From the Phonautograph to Melodyne
Just wanted to touch base with a somewhat related post to the Soundseer post I made last summer. Today two articles came to my attention related to the visual aspect/properties of sound. First, by using modern technologies, sound engineers and researchers have managed to “play” a phonautograph of a person singing made in 1860, as the NYTimes and LATimes report. This is significant, because this “recording” predates Edison’s work with wax cylinders by nearly 30 years. I say “recording” because phonautographs were never intended to be heard- they were merely supposed to be a visualization of a voice or sound, an aural autograph or signature, if you will. Here’s a rendition of the device:
Not surprisingly, the sound that the audio historians managed to elicit from the recording is not impressive by today’s sound quality standards (read this article about overcompression in CD’s/mainstream recordings, or this blog post for more info about the volume wars in the music industry). Nonetheless, the fact that this aural document exists, and may be the first such document created by humans, is quite significant. The latest example of this significance being the music software/digital audio workstation Melodyne, which updates the 19th century concept of sound visualization with 21st century perspective/technological advancements.
If you watch the Melodyne video on the Celemony homepage, you’ll find out what advancements I’m referring to- namely, the ability to pick out the different notes that occupy a static waveform/chunk of polyphonous recorded sound, and being able to manipulate each note however you like- change pitch, rhythm, etc. Pretty neat, huh?
Who knows what kind of implications this will have for composition of music. No doubt, professional recording engineers have been using fancy recording technology (esp MIDI) to polish thousands of turds for years now; but software like this may even preclude the need for studio musicians. I don’t know, its a double-edged sword- the implications of this kind of technology (if it becomes widespread), used in conjunction with MIDI instruments, etc, seem to remove the necessity of people playing instruments at all. At least in my most simplistic and backwards of minds. But on the other hand, the compositional possibilities this software enables are kind of endless, and utterly fascinating. I’d like to get my hands on it someday, that’s for sure. 