boost: Twenty Thousand Hertz

[jesse_the_k]

Is an entertaining and enlightening podcast! It’s produced by a sound design company as a portfolio project, and they do great work—-listen with headphones if you can. Each episode page has an audio player, credits for all the music, and a transcription (thank you for this excellent design!) 20k.org has almost 200 episodes.

https://www.20k.org/episodes/domesticsymphony explores ambient noises — audio feedback and alarms from appliances like dishwashers and ovens — as well as a firm advocating quieter tools:

[host]: The KitchenAid sounds required a different approach. These tones were mostly going to be used in smart ovens. When Audrey and her team created them, they wanted these sounds to evoke the energy and excitement of cooking.

Audrey: We wanted this to have a feeling of personal expression and an art of making things. So, these are people that are very active. We wanted the sounds to be more tactile, because they're doing more things physically. We also wanted to build in a lot of instrumentation that had skeuomorphism in it.

I’m tickled by someone wanting a tactile sound. In our house, with Bella and my sensitive ears, as well as MyGuy’s hearing impairment, we want the minimal sound.

Host: Even today, many appliances are just a lot louder than they need to be.

[guest] A lot of domestic appliances are so loud you have to shout over the top of them. Let's take a vacuum cleaner for example [sfx: vacuum]. My cats and dogs, when you put it on it's like a hurricane's hit the house, everyone scrambles underneath the sofas [sfx: cat and dog scrambling to get away].

https://www.20k.org/episodes/videolessgames features two blind gamers.

[Connor Scott-Gardner]: So for gaming, I really need audio cues and everything to be able to be accessed completely non-visually.

[host]: When Connor was young, he had no idea that audio games even existed.

Connor: I remember being just totally fascinated because my sister who's sighted used to play The Sims all the time [sfx: Simlish sounds].

Connor: So I would follow her around and pester her, to read to me, and to help me play it, because I couldn't play it at all.

[host]: When he tried his first audio game, it was a complete revelation.

Connor: It was totally crazy the first time I was ever able to play a game by myself. I remember just feeling, “Wow this is unreal, how this feels.”

Comments

[runpunkrun]

This sounds fascinating! Thanks for the links.

It's as nifty as the wonderful site

[jesse_the_k]

MyNoise, except it's got words as well.

[j00j]

oooh this sounds like my podcast jam!

[jesse_the_k]

Ton o fun.

And they have slid into the 21st century now on all the channels:

https://linktr.ee/20k

[tarasacon]

Huh.

Noises can be tricky for me so I won’t be listening to that episode, but thought I’d mention that I bought my microwave in part because it has the capacity to turn off the alarm!

[jesse_the_k]

I am having a spot of low creativity. If you turn off the alarm, how do you know when your stuff is done?

[tarasacon]

Stand there and watch it. But I tend to get distracted, so that doesn’t work very well.

I usually leave it on. I sometimes turn it off late at night, or if I have a headache. I imagine parents of infants or people in crowded houses might find it useful to have a silent option.

Ah!

[jesse_the_k]

I want a world where we can set the alert for everything that makes noises. Beeps, buzzes, flashing lights, bird songs, Shakespearian sonnets declaimed by excellent actors.

My 4 daily med alarms use full songs, so if I'm slow reaching the pillbox, I don't have to listen to 8-second snippets repeat endlessly. (AFAICT, only iOS clock timer lets me set a song-I-own as the alarm tone.)

Re: Ah!

[tarasacon]

100% agree!

except maybe the birdsong. it can be quite useful, not just for identification of birds, but as information about who is around (hawks and other predators, including humans).