2. INTRO
Sound Planetarium: Audio laboratory
Star qualities -- Sound characteristics
Themes:
Ambisonics
Human auditory discrimination ability
Cultural derivatives of “Space”
Cross-disciplinary practices/applications
3. GOALS
● Multiple Outcomes
○ Pedagogical Component - Educational
○ Scientific Component - New Findings?
○ Artistic Component - New Works?
● Final product that is accessible, scalable, cross-cultural, and
safe
● Provide a resource for the blind to experience astrophysics
4. INITIAL QUESTIONS
● To what degree can the human ear identify and localize
sounds?
● Can we hear the Earth rotate? At what speed?
● How does the focus on the auditory sense
enhance/subtract from our own understandings of the night
sky?
5. THE FIVE QUALITIES OF SOUND
FREQUENC
Y
AMPLITUDE DURATIO
N
LOCATION TIMBRE
-Measured in Hz
-Pitch
-Measured in dB
-Volume
-Rhythm and
modulation
-Direction and
distance
-Tonal quality
6. THE BRIGHT STAR CATALOG
Contains 9,096 stars visible from
Earth with the naked eye
Star Data
Spectral Class
Spectral Type
Color
Brightness
Distance
Super Giants
Giants
White Dwarfs
The Sun
ColorBrightness
9. SPATIALIZING THE SOUNDS
Right Ascension & Declination
mapped as Azimuth &
Elevation
MAX MSP: visual programming
language software
ICST Ambisonics: externals for
MAX MSP, designed for
surround sound processing
Speaker Placement 10 Spatialized Sound Points
10. PORTION OF PATCH FROM
MAX
Takes star data
and converts
into sound
Takes location
data and sends
to ambimonitor
12. RESEARCH FINDINGS
Modulation helps localize sounds
with precision
Short, sharp sounds are easier to
locate in space
Discerning height is more difficult
than direction
Brighter/louder stars drown out
dimmer/quieter stars
Avoid culturally specific sounds
This is a Proof
of Concept
phase
13. NEXT STEPS
Test at spatialization labs
Test with headphones
Experiment with:
Human voices
Location of observer
Speed of Earth’s rotation
Explore the effects of light pollution
14. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank:
Tara Knight
Adam Burgasser
Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program
UCSD Theatre Dept.
La Jolla Playhouse
Calit2 SPAT Lab
15. REFERENCES
Schacher J., Neukom M., Schweizer C. (2010) ICST Tools for MAXMSP. Institute for Computer Music and Sound
Technology.
Hoffleit D., Warren Jr W.H., (1991) The Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised E. (Preliminary Version) Astronomical Data
Center, NSSDC/ADC.
Puckette, M. MAX Cycling ‘74 Software. (1997). San Francisco.
Michael Richmond. Celestial Coordinates. Retrieved from
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys373/lectures/radec/radec.html#radec
Hello everyone, today we will present to you our Sound Planetarium. My name is Melisa Tallis and I’m a physics major here at UCSD….
Our project mentors are Adam Burgasser, who is a physics professor here at UCSD, and Tara Knight, who was a theater professor here at UCSD. Now she is teaching at University of Colorado.
Safe = Not injure the body
For ex can we hear and distinguish constellations like we see them?
Frequency = rate at which waves propagate
dB = Logarithmic scale
Duration of repeated sounds
Even though stars appear to be rising and setting, they are actually fixed in space.
We can locate them with their Right ascension and declination are fixed to the sky.
Right ascencion is the celestial longitude
Declination is the celestial latitide
Azimuth and altitude are centered on the observer.
We only hear stars which are above the horizon
MAXMSP: Visual Programming Language (like PD and Isadora)
ICST Ambisonics is a package available in MAX which we used to spatialize sound, on this slide we see an example from our patch -- on the left we see the speaker placements and on the right we see the individual “star” points. The full sphere is the top view while the bottom half sphere is the side view of the “dome” we are trying to spatialize sounds in.
It cycles through one day in 20 seconds
We only hear the stars that we are able to see
On Loop
The sounds are calculated the same way as the sonification technique
and has lead to some specific findings to keep in mind moving forward...
Sharp sounds like clapping,
Discerning height as in a z-axis
