 pounds of
> > > cornstarch seems more authentic than the muffled noise of real snow,
> > > Valentino says.
> > >
> > > However, the ability of Hollywood sound engineers to conjure audience
> > > emotion will fade in the near future, Beaber predicts.
> > >
> > > Right now, sounds such as creaking doors help create drama on the
> > > screen, he said. But the day is coming when door technology, which
> > > hasn't changed in centuries, will switch to an airtight, silent
> > > mechanism like something out of "Star Trek," he said.
> > >
> > > "Once people have lived in a world where doors don't creak," that
sound
> > > effect will lose its dramatic punch, Beaber said.
> > >
> > > It's happening with shoes. Although the clip-clop of leather soles
> > > against sidewalks is still a movie staple, in real life the sound of
> > > walking has largely been anesthetized by rubber soles.
> > >
> > > Eventually, Hollywood will have to rely more on visual cues than audio
> > > effects, Beaber said.
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > Select Significance
> > >
> > > Nostalgia for expired noises is similar to not noticing the hum of a
> > > refrigerator until it shuts off. "You only remember the sound in
> > > retrospect," said Deutsch, the UC San Diego professor. And then you
> > > quickly forget about it again.
> > >
> > > When compact disc players first hit the market, music lovers initially
> > > grew hyper-aware of all the cracks and pops on their old phonograph
> > > records, she noted. Some people even missed the scratches, comparing
the
> > > background noise to the crackle of a fire.
> > >
> > > In the long run, every audio dinosaur will suffer the same fate,
Beaber
> > > said. Air raid sirens, stock tickers, Pong video games - each one
> > > carries significance for the generation that grew up with it, but once
> > > that generation dies, the sound becomes lifeless.
> > >
> > > Imagine a newspaper story in the 1920s about vanishing noises, Beaber
> > > said. The prime example would be the clop of horse hoofs on pavement.
> > >
> > > "People would be talking about how the world just wouldn't be the same
> > > without that sound," he said.
> > >
> > > But flash forward to 2004. "Do we find ourselves longing for the sound
> > > of those hoofs now? Of course not," Beaber said. "Humans adapt and
move
> > > on."
> > >
> > > *
> > >
> > > (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
> > >
> > > Becoming disconnected
> > >
> > > The list of dead and dying sounds keeps growing.
> > >
> > > One of the chief habitats for endangered audio species is the
telephone.
> > > The busy signal has been curtailed by call-waiting. The clink of coins
> > > in pay phones is being overtaken by credit cards. And the soothing
> > > whoosh of rotary dialing has been replaced by the tones of push
buttons.
> > >
> > > Even the relatively young screech of telephone modems is being hustled
> > > out of earshot by DSL and cable computer connections.
> > >
> > > Modernization has also taken a toll on other sonic standbys,
including:
> > >
> > > The wavy electronic frequency noise heard when changing stations on a
> > > manually tuned radio (virtually eliminated by digital tuners).
> > >
> > > . The hum of adding machines (deep-sixed by the gentle tap-tap of
> > > calculator keys).
> > >
> > > . The telegraph.
> > >
> > > . The ticking and winding of watches (succumbing to digital and
> > > electronic timepieces).
> > >
> > > . The rat-a-tat of daisy-wheel printers (courtesy of inkjets and
> > > lasers).
> > >
> > > . The click and clink of pull-chain light switches (extinguished by
> > > mercury switches).
> > >
> >
> > That was a really interesting article. Especially the part about what we
are
> > trained to hear. I know being a mother, I hear everything going on with
the
> > kids, no matter where they are in the house. And when I'm sleeping, a
bomb
> > could go off and I wouldn't wake up, but one sound from one of the kids
and
> > my eyes pop open.
>
> I'd bet a Native American Indian from pre-Industrial times would never
> wear a Walkman, the way it cuts off one's sonic awareness. They'd most
> likely find it dangerous to be that audibility removed from the
> environment.

It's why I don't wear one.

I remember the first time I tried headphones when I was a kid. I thought the
sound was great, but it freaked me out not to be able to hear anything else
going on around me. Especially since I was using them in my basement at
night


>
> The modern-day high-end cacophony of tiny digital devices trying to be
> heard is like a Jihad being fought in my ears - I often find myself
> needing a break from it.
>
> > I also found it interesting that we notice a sound in retrospect. I live
on
> > a very busy road. Cars and trucks going by all of the time. My bedroom
is on
> > the road-side of the house. Especially in the summer, if I take a nap in
the
> > afternoon when the traffic is heaviest, I will start to doze off, and
then
> > if there is a break in the traffic, with nothing passing by, I wake up.
The
> > silence actually startles me, like, what happened...how come there isn't
any
> > noise?
>
> When I first left Brooklyn and moved to the suburbs, it took months
> before I could adjust to the deafening silence and get a good nights
> sleep.
>
> > I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would be
very
> > foreign to my children.
>
> Probably all of them. ;-)
>
Yes unfortunately. Kind of like when my older son was little and he asked,
"You know those phones with the big circle and all of the little circles in
it...how do those work?

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:41C64C37.F78F994@hotmail.com...
> Dolores~ wrote:
> >
>
> > I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would be
very
> > foreign to my children.
>
> Probably all of them. ;-)

Robert Sheckley has a classic line at the beginning of one of
his stories from the Fifties (paraphrasing from memory):

"He heard the far-off whine of a lonely jetliner, vanishing
symbol of a pastoral America."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

± wrote:
> http://www.calendarlive.com/la-et-sounds19dec19.story
>
>
> While audio junkies scramble to preserve samples for future generations,
> psychologists debate the consequences of this noise exodus. Some foresee
> a sonic revolution — one that could launch a surprising wave of silence
> and perhaps force Hollywood studios to rethink the way they tell
> stories.
>
<large snip>


check out the library of vanished sounds at

http://www.omroep.nl/nps/radio/sup [...] bliotheek/

Hans

--




This is a non-profit organization;
we didn't plan it that way, but it is

=====================================


(remove uppercase trap, and double the number to reply)

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"JD" <jd.dinsdale@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:41C70DA8.D8F84F7F@sympatico.ca...
>
>
> Dolores~ wrote:
>
> > > > I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would
be
> > very
> > > > foreign to my children.
> > >
> > > Probably all of them. ;-)
> > >
> > Yes unfortunately. Kind of like when my older son was little and he
asked,
> > "You know those phones with the big circle and all of the little circles
in
> > it...how do those work?
>
> This sounds like you're describing AKG phones. The K series, no?
> JD
>
Ok, I'll bite. What are AKG phones?

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Do a search on AKG headphones, K240 model and look at a picture if there is one.
You'll know what I mean. Since this is an audio NG I figured this would be well
known. But now that I think about it you're probably talking about the old
rotary telephone and the sound it made as you dialled a phone number.
JD

Dolores~ wrote:

> "JD" <jd.dinsdale@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:41C70DA8.D8F84F7F@sympatico.ca...
> >
> >
> > Dolores~ wrote:
> >
> > > > > I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would
> be
> > > very
> > > > > foreign to my children.
> > > >
> > > > Probably all of them. ;-)
> > > >
> > > Yes unfortunately. Kind of like when my older son was little and he
> asked,
> > > "You know those phones with the big circle and all of the little circles
> in
> > > it...how do those work?
> >
> > This sounds like you're describing AKG phones. The K series, no?
> > JD
> >
> Ok, I'll bite. What are AKG phones?

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:15:10 -0800, JD <jd.dinsdale@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

>Do a search on AKG headphones, K240 model and look at a picture if there is one.

This should do it:
http://www.akg.com/products/powers [...] ge,EN.html

>You'll know what I mean. Since this is an audio NG I figured this would be well
>known.

Check out the crossposting:

alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro

Like JD, I'm from RAP, and I have no idea what the other two are
about.

>But now that I think about it you're probably talking about the old
>rotary telephone and the sound it made as you dialled a phone number.
>JD
>
>Dolores~ wrote:

> > > Yes unfortunately. Kind of like when my older son was little and he
> asked,
> > > "You know those phones with the big circle and all of the little circles
> in
> > > it...how do those work?

The old rotary dial phones are electromechanical technology, and
are the only ones that there is any hope of explaining to a
non-technical person how they work. Modern cellphones require the
knowledge of both EE and CS degrees to have a real understanding of
their inner workings.

>> > This sounds like you're describing AKG phones. The K series, no?
>> > JD
>
>> Ok, I'll bite. What are AKG phones?

-----
http://mindspring.com/~benbradley

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Ben Bradley" <ben_nospam_bradley@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:1b3fs0llqoph4isb6fdkvtcrs426n5omdv@4ax.com...
> Other groups removed, I dunno what they're about anyway...
>
> In alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro, On Sun, 19 Dec 2004
> 17:33:07 -0800, ± <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.calendarlive.com/la-et-sounds19dec19.story
> >
> >LA Times - December 19, 2004
> >THE NATION
> >Pressing the Mute Button on Our Daily Soundtrack
> >By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
>
> >Sounds are always mutating, Valentino said, but the pace accelerated
> >after the advent of computerization. Electronic cash registers
> >eliminated the ka-ching of their ancestors;
>
> This brings up a point that's been bothering me for probably a
> couple of decades or so. Electronic scanners/registers at grocery
> checkouts generate a beep to indicate when a barcode has been scanned.
> The problem is that every beep from every scanner is the exact same
> duration and frequency, apparently derived from a microprocessor's
> quartz crystal oscillator, all of which are within 0.005 percent of
> each other (resulting in all tones being within one musical 'cent'
> where 100 cents is a semitone). Thus the parts of hearing that are
> used to distinguish one cash register from another are loudness
> (presuming all registers' beeps are the same volume, which I doubt,
> the nearest would be the loudest) and direction (which requires two
> healthy ears) and neither one is fool-proof, whereas if they were
> frequencies it would be MUCH easier to distinguish between them.
> They could have spent an extra 50 cents to use a 555 and 20 percent
> components to give each unit a different frequency beep, or perhaps
> even (since nowadays everything has a serial number and/or network
> address built in) make each frequency unique totally in software (zero
> extra components, and a little more programming) by basing the
> frequency on a hash of the serial number.
>

I think there could be some ergonomic issues there. The monotony created by
all cash registers beeping the same is easy for both workers and customers
to tune out, whereas different pitches would create a cacaphony that
customers may or may not find displeasing, and workers may find painful
after a six hour shift on their feet.

Dont forget that there is also a visual cue that tells a worker an item has
been scanned - the price comes up on a screen of some sort. I believe there
is actually a law requiring it. There may be some other function of the
register beep that I'm unaware of.

I might not mind if the different cash registers in a line were tuned to
different standard notes on the musical staff, maybe issuing a moody maclike
chime - but it might drive some people crazy.

jb

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Ben Bradley" <ben_nospam_bradley@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news82fs01lrrqu54if6forommr73bfi6d436@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:15:10 -0800, JD <jd.dinsdale@sympatico.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >Do a search on AKG headphones, K240 model and look at a picture if there
is one.
>
> This should do it:
>
http://www.akg.com/products/powers [...] ge,EN.html
>
> >You'll know what I mean. Since this is an audio NG I figured this would
be well
> >known.
>
> Check out the crossposting:
>
> alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro
>
> Like JD, I'm from RAP, and I have no idea what the other two are
> about.
>
The sandwich is about whatever one feels like it being about at the moment.

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thought so. Haven't seen a pair in ages.

> This should do it:
>
http://www.akg.com/products/powers [...] ge,EN.html

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,alt.snuh,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Gavin wrote:
>
> Too true!!!
>
> I get especially teary eyed when I hear the sound of my old 1200 BAUD modem
> <sniff>
>
> WEEEEEooooooooooWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...
> Blblblblblblblblllblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblblbl

I hope you're pulling our collective legs, Gavin! ;-)




>
> --
> Gavin Steiner
> SBS Consultant - Canada
> --
> SBS Rocks!!
>
> "±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:41C62BD3.1E333D99@hotmail.com...
> > http://www.calendarlive.com/la-et-sounds19dec19.story
> >
> > LA Times - December 19, 2004
> > THE NATION
> > Pressing the Mute Button on Our Daily Soundtrack
> > By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
> >
> >
> > Back in the prehistoric 1970s, one of life's little pleasures was the
> > ability to slam down a telephone on annoying callers. Now, thanks to the
> > rise of cordless phones, the best you can do is fiercely poke the off
> > button - or, if money is no object, throw the receiver into a wall.
> >
> > The slamming phone, like dozens of once-familiar sounds, is headed for
> > extinction. As technology advances, more and more noises - the pop of
> > flashbulbs, the gurgle of coffee percolators, the clatter of home-movie
> > projectors - are fading into oblivion.
> >
> > While audio junkies scramble to preserve samples for future generations,
> > psychologists debate the consequences of this noise exodus. Some foresee
> > a sonic revolution - one that could launch a surprising wave of silence
> > and perhaps force Hollywood studios to rethink the way they tell
> > stories.
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Inside a bombproof vault a few blocks from the White House, Dan Sheehy
> > is surrounded by audio ghosts: the clicketyclack of typewriters, the
> > tumble of glass bottles inside a soda machine, a 1960s-era telephone
> > ring.
> >
> > Here, sonic blasts from the past are entombed in a hodgepodge of vinyl
> > records, compact discs and reel-to-reel tapes. "We are a museum of
> > sound," said Sheehy, whose job is to preserve America's acoustic
> > heritage for an obscure branch of the Smithsonian Institution.
> >
> > Sounds are like smells, he says. They can transport the listener to
> > another time and place. The buzz of an airplane propeller sends Sheehy's
> > mind back to hot afternoons in 1950s Bakersfield, playing in the yard
> > while aircraft sputtered overhead. "The sound immediately triggers
> > memories of time and temperature," he said.
> >
> > A handful of obsolete noises are so ingrained in our consciousness that
> > filmmakers and advertisers still use them to evoke audience reactions.
> > In the 2002 movie "Undercover Brother," for instance, a phonograph
> > needle scraping across a vinyl record signaled an abrupt halt to the
> > action.
> >
> > The emotional power of vintage sounds might explain the popularity of
> > cellphone ring tones that mimic rotary telephone bells. "It's one of the
> > biggest ring tones we sell," said Tom Valentino, president of Valentino
> > Production Music, the nation's oldest sound-effects warehouse. In a
> > similar vein, slot machines that pay out vouchers instead of cash often
> > play a recording of cascading coins because research found customers
> > missed the jackpot noise.
> >
> > Valentino has heard a lot of sounds come and go over the years. In 1932,
> > his father got into the business by recording a milk wagon traveling
> > down a New York street, the first of what is now a library of more than
> > 50,000 sound effects. (The elder Valentino also worked with Orson Welles
> > on "War of the Worlds" and once captured the chug of a steam train
> > running full tilt by greasing the railroad tracks at Grand Central
> > Station so the locomotive couldn't move.)
> >
> > Many of the company's recordings are now historical relics. A slamming
> > car door from the 1960s, for example, sounds more metallic than today's
> > rubberized thunk.
> >
> > Sounds are always mutating, Valentino said, but the pace accelerated
> > after the advent of computerization. Electronic cash registers
> > eliminated the ka-ching of their ancestors; digital cameras erased the
> > traditional shutter-click and advancing-film noises of their
> > predecessors; PowerPoint presentations chased away the clunks and whirs
> > of slide projectors.
> >
> > The lifespan of sounds seems to be shrinking, Valentino said: "We sent
> > our engineers to Ft. Bragg 25 years ago to record military tanks. All
> > those sounds are now totally historical."
> >
> > So are old pinball machines, car horns and pull-chain toilet flushes.
> > Even the scratch of chalk on a blackboard is being exiled by the squeak
> > of markers on dry-erase boards.
> >
> > *
> >
> > A Subtle Shift
> >
> > For most of history, the soundscape rarely changed.
> >
> > "From the birth of man until the late 1800s, the predominant sounds
> > human beings heard arose from nature," said Rex Julian Beaber, a
> > psychologist and attorney in Century City.
> >
> > The Industrial Revolution upended all that, unleashing a cacophony of
> > man-made noise. Today, another sonic revolution is underway. Although
> > many observers fear the planet is about to become louder (check your
> > local Dolby surround-sound cinema), Beaber foresees a wave of silence.
> > Modern technologies are turning down the volume of our mechanized
> > society, he says.
> >
> > So far, the differences are subtle, such as the click of a TV channel
> > knob being muzzled by electronic remote controls. But eventually, when
> > the roar of the internal combustion engine is muted by the whir of
> > electric or fuel-cell motors, "we will return to the world from which we
> > came, one in which the big sounds we hear are from nature," Beaber
> > predicts.
> >
> > Such a transformation would be stunning, said Diana Deutsch, a UC San
> > Diego psychology professor who studies the perception of sound.
> >
> > "If you go to the mountains today, the silence is so remarkable you just
> > listen to it. We evolved under that. Our ears have not evolved to handle
> > the noises we're bombarded with daily.. If indeed we were able to return
> > to a truly quieter world - free from the noise of jet engines,
> > bulldozers, pneumatic drills and the like - I believe it would be a
> > blessing."
> >
> > But it could also be a bit unsettling.
> >
> > Although the invention of a digital leaf blower probably wouldn't upset
> > anybody, other changes in the sonic tapestry might create a sense of
> > loss. That's where Folkways Records enters the picture. In 1948, Moses
> > Asch, an electronic engineer who spent the early part of his career
> > installing public-address systems, set out to immortalize "anything that
> > is sound."
> >
> > Most of his catalog was music (he was the first to sign Woody Guthrie
> > and Leadbelly), but he also issued recordings of elevators, jackhammers,
> > mosquitoes, cocktail parties, calliopes and an acetylene torch cutting
> > through an automobile engine, to name a few.
> >
> > Before his death in 1986, Asch agreed to donate his archive to the
> > Smithsonian Institution - on the condition that everything would
> > permanently stay in print and be available for purchase.
> >
> > "Do you delete the letter Q from the alphabet just because you don't use
> > it as much as the others?" he reasoned.
> >
> > Asch's legacy is mind-boggling. "If I did nothing but listen to the
> > collection 40 hours a week, it would take two years to hear everything,"
> > Folkways director Sheehy said.
> >
> > At the label's website (www.folkways.si.edu), visitors can buy or sample
> > hundreds of acoustic oddities, from "Supervised Surgical Operation on a
> > Small Boy With a Cyst in His Neck" to "Sonoran Spadefoot Toad When
> > Seized by a Hognosed Snake."
> >
> > (At least one recording might be fake. A 1950 disc, "Sounds of the Rain
> > Forest," is rumored to have been taped in a New York shower.)
> >
> > *
> >
> > Tuned In, Tuned Out
> >
> > Why do some antique sounds, such as steam locomotive whistles, remain
> > widely missed while others go to the graveyard barely noticed?
> >
> > Part of it is personal taste. "Noise for one person is hi-fi for someone
> > else," said Steven Feld, a professor of anthropology and music at the
> > University of New Mexico in Santa Fe.
> >
> > Culture also plays a role.
> >
> > Author Nick Harrison illustrates the point in "Promises to Keep," a book
> > of spiritual meditations, with a story about a Native American and a
> > native New Yorker walking through Manhattan.
> >
> > When the American Indian says he hears a cricket amid the clamor of the
> > city, the New Yorker snorts, "You're crazy."
> >
> > But the Native American listens again, then crosses the street, digs
> > into a planter and finds the insect. When the New Yorker expresses
> > amazement, the Indian replies, "My ears are no different from yours. It
> > simply depends on what you are listening to. Here, let me show you."
> >
> > The American Indian then drops a fistful of coins onto the sidewalk and
> > every head within a block turns around.
> >
> > Although the story might be apocryphal, the point about people listening
> > differently is accurate, Beaber said: "A lot of hearing is learned."
> >
> > In the U.S., movies and TV have trained the human ear to think some
> > studio-created sounds are more "real" than the originals. In winter
> > scenes, for example, the crunch of someone walking across 50 pounds of
> > cornstarch seems more authentic than the muffled noise of real snow,
> > Valentino says.
> >
> > However, the ability of Hollywood sound engineers to conjure audience
> > emotion will fade in the near future, Beaber predicts.
> >
> > Right now, sounds such as creaking doors help create drama on the
> > screen, he said. But the day is coming when door technology, which
> > hasn't changed in centuries, will switch to an airtight, silent
> > mechanism like something out of "Star Trek," he said.
> >
> > "Once people have lived in a world where doors don't creak," that sound
> > effect will lose its dramatic punch, Beaber said.
> >
> > It's happening with shoes. Although the clip-clop of leather soles
> > against sidewalks is still a movie staple, in real life the sound of
> > walking has largely been anesthetized by rubber soles.
> >
> > Eventually, Hollywood will have to rely more on visual cues than audio
> > effects, Beaber said.
> >
> > *
> >
> > Select Significance
> >
> > Nostalgia for expired noises is similar to not noticing the hum of a
> > refrigerator until it shuts off. "You only remember the sound in
> > retrospect," said Deutsch, the UC San Diego professor. And then you
> > quickly forget about it again.
> >
> > When compact disc players first hit the market, music lovers initially
> > grew hyper-aware of all the cracks and pops on their old phonograph
> > records, she noted. Some people even missed the scratches, comparing the
> > background noise to the crackle of a fire.
> >
> > In the long run, every audio dinosaur will suffer the same fate, Beaber
> > said. Air raid sirens, stock tickers, Pong video games - each one
> > carries significance for the generation that grew up with it, but once
> > that generation dies, the sound becomes lifeless.
> >
> > Imagine a newspaper story in the 1920s about vanishing noises, Beaber
> > said. The prime example would be the clop of horse hoofs on pavement.
> >
> > "People would be talking about how the world just wouldn't be the same
> > without that sound," he said.
> >
> > But flash forward to 2004. "Do we find ourselves longing for the sound
> > of those hoofs now? Of course not," Beaber said. "Humans adapt and move
> > on."
> >
> > *
> >
> > (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
> >
> > Becoming disconnected
> >
> > The list of dead and dying sounds keeps growing.
> >
> > One of the chief habitats for endangered audio species is the telephone.
> > The busy signal has been curtailed by call-waiting. The clink of coins
> > in pay phones is being overtaken by credit cards. And the soothing
> > whoosh of rotary dialing has been replaced by the tones of push buttons.
> >
> > Even the relatively young screech of telephone modems is being hustled
> > out of earshot by DSL and cable computer connections.
> >
> > Modernization has also taken a toll on other sonic standbys, including:
> >
> > The wavy electronic frequency noise heard when changing stations on a
> > manually tuned radio (virtually eliminated by digital tuners).
> >
> > . The hum of adding machines (deep-sixed by the gentle tap-tap of
> > calculator keys).
> >
> > . The telegraph.
> >
> > . The ticking and winding of watches (succumbing to digital and
> > electronic timepieces).
> >
> > . The rat-a-tat of daisy-wheel printers (courtesy of inkjets and
> > lasers).
> >
> > . The click and clink of pull-chain light switches (extinguished by
> > mercury switches).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > http://www.bedoper.com/snuh
> >
> >
> >
> > -------
> > / \
> > / \ /-----\
> > | (@) | | SnuH |
> > | (O) | \_ ___/
> > | / | ||
> > | \ /_ / //
> > \ \____/ / /
> > \ /
> > \_____,


--
http://www.bedoper.com/snuh



-------
/ \
/ \ /-----\
| (@) | | SnuH |
| (O) | \_ ___/
| / | ||
| \ /_ / //
\ \____/ / /
\ /
\_____,

Archived from groups: alt.pouting.sandwich,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

± wrote:

> Bill Cleere wrote:
>
>>"±" <h0plibbb_oili@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:41C64C37.F78F994@hotmail.com...
>>
>>>Dolores~ wrote:
>>>
>>>>I wonder how many of the now obsolete sounds that I recognize would be
>>
>>very
>>
>>>>foreign to my children.
>>>
>>>Probably all of them. ;-)
>>
>>Robert Sheckley has a classic line at the beginning of one of
>>his stories from the Fifties (paraphrasing from memory):
>>
>>"He heard the far-off whine of a lonely jetliner, vanishing
>>symbol of a pastoral America."
>
>
> For me, there's no sound like a train in the distance, hidden in the
> dark of the night.

I like them off in the distance better than tearing through the back
yard and rumbling the whole house.

(Two different homes, lots of different memories)

-georg