Reader Iftah Gabbai shared this video, Zooming In On Sound – An Ultrasonic Sound Exploration, which demonstrates how you can use ultrasonic recording to captures sounds that would other be hidden to human ears, and the use these sounds for sound design.
Gabbai covers tools and techniques, including choosing ultrasonic microphones and converters, and then demonstrates his workflow, based on a decade of experience with the process.
Topics covered:
00:00 – 02:36 Intro
02:36 – 07:41 Tools & Techniques
07:41 – 11:34 Metal
11:34 – 12:51 Wood
12:51 – 14:51 Glass
14:51 – 18:33 Birds
18:33 – 20:25 Bats
20:25 – 22:17 Nightscapes
22:17 – 23:35 Metro Ride
23:35 – 25:05 Sparkling Water
25:05 – 25:59 Outro
Check out the video and share your thoughts on it in the comments! If you’ve tried ultrasonic recording, let us know about your approach, too!
Interesting idea and very nice sounds. Well done!
I like those techniques. Both: pitching up and down. But my most inspiring sound to this day, resembling wavetable oscillator, is Parker Probe’s pass thru Venus’ ionosphere. Vide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vK6-wuoOE
This one is pitched up. And another thing: it’s not sonification, like some people do with pictures, but a non sonic wave file from FIELDS experiment (electro-magnetic readings) played back at higher pitch.
Anyway, thanks for useful presentation. Especially part about gear. :]
Cordially!
What a rich and thoughtful presentation! Hearing the brave toothpick transform into a baseball bat made me think how even small voices have something to say. And listening to the slow-motion birds was like having a universal translator. It’s a great reminder to slow down and listen to our world — even at normal speeds.
Fascinating! Just found myself a new obsession!
About 25 years ago, I was obsessed with the idea of taking data from very slow processes like tides, atmospheric pressure, sway from large structures– measuring it across a period of days– then taking that table of values and rendering it as digital audio, and pitch shifting it up many octaves (many doublings of frequency) until it reveals either one or more fundamental frequencies within the audio spectrum, or just something inherently sonic about the oscillating system.
I later learned that this is a think people do and it’s pretty interesting.
Ultrasonic recording is kind of the opposite direction, but the same exact concept. Bringing things from outside our spectrum of hearing into the sweet spot, and/or shifting the range to reveal cool new things.
The toothpick was especially interesting, because I guessed that through this ‘transposing’ effort, we might learn something about the hardness, texture, and general stuff of what things are made of. Shifting it down made it sound like a wooden pole about 6′ long.
Wonderful presentation. Very inspiring.
Really interesting technique. I just used it to record a bad drummer friend of mine. The result was astounding. It sounded like an orchestra of asynchronous garbage being emptied into a truck on bin day.
I once had a cheap little ultrasonic downconverter with a dish mic designed for listening to bats’ echolocation sounds during evening insect-gathering flights. It was also interesting to listen to things like keyrings being jingled. It did, briefly, open up another unexperienced world.
More audio worlds to explore, awesome. To my photography perspective/brain, it’s like a very cool sonic version of macro and extreme macro. Love it.
Great presentation with informative and interesting content. Really appreciate videos like this on YouTube.