FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

What the Japanese Earthquake Sounded Like

"Micah Frank":http://micahfrank.com/, a New York based sound programmer has created a haunting sonification of the Japanese earthquake using _Tectonic_ to map the seismic activity.
ALEC LIU

Micah Frank, a New York based sound programmer has created a haunting sonification of the Japanese earthquake using Tectonic to map the seismic activity.

Tectonic is a realtime seismic analysis and sound synthesis system. Sound is created in realtime by earthquakes as they occur across the globe. A tightly integrated system between Max/MSP, Google Earth and Symbolic Sound's Kyma processes earthquake data that is translated into sound synthesis parameters. A USGS XML feed is parsed into numerous fields including magnitude, elevation, time of day and geographical coordinates. These data are mapped to synthetic spectrums and processed by granular, aggregate and subtractive synthesis.

Advertisement

This is eerie stuff. You can hear the terror when the rhythms shift.

Earthquakes off the east coast of Honshu, Japan – Friday March 11, 2011 by Micah Frank

via

Mother Jones

PHOTO

: David Moir/Reuters

Ones and Zeros is Motherboard’s daily investigation into the particle accelerator that is the internet. Ones, you'll come to expect, represent what's "good" and zeros, what's "bad." Get more through our Facebook and Twitter.

Submit your own Ones or Zeros here or send an email to ones.zeros.mb@gmail.com, and they may just end up featured on the front page.

Tagged:japanEarthquakeThe Future of Musicsonificationtechnology-and-philosophyall-the-other-stuffTechMotherboard
0
Advertisement