These Illusions Fool Almost Everyone

[@agnosticpanda6655]

Weird. To me sound B sounds clearly higher than sound A.

[@karannt]

Yeah. And that's when I lost him. :)

[@Catalyph]

I immediately though, B was higher, and that it was multiple notes, the base was similar. I was exactly right..

[@thunder852za]

I thought I, for the first time in my life, explained why I am a crappy singer. But alas others are the same.

[@legadric1]

Yeah. I was like why even watch the video, my mind ain't playing no tricks.

[@nopetuber]

same!

[@matiKRK]

My phone's speaker was not able to produce a 100 Hz and I was confused why there was no sound Why is KZbin censoring and deleting comments?

[@_waiai]

Thanks for the explanation, I just started playing the video and thought I was going deaf 😭

[@lordforlorn5694]

I thought I was going deaf wtf

[@TheOhioNews]

Yeah I didn't hear anything either

[@lolliii5477]

yeah, and for me i just got out of a wood workshop i thought my hearings are permanently damaged

[@TheDragoonDR]

Same thanks a lot I was really scared for the past 10 minutes

[@MADMAXX-7]

"Put on headphones for the full experience." "Ok, will do." **deaf through church organ**

[@Superman111181]

Lol! I read this half of one second before the organs started ..

[@lordcola-3324]

Yeah, that was an actual asshole move Derek

[@black-snow]

Death by a thousand pipes.

[@soyanshumohapatra]

*Same bro* My earphone was not fitted well But after listening to him I fit the earphone and it was so loud the next second

[@thulium_3169]

i read this comment, I still was so not prepared

[@RileyLastname]

I have Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) which means in a room with many people talking or multiple noises playing at once (as alluded to at the very end of the video) I actually do experience all cocktail parties as sounding like a mess! My ears technically work fine, but my brain struggles to prioritize any one line of sound over any other and become unable to hear anything properly, it all gets compressed down into one chaotic line of sound without being able to pick out anything. I rely a lot on lip reading to try to maintain conversations in noisy restaurants but that's just an assistive tool, it doesn't actually improve my hearing. For this reason I'm so grateful for this channel's subtitled videos!

[@PJM257]

I have suspected that I have APD for a while, and it's really interesting how almost none of what is said in the video actually works for me. The illusions don't trick me, I can't hear the fundamentals when the overtones are played, I can't pick out voices from a crowd, etc. It feels as if my brain is just processing the sound for what it is and not trying to pick it apart and alter it in any way. I'm just hearing exactly what the sound is, and my brain can't even trick itself into thinking otherwise.

[@sssawfish]

I've wondered if I might have this and I feel like this video is only making me believe it more. During the cocktail party example I could only make out the voice for like a second or two after the other noises kick in, and then I would lose track of it, even on repeated listens. Half of the other illusions also don't really work or are much harder to notice than normal for me.

[@scanfe92]

same here, but I have ADHD

[@Smitleyjd]

even in a "one on one" situation" while there is outside interaction going on, it will hinder me. the more things going on the less I can process. I even struggle with one on one situations at the check out counter as a grown adult.

[@Smitleyjd]

I tend to say "what" even if I clearly heard what they said just because it takes me longer to process it. I literally do not understand what you said, as literal as it could be,

[@AdamNeely]

I'd be very surprised if many people thought that A sounded higher than B.

[@qexat]

right? I was so confused

[@MegaSahil009]

You'd be more surprised because i didnt hear sound A at all, even at my phone speakers at max

[@screetchycello]

I heard it both ways! On phone speakers B definitely sounded higher, but on decent headphones I heard the illusion.

[@another-anonymous-username]

I don't know. This depends on your definition of higher. I personally seem to hear exactly what I see on the graph with the sum of the tones: - The sound is higher overall; - It has a lower component that is the loudest; - It also has several higher components I can individually make out. Sorry, don't know the correct terms. Trying to describe in my own words.

[@meriwoo7382]

If anything, it sounded brighter

[@danielmcnicholl5488]

I enjoy how passionate the dude was about the organ

[@ShadwRaze]

Agreed. Dude shined everytime he talked about it. That's someone who loves his job and I love to see that

[@marloelefant7500]

@@ShadwRaze Who wouldn't be? That's clearly a fascinating instrument that I'd like to play, too.

[@newfreenayshaun6651]

Organists usually are on the heavy end of passionate about their art, as they should be.

[@BattleMercy-uf2zy]

"You should put on headphones" :) *Gets organed*

[@wytsewolf]

Yea my phone speaker doesnt even make a sound with A

[@kirilrotan7653]

@@wytsewolf Same for my laptop

[@Mike-er2ih]

That was a D move. Well played Veritasium.

[@h-hhh]

​@@純白の天使ラフメシアqifsha motren zezak

[@depeltenburg6916]

@@純白の天使ラフメシア it been a couple of minutes later and you lied… so that can only means this backfired and now for every one that did translate you loose 1 heartbeat of all the heartbeats you had in life….. you’ll remember this reply at the end….

[@benchapple1583]

It just wrecks my mind that someone can manage 5 keyboards, 40 stops and a footboard at the same time while reading music. Boggles the mind!

[@steviewonder9209]

It's been said that the pipe organ is *the* most difficult instrument to play. I can certainly see how that's true.

[@rycin7091]

The thumbnail being changed multiple times a day is the biggest illusion of them all

[@SaiSS961]

😂😂

[@workdowg]

There is the comment I came here to find... Otherwise I was going to say... "That's not what his last video was about...".

[@SteadyRiot]

And the name

[@alexander_a.]

Does anyone remember the prvious names?

[@Aleks_Mv]

That's a KZbin feature. Creators upload multiple thumbnails. Initially different people are shown different once but eventually the algorithm makes the one people clicked the most as permanent.

[@peporgan]

Thanks for featuring me in this amazing video! I had a great time exploring the Town Hall organ with you.

[@JDoors]

Glad you replied so I could find and check out your channel. Amazing!

[@premodernist_history]

You were awesome in the video. Your channel looks really cool. Looking forward to watching more of the content on there.

[@samanjj]

Thank you mate! Do you guys have shows? We would love to come and watch/listen

[@zakdee2732]

Hey, what powers the organ? Can't imagine it working like a piano with hammers. Amazing bit of kit.

[@peporgan]

@@zakdee2732 giant wind chests and electric blowers

[@forformgamer]

I love how giddy the organ player was to show you everything! He loves what he does!

[@jwalster9412]

For a musician it must be really fun to play with every instrument at once.

[@dipakmane_7]

0:12 sound B was higher

[@TheSupermUniverse100]

0:05 I think a lot of people are claiming to hear the opposit of what you're saying. I think this could be that you did the overtone effect wrong. Usually, the overtones do not have the same amplitude as the root tone. They are usually lower in amplitude. Think of a fourier series in which you're doing a linear combination of sinusoids. It would be wrong to assume that each sinusoid has the same amplitude.

[@kcnl2522]

What the hell are you smoking man, what does a fourier serie have to do in this?

[@thierrypauwels]

Indeed, I heard sound B higher than sound A. The strange thing is that I did already the same experiment with sound that I created myself by generating a function and then converting it to a wav file. The difference was that I used clearly higher pitches. And then I really heard a lower tone by adding higher frequencies. It is most pronounced when you start, say, from 300 Hz, and then add 400, 500, 600, ..., i.e. add multiples of 1/3 of the original sound The resulting sound may sound as 200 Hz or 100 Hz, but anyway a fifth lower than the original sound.

[@pann05]

Maybe it was their speakers? It did sound different in my laptop vs iPad. Sound A was sounded higher in laptop and B in iPad

[@refatkam246]

İ didn't even hear it 😭😭😭

[@georgealgozzini1828]

You deaf brah. ​@@refatkam246

[@iambenmitchell]

I have cochlear implants, streaming this video directly to my processors and thus pretty much directly to my brain… some of the illusions don’t work, others work but not in the way you expect and it’s so hard to describe

[@YoUtUbEhAnDlEsArEgReAt]

I also have a coch that lears but for some reason all these frequencies do is tickle my grundle? I'm not disagreeing with you - but I think there's more to this than pure sonic vibrational ego-masturbation going on here. Wish you the best. Keep on keeping on. Much love.

[@obfuscated3474]

Tickle your what now? ​@@YoUtUbEhAnDlEsArEgReAt

[@jafinch78]

Would be interesting to see what types of wireless electrodeless hearing system exist now and not the electrode designs. Especially being the RF and microwave hearing effect is somewhat more main stream again where was forgotten and I think concealed in classification schemes since more weaponized now a days.

[@ー-ーー]

probably cause the cochlear implant doesnt give the same signals as the ear drum. also the cochlear implant's microphone doesnt pick sound up the same good/way.

[@williamsung9317]

Wow thats so cool

[@argfasdfgadfgasdfgsdfgsdfg6351]

7:45 "Players can't level up until they collect enough COINS." ...... That's sacrilige. Society is beginning to crumble.

[@julia4740]

LOL just what i thought

[@DorAntCr]

that's not even the only mistake, 9:52 is missing some ledger lines and a key signature

[@chemist1379]

My brain just melted after hearing that. My disappointment is immeasurable

[@PersonaRandomNumbers]

In awe of the fact that Derek has somehow avoided Mario 64 long enough to not instantly know how wrong that is

[@aliasanonym9778]

Part of my childhood died with that sentence. I'm getting old.

[@Justa_mia]

Whenever i watch your videos, I always say "wow, I think i have KZbin premium" because you're sharing something that shouldn't be free! Thankyou!^^

[@AAArend]

10:16 No matter how hard I try, I can only hear he worlds "low" and "high" scrambled through one another

[@dall3n88]

On a soundbar I could only hear "high" but with headphones I clearly hear the "high" and "low" as separate words

[@timonruttimann9368]

Sorry for being weird, but I hear "tiger".

[@malysyforethought1195]

I get Dark-light, but I also suffer from tinnitus on both sides, so maybe that makes a difference?

[@1992jamo]

I heard "blank" or "clang" over and over

[@marsrockfromspace5750]

got "low" and "tide"

[@jessegrisham]

As an audio engineer, I immediately thought, "Wow, that sounds like the same thing but with the first couple of harmonics." Guess I can keep my job then.

[@georgefeyen8759]

fr i was like "thats an octave higher and something else also" 150hz on 100hz would be a 5th higher, isn't it?

[@arthurmoran4951]

explain

[@dzk33]

To my ear, they sounded like the same pitch, but one was a sine wave and the other square.

[@gorgolyt]

Yeah sounded like the same pitch to me, the second is just buzzy... i.e. different timbre. Not sure what this guy is talking about tbh. 🤷‍♂

[@t3ch_n0]

Lmao same here as a musician. my instant reaction was to ask, "what do you mean by higher?" Like if we are talking about the fundamental then they are the same, but B has the highest overtone.

[@ShadowGear238]

21:02 This is how string instrument (violin, viola, cello) players can tune their instruments reliably given only one note (A = 440 Hz, usually). When you play two strings consistently at the same time that are a perfect 5th apart, but slightly out of tune, you get the same pulsing effect. As you adjust the string you’re tuning, the speed of the pulses slows until they disappear, which is when they’re a perfect 5th from each other. I’m sure the effect works for other instruments that can produce constant consistent tones as well.

[@psychosis7325]

At the start do you hear A or B as higher?

[@Sparkanp]

Yep! In a pinch, you can tune a guitar to itself and I do it all the time :)

[@ZakuHD]

@@psychosis7325depends, you tune string 1 (I assume you mean A with that) perfectly with a reference tone and then pluck on a guitar or use the bow on a string instrument and try to hear if string 2 (B) is lower or higher. Then you just start spinning those little tuning pegs. If the beating gets worse you turned the wrong way and go the other way. You do that until the beating stops = you‘re perfectly tuned to string 1 Rinse and repeat for the other strings respectively

[@ShadowGear238]

@@psychosis7325 I hear A as higher, though I’m just just my crappy phone speakers

[@ShadowGear238]

@@ZakuHD I *think* they were asking about the start of the video, that being said, that’s exactly how it works. Though with my guitar it’s easier to use a tuner (for me). The sound dies too quickly to hear the beats. A lot of guys with really good pitch can do it by ear though

[@VivianAttler]

7:40 "players cant "level up" until they get enough "coins"... D: this makes me unreasonably upset...

[@sebastiancasanova8292]

right? never knew I could use coins to level up and go up the stairs

[@nicksamek12]

Sound B sounded higher to me though lol

[@anuragjuyal7614]

Same

[@TyroneSmithTDS]

Sameee😂

[@voidscar]

yeah same. Something wrong with....everyone else clearly.

[@robgable2426]

Me too

[@TheDubbleA]

Same here

[@baleygr9480]

This honestly explained many of my problems as a non-native speaker. I understand most of the vocabulary, but because I am not used to the language I can't predict what words someone will use next. Therefore my brain has trouble picking the correct words out of all the background noise and jumbled mess of sound. It makes sense, because I can often hear someone but can't determine which words are being said

[@the_mowron]

I was thinking of trying to talk on the telephone with a non-native speaker. It's so embarrassing to be unable to understand someone on the phone when I can understand that same person when speaking in person.

[@Luzi-chan]

i have had this for a long time too, but one day it clicked in my brain and i could understand, speak, and predict words almost perfectly. i actually have sometimes problems finding the words in my native language and vise versa. sometimes i have to use a translator. and this annoys my fam pretty much, since they speak and understand next to no english.

[@immersediguana2326]

Really interesting thoughts about language acquisition when it comes to hearing, (active) listening, understanding, and so on. I grew up with multiple languages at home, and several more outside the home as well (moving to different countries after some years in each country), and I find that I can quickly separate and pick out words in a language that is unfamiliar to me, and memorize them, yet other times I'll struggle to understand people around me I have known for a long time and that I have a language in common with that I speak fluently. My best guess is that it depends on what "language mode" and "language expectation" my mind has in any given moment. For example, subconsciously "expecting" Spanish, when the incoming words are in Finnish, or something else. And language is a use-it-or-lose-it resource in our minds. Even for languages that I'm fluent in, I notice some "stagnation" when I haven't needed it for a longer time. And not to mention that language evolves continuously, adding, removing, and modifying words and sentences in relatively short periods of time.

[@hellmrf]

same here!

[@ArneVanhove]

Same here, also, the clip of the voice is too shor this video. I'm guessing it was the women's voice? Way to low in volume compared to some other voices.

[@undeniablySomeGuy]

"Which sound is lower" A - single note B - chord uhh

[@MrAydinminer]

That part of the video made me so mad cause I've been making music for 5 years and it was so obvious to me that B just had harmonics added to it

[@jaredroscoe800]

​@@MrAydinminer😡😡😡

[@mightyhelper8336]

My brain interpreted sound b as an amplitude modulated sound A so they sounded the same (I.E An osc controlls the amplitude of osc A)

[@corentinm.105]

What I hear is actually the same note, with a different timber (more grainy) for B

[@coder0xff]

Stopped at 0:13 and downvoted

[@jprupp]

Wow Derek. Just wow. This video was fantastic.

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

When I learned to tune pianos, I noticed something funny: you start to hear very high overtones, like the 6th overtone of a bass note, but that overtone sounds lower than the actual key. This happens because the equal temperament system makes us "stretch" the frequencies, making high notes a bit higher than they should be compared to the bass note's overtones. This is an awesome video for music enthusiasts and beginners!

[@ansgarschaefer5411]

Stretching and equal temperament are distinct things. You would encounter the same observation in a piano tuned just, meantone, or pythagorean. The reason is that in a piano string, the overtones are not exactly at frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental. The thicker and stiffer (less stringy) the string ist, the more pronounced this effect becomes.

[@elendiastarman]

Deaf guy with cochlear implants here; I've had bilateral implants for most of my life (16+ years) and I can hear incredibly well for a deaf person. Also while watching this video, I'm using some tech which pipes audio straight from the computer to my processors so there's no speaker/microphone in between. Each processor can stimulate about a hundred different frequencies, my brain does a lot of post-processing to fill in the rest. All that to say, this video touches on a lot of stuff that I deal with on a daily basis! * I couldn't hear sound A at all; 100 Hz is literally too low for me to hear. So naturally, sound B sounds higher. ^_^ * That tune you played about 9:41 into the video didn't ring any bells for me at all - simplifying it down to just the notes means I lose all the extra information that makes it possible for me to match it to things I've heard before. So I'm miffed you didn't say what it was!!! * I didn't hear any particular words for the phantom word illusion around 10:24, it was just "BOM bum BOM bum BOM bum...". * That bear vs fair example is exactly why I lipread people constantly and why I struggle so much with anything and everything that's audio-only - phone calls, videos without captions, podcasts, songs with lyrics not written down, etc. I hear Lady Mondegreens all the time and it's very frustrating when a song has unclear lyrics (which is MOST of them!!). * The cocktail party effect demonstration was very interesting - of course I couldn't pick out the specific conversation in the beginning, but even after hearing just the one voice by itself, I could *barely* follow that one voice and couldn't understand any words at all through the whole thing. In noisy/crowded situations, I *have* to be nearby and looking at the person I'm talking with to understand them; the visual correlation is the only way I can track their voice in the noise (and I'm lipreading to help). It doesn't help that I'm autistic and my brain filters background noise *after* processing it. * I only started being able to localize sound recently within the last few years and it's still not very good, but a big part of what helps is that my left side sounds higher and my right side sounds lower, and I can *feel* which side I'm hearing things on. My processor mics are located within the pinna and it *does* make a big difference compared with having them out of it! * Apparently binaural beats don't work for me at all. It just sounded like a pure tone. (Incidentally, this is also a problem with chords; only within the last year was I able to hear a chord as a chord rather than a single "note".) "Without your brain making these subconscious adjustments, a cocktail party would always just sound like a total mess." - what do you mean, *would*?? They *do* always sound like a total mess!! 😉

[@cj_daniel]

Tune is the melody from Yankee Doodle.

[@veritasium]

Super interesting feedback, thanks for sharing

[@winters4147]

I'm partially deaf. Entirely in my left ear and not at all in my right ear, so I have my headset set to mono, so both sides play the exact same thing. Any song or video that relies on swinging between either side is completely lost on me and I don't even notice that they're doing it. I also can't hear specific noises over a lotta background noise either! It's a constant problem in my life, I barely hear shop clerks over music or busy stores. Let alone a party. So yeah, I was also stumped by the cocktail party effect. On the plus side, I can simply lie on my right in bed and the pillow muffles all the sounds when the street is busy outside :D

[@ShadowWarrior277]

I've been hard of hearing my whole life as well, so this resonates with me. (pun not intended)

[@the_mister_magister]

IRL Cyborg, so cool

[@PerfectChaos7]

For the Cocktail Party Effect at 13:37, I've noticed this in my everyday life: I often listen to music while in the shower. But when the music shuffles to a new song, I find it hard to hear the song and know what song I'm hearing over the sound of the running water splashing on the floor. But once I find out what the song is (either by looking at my phone for its title, or from hearing and making out a very distinct part of it), my brain is then able to perfectly differentiate the song's sound waves from the noise of the water.

[@chsinger96]

I sometimes start humming/singing/whistling along to what I think I'm hearing, but then when the intro is over and the song gets loud, I suddenly realize I was exactly a half note flat the entire time.

[@Gkkiux]

It works for me with music, but I couldn't focus on any of the voices in the example

[@Um...Yep.]

@@chsinger96 Same here - especially if the tuned part of the introduction is bass only (e.g. Billy Jean, or, from Metallica's black album: My Friend of M. or The G. that Failed).

[@ResoluteGryphon]

You ever come in on the wrong beat of a familiar song and can't identify it? Then suddenly your brain picks out something familiar, corrects itself, and you hear the song normally?

[@jasonarthurs3885]

Is that more recall/remembering vs. distinction?

[@stephenwest6738]

The effect of hearing something different from visual clues is largely a product of our brain doing it's job as both a filter of low priority input, and an imaginative creator of the simulated information that was just filtered. Our eyes have only a very small percentage of our field of view to focus a limited number of rods and cones on. This is why it feels so unnatural for us to focus on one spot instead of constantly scanning. We aren't constantly scanning because the entire field is important, but because our brain is doing everything in it's power to ensure the mental picture our brain is creating for us is as up to date as possible. Our ears do the exact same thing. This also explains why we feel such overwhelming anxiety in a sound deadening room.

[@athirkell]

17:09 This is why dogs (and other animals) cock their heads to one side when they're concentrating hard - it lets them more easily recognise the source of sounds vertically as well as horizontally. Super cute to boot.

[@wingjaigaming8240]

I heard this from from Smarter Every Day too! (no pun intended)

[@jmkass]

Omg, is that why they do it? That's so cute

[@itsthevoiceman]

​@@wingjaigaming8240and SciShow!

[@artugert]

Don't humans do that too?

[@jacobshirley3457]

@@artugert Pretty sure, at least, in my experience. If you're confused, you'll also notice you may tilt your head.

[@vger2]

My second piano teacher built a pipe organ with pipes installed from floor to ceiling on every wall in his living room and the basement beneath it. The lower (bass) note pipes were all in the basement and when he played those notes on the foot keyboard, you felt it more than heard it. He traveled the country to attend church auctions and such to collect the various pipes over the years. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue on that… chills.

[@Mikexception]

I think many people overestimate size of sound sources which have ability to produce very low frequencies like 16 - 20 Hz . Main point is not the size but alowing such low frequency to emerge from all other sounds. That is also why church organs ar so successfull because each frequency has it's own resonant acoustic system and thay do not interfere . In audio systems producers usualy assign one common acoustic system for all produced frequencuies and it is impossible traget. I was able to crack that problem in my moderate speaker systems and get even that low "push" .. Anyway it is unique

[@pihermoso11]

​@@Mikexception that's why most audiophiles break down their sound to 3 speakers, one for bass starting as low as 20hz, a speaker for mid range, and a tweeter horn for higher frequencies all the way to 20khz above No single speaker might be able to cover all the range without losing quality, and unlike gaming and movie setups where it's all bass and treble boosted, quality in audio means a flat rate response as much as possible

[@Mikexception]

​@@pihermoso11 1. Yes, audiophiles do things which in 99,9999% have no, or bad result. 2. I explained why for audiophile systems it is almost impossible (not total 100%) to thjink about competing to 8 thousand systems and countable (not analog type) quqntity of frequencies. You realy think audiophiles research such complicated problem? Audiophiles have no such premeditations and they reproduce natural instruments having continuous variety of frequencies - different situation requiring compromises. . 3. I do not exepct that also organs cover whole capability of human hearing - it would be the same nonsens as covering it in audio speakers. How long would be the organ tube for 20 kHz? Then due to its miniature size what power would be capable to put to church space ? With speaker technology is no difference except room is much smaller, required power also smaller and it is possible to enforce by hugh amplification. So it is possible to achieve and make as false timbre as "ordered" . 4. "Flat rate resonse" in one of reasons why audiphiles have so many confuses and pay for voodoo. I is too difficult to understand for amateurs. They can only understand perfection of stright lines and dome rounded box corners.

[@pihermoso11]

@@Mikexception flat rate response is about replicating the same wave produced in a studio, as shown using instruments such as a signal generator and oscilloscope with little difference as much as possible, I'm an electronic technician and have used such instruments, sounds are waves and waves can be quantified as a mathematical input, it only gets a bad rep if somebody sold you something as a 'flat rate response' product but actually is far off from performing as one , people can lie but a calibrated oscilloscope will display the wave without any use of sales talk

[@Mikexception]

@@pihermoso11 And you recall thet you are electronic technician to proof something in acoustic? At least you are not using your criticizm beacause theories are obviously applicble to electronic circuit design but not at all to judge reproduction of hearing sensation Where would you connect your measuring probes in ears or ideal in brain to get "technical" infotrmation about how the percepted sound is equaly percepted as the one which was recorded? Your results on screen are applicalble only to compare owned trusty electric impulses. acoustic.impresson is way too complicated to be measured - you would be surprised with list of dependencies. . "Flat response" if by miracle acheved (only in anechoic chamber but in practice in theory only) are due to Fletcher Munson works easy proven . greatly false

[@GordieGii]

Those knobs on either side of the keyboards are called 'stops.' When you push them in they 'stop' that bank of pipes from playing. When you pull them out they allow that bank to play. When you 'pull out all the stops' you use every single resource at your disposal.

[@johnbaxter9875]

Thank you. I appreciate that comment. I learned something new today.

[@FraktalPriest]

Thank you 😋

[@danaxtell2367]

By legend, J.S. Bach would pull out all the stops of an unfamiliar organ as a kind of stress test. If the air pump could blow air through all the pipes at once, it would be the loudest sound. Almost certainly, it would not be a desirable, musical sound. "Pulling out all the stops" now means "giving it your all," but there may be a giggle factor for the music majors in your audience. Our teachers were kind when they told us to avoid cliches.

[@johnbaxter9875]

@@danaxtell2367 I was thinking earlier today that the comment to which we've both replied sounds like one of the rabbit holes my music theory teacher would have dashed down during one of his lectures . I learned more about language in music theory than the rest of my college courses combined.

[@koszeggy]

We call them registers.

[@KatonRyu]

The thing with being able to follow the melody the second time around can also work with words. I had a Japanese lesson once where we were supposed to read something in katakana. We weren't very good at it, so we read it character by character as 'ha(a)-re(e)-da-bi-ddo-so-n' (ハーレーダビッドソン) and we had no idea what it was supposed to say until the teacher told us that it said 'Harley Davidson', and after that it became obvious to us.

[@JimPekarek]

Those of us with audio processing disorders are completely baffled by people's ability to navigate the cocktail effect. To me it's indistinguishable noise, and increased volume is the only way to overcome it, but then everyone starts doing it and the room gets insanely loud.

[@mauriceachermann6544]

do people with adhd have troube with this?

[@douggolde7582]

This is why I always seek out the quiet area. With luck this is also close to the beer.

[@Nicomv-eu3pd]

@@mauriceachermann6544 yeah ADHD makes you have difficulty focusing, and Autism doesn't really let you separate the noise automatically, i have both, so i don't really know if it's ADHD or Autism's fault i can't hear anything, but other people with Autism have said that they can't focus on one single noise properly

[@MarkusWolff]

@@Nicomv-eu3pd I got ADHD and I've been struggling with this forever. Fun fact: While meds help with other focus issues, they won't help with this.

[@pear92]

Yeah I could not pick out any of the specific voices in that example as anything more than gibberish

[@GartsTanks]

I have a very difficult time separate conversations. EVERY time I'm in a space with more than one conversation going on, it sounds EXACTLY like the cocktail party example, no matter how near or far the other conversations are happening. At the same time, I found it very useful when I was working in a recording studio, as I could hear each instrument clearly while they were playing simultaneously. I was able to catch mistakes far more often than anyone else in the control room.

[@martijnposthuma3121]

I can relate to that. No difference in jumbledness in the two runs of the conversations. That "when primed it becomes easy" does not work for me.

[@JoshGinter]

​@@martijnposthuma3121same experience. Still no idea what they anyone was saying. And this is something I really really struggle with in real life too. I can't have a conversation with someone while something in playing on TV. Parties are a challenge. I end up doing a lot of lio reading.

[@shasings]

i see ive found my fellow neurodivergents

[@firelight3806]

Saving this

[@PrelapseYT]

Audio engineer here, adding overtones is actually a technique we sometimes use to enhance a bass and make it sound deeper. We do this so that lower instruments will sound “bassier” on smaller speakers, which can’t produce the actual lower frequencies

[@JJWo]

That’s good info. I use Logicpro to make music and I always wondered why imported bass loops sound so much better than anything I can produce even with all the plug ins. I was wondering whether maybe those plug ins will add overtones as you say - but I’m still pretty green when it comes to sound production

[@neonblack211]

sound deeper is a misnomer though its really so it has higher harmonics you can hear as well as the sub frequencies, i know what you are saying though

[@JJWo]

@@neonblack211 that does give me a clue though and something to work with … interesting illusion because you think it sounds bassier but I guess it’s really just fuller - like when you overlay vocal takes - sound a lot fuller (or is that different) I guess that’s a chorus effect which is still covering all the same frequencies

[@neonblack211]

@@JJWo it’s more like adding distortion to a guitar tone or adding noise or EQ to the high end, over drive or distorting a sine wave will give it a tonne more harmonics and it becomes immediately more obvious across the spectrum, yeah it’s kind of fuller it’s just a more complex sound that spreads across the frequency spectrum, chorus ect is more akin to layering like you would do if you were recording rhythm guitar twice and layering them over each other, layering sine waves completely messes with the fundemental and will introduce some kind of beating effect unless they are perfectly in tune and in phase, which is good and bad depending on what you’re doing.

[@KarstenJohansson]

I think that, and the 2Hz example he gave are actually the same illusion. When there is a difference of 2 Hz between the two tones, you get a 2Hz beat. In the overtone example, there was a 50Hz difference, and therefore a 50Hz beat.

[@ludicrousfunone5705]

As someone who has studied music and sound I immediately knew that B had harmonics in it that were of a higher frequency than A. I find it interesting that I've been trained to listen out for it over the years of my education in the subject. Great video!!!

[@MrRunchSlam]

Sonos Arc Speaker: A sounds lower than B Audioengine A2 Speakers: A sounds lower than B Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones: B sounds lower than A Sounds like this is more an audio processing issue than a brain issue

[@Space_Reptile]

yea on my AKG K612 headphones A is lower than B aswell

[@AlessandroRodriguez]

me with my earbuds: hear nothing

[@ivan_thespacebiker]

I play electric organ, and when using the harmonic trick I find that headphones without a lot of bass make the effect more pronounced. My guess is that our brain is trained to fill in the gaps, and headphones/speakers with a lot of bass just don't have those gaps

[@R2Bl3nd]

Well it sounds like those headphones are potentially doing a lot of processing to the audio. If you used headphones with a flat frequency response it would probably match the intended experience.

[@R2Bl3nd]

@@ivan_thespacebiker often, consumer headphones significantly increase the bass compared to a flat frequency response so it would make sense that people with consumer grade headphones as opposed to professional grade ones would not be getting the intended effect.

[@JulesStoop]

0:55 That was uncalled for!

[@TheOansari]

I paused mid sentence when he said, "if you have headphones handy--" and grabbed my Pixel Buds Pro and resumed the video, "--well, I recommend putting them on for the full experience." Then I went deaf.

[@lifezap2484]

😂😂😂

[@Tosty_82]

😂😂😂😂

[@ronniew3229]

Exactly, did not help my tinnitus.😮😅

[@Koushakur]

0:09 It was so obviously B I thought it had to be A because it's supposed to be the one you didn't think it was when asked like that...

[@koriroti]

Lol same. B vibrates my phone, while A is dead silent. Not even a vibration

[@kered13]

Same. Audio B sounded very clearly higher to me. Maybe it has something to do with your audio setup.

[@ottoihccus]

Bone conduction headphones rattles the head more during sound B

[@pernal9956]

you need to put on headphones, it will sound completely different

[@BGP00]

Exactly lol. And im wearing headphones

[@pmishraofficial]

7:03 - The entire summer is in these few seconds 8:40 - Analogy of Shepherd Tone 9:52 - The scrambled version is not played in isolation here exactly. It’s played with the visuals of the original melody which assists in recognising it. A better test for viewers would be to listen to it in isolation and then make a judgement. 12:44 - The best demonstration ever of visuals affecting sonic perception 12:57 - Great example of sound effects influencing visual perception 14:39 - Example of how spatialisation helps better listen to a voice in a crowd. This is used in apps like BlueJeans btw (in a multi people meeting, audio is panned to avoid overlapping audio) 16:58 - This is a major problem to solve amongst audio software makers who build tools for spatial audio 22:35 - Many companies and musicians sell “binaural beats” packs in the name of improving concentration. Even music streaming apps have playlists and sections based on it. If it’s a hoax, it needs to be debunked.

[@Dante...]

Derek: In Mario 64, players can't level up until they collect enough coins. Anyone who's ever played the game: Wot?

[@pukas7389]

Speedrunners: Bruh

[@ShadowGear238]

This should been the top reply

[@kylehamilton3393]

He's obviously a sonic guy lol

[@Ashstyx0]

wot

[@Dörtichi]

ai generated script

[@BenKerswell]

As a pipe organist myself, I’ve explored this topic extensively in my free time. Great job making it so accessible!

[@Account81658]

"I recommend putting headphones on" * IMMEDIATELY BLASTS EXTREMELY LOUD ORGAN *

[@ChillaxeMake]

the fact that he hearted it makes it even funnier

[@legoseanland1760]

I came here to say that :)

[@charliesieben5695]

It was his organ that made that sound?! :O

[@Cassinspace]

Second only to standing next to the organ

[@uhohhotdog]

Wasn’t loud to me

[@ziomalZparafii]

11:45 Knowledge is power, France is bacon.

[@SilverFlint247]

"Cocktail party effect, most of us can do it with little effort" This my friend is the bane of my existence. I can clearly see that others are able to do it easily all night long but for me, a thing that I cannot do. It affected my life you have no idea how. To me all that chatter combine together and my brain is unable to isolate one. I avoided parties all my life because it is like torture to me.

[@MatthewBrannigan]

Yes, same here - it really ruined my social life, I wish there was some kind of cure.

[@TheSynit]

Yup me as well. Even at a noisy area like a busy road, shopping center etc. I can be 1 meter from them starting directly at them and have a hard time isolating sound. It was no different in this test either i couldnt focus on the sound even when played in 1 ear.

[@bunnysparklzbunnytime5117]

Oh my that sounds like heaven. Anytime I'm in a restaurant or crowd of some sort I'm following everyone else's conversations along with my own.

[@diamondthree]

This problem is a common symptom of ADHD.

[@eroraf8637]

Are you neurodivergent? I have autism and ADHD, and this rings ALL THE BELLS.

[@neutronenstern.]

0:26 I actually heard that sound A and B both have the same note in common, but sound B has something added to it. The thing is, that adding higher frequencies also adds a beating to it. This beating has a lower frequency. And this is what might makes you think the note is deaper.

[@twist197]

Same. Are you a musician?

[@tylerfb1]

Ahhh! There's the words I needed to describe what I was hearing. I'm like, I know what they're getting at, I can like intimate it, but can't physically hear it. I physically hear all the different overtones.

[@dan725]

Yup, and that part is explained so well @7:03!

[@evenjohansen4584]

Same here🤠 (singing in a choir for many years might have something to do with my result ^_^)

[@neutronenstern.]

@@twist197 playing the piano and studying physics. My parents are music teachers

[@Makri9]

I really appreciate the audio cue towards the end of all veritasium videos. Very soothing to the brain while preparing us for the conclusion.

[@sweethun11]

I'm Hungarian and hearing you say "pinna" so many times is very funny... ( we spell it "pina" though) 😅 Great video as always!❤

[@MarcelVanderWerf]

After watching 2 minutes, the first thing I thought was 'harmonics'. This is how we let laptop speakers produce a bass in the mix. Good stuff!

[@Josh-yr7gd]

13 years ago, my right ear became very clogged with dust and ear wax. It had louder ringing and I could barely hear out of it. When I went to a house dinner with about a dozen people talking at the same time, it was very hard to distinguish who was near and who was far. It was also challenging to listen to just one person. I realized then that our ears also have a depth perception similar to the way our eyes do. Things become flat when only one is being used. I’ll never forget that experience. I eventually went to the ear, nose and throat doctor and they gave my ear a proper cleaning and it was back to normal.

[@chuck1804]

A hero's journey.

[@810PRODUCTIONS]

I had the same experience with my right ear. I suffered from an obnoxious ringing for six years. Naturally, I assumed there would be no easy fix. One day my Q-tip pulled out a little bit of blood. The next day a girl at a small doctors office cleaned out my right ear, which felt amazing and dislodged a black waxy mess. I assume the black was due to my smoking. It was like my ear was kept in shrink wrap as a collectors item, then finally opened on that day and I could hear in HD. The ringing was gone within two days. Such a simple solution for a severe six year sleep depriving problem.

[@orangebeagle3068]

Many animals have similar capabilities with their nose where each nostril leads to a different nerve and they can smell “in stereo”. I wish we could do that too.

[@810PRODUCTIONS]

@@orangebeagle3068 All receptors have a distance between them, so they are all, in a way, a field of Dolby surround. But our brains tend to clump such clusters of inputs into one sensation.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

Me learning that other people have hearing depth perception: "wait, what?"

[@Emblazened]

To me, sound B sounded clearly like sound A with another higher tone stacked on top of it.

[@mallebornoptimus5880]

This is what I thought. The moment sound B came in I abandoned the question "which tone is lower?" because the second one was clearly multiple. And right at the moment of cutoff I was like "I'm pretty sure it's the same note and more than one above it". Then again, I'm a singer. Other people might have different mileage based on how precisely they usually listen to music. What I will say is that sound B was "fuller" which is precisely why we prefer chords to single notes most of the time.

[@nathanaaronfernandes9698]

Bro was born without any survival instincts 💀

[@vibaj16]

same

[@Byggherren]

bro i swear everyone of y'all turned into musicians all of a sudden, to me A was slightly higher than B. But this is not debatable it's a scientific phenomenon as he explains later in the video where different wavelengths conform to make a similar tone to what the lower tone would be. There could be so many different reasons you aren't hearing it from bad speaker quality to software like EQ's changing it.

[@trolley01]

Yeah I agree, I thought he was going to say B was supposed to be the higher pitched sound but I thought it was also clear that it was the same pitch as A but with a higher pitch played at the same time but apparently A is higher, I played it back several times before coming and looking at the comments Definitely wouldn't rule out digital audio related reasons for that though like what Byggherren mentioned

[@GameTesterBootCamp]

10:25 A nightmare. I don’t know how to describe it, but that noise will now haunt my nightmares.

[@timstoffel4799]

I am an organ enthusiast, and somewhat of an organist. I am also a ham radio operator, proficient in Morse code (listens a lot to tones in noise). Tones A and B did give a sense of the same pitch, even with the higher tones present. Thanks for exploring the Sydney Town Hall organ, an instrument (with its full length 64 foot stop) that I was aware of, but have never seen or heard. (The other 64 foot stop is in the Boardwalk Hall organ in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This is the largest pipe organ in the world, with some 33,112 pipes. Although undergoing an extensive renovation, it is played nearly every day and there are plenty of performances on KZbin.) One thing you probably noticed on that organ were 'mixture' stops of various sorts. Mixture stops are multiple ranks of pipes that all sound together when a note is played. The pipes are all harmonics of (usually) an 8 foot pitch on that manual, but are tuned to the harmonic series of that note rather than the exact pitch of the note. Mixtures are most often considerably higher in pitch than the 8 foot fundamental. As the pitch of the stop increases, the ranks 'break back' to prevent from sounding too shrill and/or becoming physically too short. What this creates is an effect very similar to your 'shepherd's tone' effect, where the perceived pitch of the stop increases as you play higher and higher notes, but the actual pipe ranks are randomly breaking back to lower pitches. Pipe organs are carefully designed to match the room they are located in, and mixture design to accommodate the acoustic needs of the room is both a science and an art.

[@batchampa]

I have audio processing disorder. I had a hearing test recently that showed my hearing was excellent, but, especially in a noisy environment, it takes a while for me to figure out what someone is saying. It's easier if I can see their mouth when they are talking. Sometimes, at first I think I haven't heard them, and I say "huh", but then suddenly what they said comes through in my brain and I can respond before they've actually repeated what they said. This is more common in a quieter environment where I just wasn't expecting something to be said It's like my brain has to kick into gear to make sense of what it's hearing

[@luisdorador8676]

What do you call all this? Pretty sure I have it

[@Gennys]

It's been explained to me to think of it like our brains have to do an extra step or that a fundamental step in the process simply has a time delay. I heard everything you said but I need more than instant time to let it process.

[@andykins118118]

I have this exact experience all the time. What's the disorder?

[@FirstnameLastname-jd4uq]

@@andykins118118auditory processing disorder

[@cubertmiso]

pretty normal. no need for brains to kick into gear, alas mystifying it for some reason.

[@Silkari]

I'm a trained musician and immediately recognised they both shared the same fundamental frequency and that B contained the fifth and octave. It's really interesting that this is experienced differently for others; for me there was no doubt.

[@gsurfer04]

I studied music tech and sound engineering in school and also picked up on the trick. Felt good to know I've still got it after 15 years.

[@LeviticusStroud]

Similar. I picked up on the second sound being higher due to including higher frequencies in the mix, it didn't sound lower to me at all. Mostly guessed at it being an octave and fifth (or rather fourth down, as I caught the higher tone more noticeably) due to the resonance. Still training my ears, but I could tell it was off from a concert pitch note!

[@C_pico]

well, english isn't my first lenguage even I can undertand it pretty well. Since my brain is not primarly programmed in english my conclussions on many of this experiments are different in many ways

[@leoimpossibleisnothing1901]

How can you tell??​@@LeviticusStroud

[@sylv256]

I recognized the shepherd tones immediately, and the illusion didn't affect me. It's kind of sad, but it's interesting how the brain can be trained to understand sensation more when it's necessary.

[@cosmicpuma]

Newfound respect for organ players and builders, Wow! 🌟 An awesome vid again, really appreciated, definitely learned something new today 🔥 Thank you 🙌

[@Broetchen98]

I was once in a holiday apartement, as I heard high heels walking on the stone floor. I slept in a big kitchen with a bed in it. Because I was not the only person in this Building I thought: maybe it's just a neighbour, which came home. But after 30 Minutes the sound was still there. It came from the hallway. So I stood up, walked to the door, opened it and saw nothing and no one. I stood still and listened again. The footsteps where still there, but they didn't came from the halway. They came from behind me, from the room I didn't slept well afterwards. That's due to the footsteps returning every night, now knowing they originate(d) from inside my room. On the last day I cleared out the fridge, next to the door to the Hallway, and I heard: High heels walking on the stone floor, inside the fridge. It turned out the compressor didn't work well anymore. ANd that's what made that sound. As I knew what it was it didn't sounded like a person walking in high heels on stone floor. But because I didn't knew how a broken compressor sounds, my brain made a person walking in high heels out of it.

[@rakeshgadhawe4550]

😂😂😂

[@michaelfink64]

Who else was waiting to read about the ghost?

[@alexrogers777]

9:52 hearing the unscrambled version did literally nothing when hearing the scrambled version again. Like absolutely zero change.

[@calabrais]

Same! I'm glad I'm not the only one, I even listened to it a few times 😭

[@fran6b]

You have to hear the original melody in your head while the scrambled one is playing. What you hear in your mind literally become an instrument that play with the external sounds.

[@MatsueMusic]

For me its familiarity with that song, I know it...but not as well as say twinkle twinkle or happy birthday

[@trevinbeattie4888]

I still have no idea what the _unscrambled_ tune is supposed to be.

[@orangebeagle3068]

@trevinbeattie4888 I know the song as “Yankee doodle”.

[@nmccrear1299]

As an organist, Veritasium very really pulled out all the stops with this one!

[@BuzzaB77]

🤦

[@nmccrear1299]

@@BuzzaB77 it had to be said lol

[@kyttraus]

We see what you did 😊

[@biggles258]

Oh, very good. Chapeau!

[@TLMuse]

Re: the description of harmonics @ 3:55-the fundamental is itself considered a harmonic, specifically, the first harmonic. Re: "your brain would hear the missing fundamental," the signal from combining the higher harmonics, though it does not include the fundamental, is in fact periodic at the frequency of the fundamental (you note this at 7:00). It's not that you are "hearing the fundamental," it's that your brain is smart enough to correctly infer the period. "Hearing the fundamental" is really "inferring the actual period," which is not an illusion; it's inference! Similarly, the Mondegreen discussion reveals that the brain is doing something like Bayesian inference (as covered in one of your earlier videos), with its final inference influenced by previous experience (prior probabilities). -Tom

[@Sventimir]

This finally explains why I hate crowded parties. This video demonstrates it clearly. When you say I should be able to make out some particular voice, I am not. Apparently I'm particularly bad at it. Thanks!

[@goawaygoawaynow]

You and me both

[@rolfborchmann3783]

Thanks. Finally I know that I am not alone. Party, pub, it's a indistinguishable mess. I must form hearing cones with my hands to understand anything and I always feel like a complete idiot.

[@heatherfyffe3618]

Me three. And believe it or not, I'm a professional classical musician (I do play the organ too so I loved the tour in the video, my measly little organ only has a single rank of 16' and 2 manuals) with highly trained ears... listening to an orchestra or a band, I can pick out all kinds of details. I can 'find' the cellos for instance and follow their part. I've done transcribing - where you listen to a performance and write down what the different instruments/voices are playing/singing. I can hear the separate instruments pretty easily. But a group of people talking? Just a mess. Even if it's the person right in front of me, so there's visual cues -- not like in the video trying to pick out a random voice among equal noise, but the person who is louder. I have to intently stare at their mouth to get enough visual cues, and lean my dominant ear towards them -- if they're standing to my right, then ALL hope is gone. My right ear has perfect hearing, but I can't "pay attention" to it the same way as what I hear in my left ear. If I try to talk on the phone to my right ear, it's as though I'm listening in on a background conversation in another room. The volume is fine, there's no hearing loss at work. It's just so "secondary" in my brain to the ambient room noise my dominant left ear is hearing. I know everyone has a dominant ear but I'm curious if many people have as extreme a difference as I do. Anyway, back to the crowded room of people, I wonder if I even have some sort of auditory processing issues. Something that works to my advantage as a musician but is a detriment in a crowd? And as I'm getting older it's getting worse. Noisy restaurants just become rage-inducing. I can't turn it off, the onslaught of meaningless sound. Ugh.

[@Angel_Bob_]

heard "High, Low" Me with auditory processing issues: Oh you can just ignore the other voices at a party, can you? Must be nice

[@geoffrey6000]

i heard high low as well, wonder why though as he said people sometimes hear words relating to things they are going through.

[@Audio_Simon]

I heard Low, High.

[@monkedonke96]

sucks

[@cupbowlspoonforkknif]

I heard high, low and I have auditory processing issues too. Just a coincidence? Ha.

[@yellowjacket5586]

I got low tide

[@Jacob-Vivimord]

7:45 "Players can't level up until they collect enough coins." My confidence in the accuracy of these videos just plummeted. :p

[@baksoBoy]

I heard that part of the video and instantly started scrolling through the comments

[@myhatisawesooome]

@@baksoBoy same.

[@weakw1ll]

😭

[@koerel]

That sentence is so hilariously wrong 😂

[@PJ-oe6eu]

Gamers are insufferable.

[@benlongboarder2011]

A few years ago, there was this recording being played on radio stations here in Australia. The radio hosts would ask, "Which one do you hear? "Laurel or Yammy?" At first, all I could hear was "Laurel, " but later on, they played it again, and this time, all I could hear was "Yammy" I'm not sure if this was a super viral thing or not, but it definitely blew my mind.

[@_jsonV]

I'm convinced Derek has never played Super Mario 64. "Players can't level up until they collect enough coins." 7:47 Stars. C'mon, Mario collects stars.

[@bellermVA]

He doesn't level up either 😭

[@jakesteampson7043]

Neither does he need all the stars to reach the top

[@IchigoMait]

You seem to have never played super mario bros, you collect coins there, even if yes the game he showed doesn't do that. There are older super mario games than the ones you know of. The leveling up part is though nonsense.

[@walderlopes3372]

Yeah I said "stars" when he said coins. You collect both coins and stars in Mario 64, but for that particular staircase, it's stars to unlock. Or glitch through it with the reverse jump thing.

[@Nejby]

chatgpt ass script

[@jordyboy62]

Gotta love the solution to the Air Traffic Controller issue not being headsets......

[@artmarkham3205]

I guess the idea is that the controllers need to be listening to more than one pilot?

[@allanoepping9002]

Air traffic control started in the 1920s, with the first radio equipped tower in 1930. They had vacuum tubes and relays. The first electronic computer was invented in 1946 and civilian radar was appearing by 1950. I'm not sure what time period this problem occurred but the pilots are probably tuned to shared frequencies and they would likely have to maintain some awareness of the other activity. I was in a air traffic control room in the late 80's perhaps early 90's and they did use headphones and could select a plane on screen and communicate with that plane - presumably automatically switching to the correct frequency. So as things progressed the requirements and available tech would have changed and the traffic control would have adapted.

[@haydenlongest3964]

The technology just wasn't there. Some 911 Centers were still using handset phones and open air mics and radios till the mid 2000s. Headsets that combine radio and phone, are a relatively recent change to some centers. getting random vendors to play together (phones and radios) was hard to accomplish.

[@hundvd_7]

@@artmarkham3205 That is _entirely_ solvable with headsets. Rather, the pilots need to be listened to by multiple controllers.

[@AutPen38]

It reminds me that in the control centre of an emergency ambulance response team, individuals answering calls have headsets, but the manager often listens to the whole room and needs to be aware of which calls sound more urgent just based on one side of the conversation. A good manager can "tune in" to the most important call above the background noise of all the others.

[@josephvanderpool3407]

As a physicist and organist, I really loved this video, thank you! I hate to be this person in the comments, and please everyone hate on me if I'm wrong, but I think your explanation of resultant tones is actually not (entirely?) correct. Your ear can always hear the difference between two frequencies perfectly. For example, if you hear one tone at 440hz and one at 441hz played simultaneously, you will hear a 1hz tone as the peaks of the waves line up and cancel each other out. Thus, if you play one tone at 440hz and one at 660hz (The perfect fifth above), you will hear a tone of 220hz (the octave below) as the peaks line up 220 times per second. If you have a tuner or sine wave generator, try this out. It's great fun! It is not a matter of overtones at all, rather peaks of sound waves amplifying and canceling out each other. The fact that one note is a harmonic of the other is irrelevant. But please don't take this in the wrong way, I loved the video and just thought you might enjoy knowing this!!

[@friadoonhemmat2963]

Amazing

[@raam1666]

This makes much more sense.

[@Photosounder]

What you said is totally wrong, the video got the beating correctly. The beating is not a tone, there's no 1 Hz tone being generated (when you add two signals their spectrums are also simply added, so you still only have two tones), there's two tones, 440 and 441 Hz, and their envelope has a 1 Hz beating cycle (although technically it would seem to pulse twice per second), but there's nothing AT 1 Hz. Btw you will perceive this as a 440.5 Hz pure tone beating, because it's the same thing. Likewise with 440 + 660 there still won't be anything at 220 Hz (and you won't perceive this as beating), it's all a matter of perception, you MAY perceive both tones as being harmonics of a 220 Hz tone that isn't there (it's not that weird, plenty of instruments have their base frequency missing), although if they don't start playing together you might perceive them as being part of something different.

[@raam1666]

@@Photosounder You're so wrong that I'm laughing.

[@therealjibrano]

arent overtones just a fancy way of saying "peaks of sound waves amplifying and canceling out each other"? also im a physics major dropout (not my choice, but as soon as i can im going back) and also a self taught musician. it's always nice to see fellow physics people on here!

[@over-educated-sp]

What’s worse than a lobster playing piano? Crabs, on your organ.

[@Gatorboy5678]

Shepherd’s tone is literally what anxiety feels like but in sound form.

[@We_are_therians-67893]

Hold it.. hold it... hold it.... then drop the Bass ! That's what dance music, techno, trance and other genres use, you know it's coming and the anticipation is what drives the euphoria at the release.

[@brianknight8195]

This is how low sub bass is synthesized for smaller speakers digitally. Very nice! The drawings of how it’s done brings it home too. Well done.

[@AnkitGarg]

7:50 "listen carefully to the music" then proceeds to talk over the music 😅

[@davidgro2000]

Maybe to not be sued by Nintendo.

[@Monkeymario.]

when he talks it breaks the illusion kinda

[@osawereao]

This is a lot of work to bring such education. Thank you.

[@Lord_Yoshi]

7:40 "In Super Mario 64, there's a staircase that seems to go on forever. Players can't level up until they collect enough coins." You w0t?

[@LucenProject]

One sentence is a truth and one sentence is a lie.

[@TheJayKayA]

he means "stars" (70 needed) and not "on that stairs" but "before in the game" (:

[@Bluhbear]

@@TheJayKayA and also get rid of "level up" :P

[@Viki1999]

That part is about as accurate as the bit with the two different tones at the start lmao

[@applesnstuff7028]

Credibility ruined forever /s

[@ya.viene.el.guanaco]

I’m so excited you covered this topic! I’m a PhD candidate in psychoacoustics, specifically on the subject of sound localisation. We also use changes in interaural cues when rotating the head to derive a source’s location. It’s a very important detail that is often forgotten due to the static setting of most listening experiments.

[@andrejrockshox]

can you elaborate?

[@ya.viene.el.guanaco]

@@andrejrockshox tricky to do so in a youtube comment. In short, we use changes in the interaural time differences (ITD) and level differences (ILD) together with sensorimotor information about the position of our head. This helps us in two ways: the sign of the changes informs us whether the source is in front of us or behind us, the rate of change informs us about the elevation of the source. This is particularly useful when the spectral information is distorted. My review paper might explain all of this better: “Towards modelling active sound localisation based on Bayesian inference in a static environment”.

[@peterdahl2952]

My father was in London during the Blitz, he told me you could always tell when a multi-engine aircraft overhead was German, …as they never bothered to synchronise their engines, so there was an audible beat. British pilots were taught to always synchronise them, …so just a single tone.

[@guntherjauch3161]

I think multipistonengines are out of sync on purpose. So there won’t be critical resonance in the plane.

[@peterdahl2952]

The engines will be out of sync unless the pilot consciously synchronises them. From what I understand, the British were worried that the beat frequency would cause unwanted resonance and vibration. I also read that the Germans thought unsynchronised engines made the planes more difficult to locate…

[@firelight3806]

Saving this

[@fritzthecap5777]

Cool video, thank you! I like the ancient sound mirrors:-) What you call "notes that aren't there" has been named "combination tones", also "Tartini tones". There has been a video on KZbin where a guitarist plays high-pitched note-couples so that their resulting combination tones form a melody in the bass. Not easy to hear because the note-couples sound absurd, but without them the melody wouldn't exist. The combination tones can be easily produced and heard when you play two very high notes simultaneously on a sinus-near instrument (e.g. 2 flutes). The closer the notes are to each other, the deeper the combination tone will be. Try going from a minor third to a fifth, letting descend the lower note chromatically, and you will hear an ascending bass line of Chuck Berry:-)

[@meino6465]

My first reaction upon hearing sound B was that probably neither of the sounds was higher since B sounded like combined sine waves, which might be because of my musical background. I think this is a neat demonstration of how our experiences can shape the way we observe things!

[@solandri69]

Exactly this. Your ears have hairs which respond to specific frequencies. So your raw perception of sound is basically a Fourier transform of the actual soundwave (combination of sine waves). The distinctive sound of different instruments is caused by a combination of a fundamental frequency + multiple overtones (each at a different amplitude relative to the fundamental). Your brain recognizes a pattern of fundamental + overtones as a particular instrument. So you hear that as one sound (from an instrument), rather than a combination of different sine waves. So whether you hear sound B as 3 sine waves at different notes, or a single note from a weird-sounding instrument, is entirely subjective.

[@meino6465]

@@solandri69 Thanks for explaining in more detail!

[@pastelthedevil2662]

bro has done 14 different titles and 62 different thumbnails. Optimization is a never ending task as they say

[@DannMeza-ck1ez]

AI generated titles working at 120%, it really helps 🙌🏼

[@artugert]

Actually, just 8 titles and 8 thumbnails.

[@AbhishekSingh-ly9gi]

Overthinking

[@cluelessturlte1512]

14:32 yeah no. It was NOT easy to distinguish different sounds when they are mixed up.

[@tspamtyahoocom]

The isolated voice should have played a bit longer so our brain could have locked in on it.

[@user-white007]

@@tspamtyahoocomI still immediately followed ny to cali worst flight over head full. Definitely couldn’t pick ever word out first listen but it blew my mind

[@kevinrey9427]

Not even a little bit easy lol

[@richardmwambanga2423]

Through this I realized just how deep the subject of sound is. Plus, I feel there must be so much more unexplored waiting to be discovered. I bet there are existing sounds no living soul has ever heard! It feels like an undiscovered universe! 😃

[@ymeynot0405]

@Veritasium Nitpick: In Mario 64 you need to collect Stars not Coins for the staircase.

[@itsthevoiceman]

Speed run nitpick: I'm about to end this man's whole career

[@James2210]

and you don't level up...

[@dot-256]

​@@itsthevoiceman YA-HOOOOOOOOOOO!

[@Andlekin]

What he said was so wrong, I wonder if he did it on purpose to trigger us... "Coins to level up" Bleh.

[@frododododo]

I'm hijacking this comment. The people who are saying Sound B is higher are either not aware that their audio equipment can change how they perceive sounds, or stupid.

[@you-said-yes]

13:48 “Most of us can do this with little effort.” It is true that most people are able to pick out and focus on specific sounds even in a crowded room full of others having conversations. But here is a fun fact: being unable to do this, or having a much harder time with this, is common in autistic individuals and in people with auditory processing disorders!

[@Reoh0z]

Well at least I'm not alone.

[@Reoh0z]

Well at least I'm not alone.

[@glenwestwood3683]

im Autistic and can never pick out a voice in a crowd like that

[@MrT3a]

I have hypersensitivity, might be autistic or have ADHD, tests and diagnostic pending, and crowds are hell. I bought some specialised earplugs, Loop brand, to allow me to take care of my kids when they're very loud, but still hear most of what's happening. Turns out, they're pretty good in a crowd. Lower volume voices, farther away, are nicely muted, and it becomes easier to focus on the nearest person speaking. It'd be an exaggeration to say they changed my life, but it's very near.

[@MinaB-o2n]

I can understand people in conversations with noisy surroundings pretty well but I didn't hear anything other than 6 0 in the audio example. It was such a mess. I know that I normally look at peoples lips while talking to them, I gotta try out not doing that in a noisy situation and see how well I understand them. it might play a big role in my case since the Bear with the wrong mouth movements was obvious to me that it's still bear but with the lips forming a v

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

14:00 I have autism and a crowded room is one big cacophony, unless someone shouts it in my ear. I cannot make out individual voices as soon as medium background noise starts.

[@trwn87]

I was about to say that, it's impossible for me to understand ANYTHING. But my ears work especially well when there is as close to just one source of sound as you can get.

[@veschyoleg]

I’m with you guys. If I were to subtitle the cocktail party recording, the best I could ever do would be [indistinct chatter].

[@trwn87]

@@veschyoleg Yes indeed. 🤣

[@GustavoHenrique-sr5jw]

I couldnt pick a single word that was said in that crowded party, even after hearing the conversation about flights first, i couldnt keep up, its just a white noise mess to me

[@HinaraT]

I hate that, my brain start to try processing voice but as it isolate words from one conversation it loses it while processing other voices..... Making it really tiring. That why I hated the cafeteria in my school, was already a mess and one time there was a false fire alarm at the same time on top of that, had to put my hand on my ears for the entire time....

[@LoftyAssertions]

The fascinating thing to me is as a musician, I could easily tell Sound B is polyphonic with multiple higher frequencies, I wonder how far this training extends, the crossovers of the Sheperds Tone was quite clear too.

[@SamHe-nm8sz]

the pipes at 3:20 looks like 🗿

[@kiwi_2_official]

fetoid

[@daffatahillah]

🗿🗿🗿🗿

[@senku_z1]

🗿🗿🗿

[@MrSlimerGameplay]

As an Audiologist, working with peoples hearing, back in college, we had to study all possible theories of sound and perceptive hearing - which was one of my favorite courses. So really great to see a big channel shed light on many of these phenomenons and introducing people to the fun tricks of hearing and the auditory world of sounds :)

[@jadenschalck8640]

*Plays two really quiet sounds* "Put on headphones for the full experience." *Incredibly loud organ*

[@FinneasJedidiah]

The sounds weren't really quiet with headphones. Must be something with your speakers not being able to play those sounds well

[@IMelonBeats]

@@FinneasJedidiah doesnt change the troll of palying a loud organ after getting you to put on headphones. xD

[@TallicaMan1986]

@@FinneasJedidiah I don't know what it is, but something is going on with youtube sound and things aren't being put in limiters and or volume checks aren't happening. The Organ is loud and thats just a fact apparently on recording and off recording lol

[@infinite4809]

du du du DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[@ardenanderson5051]

You bring so much knolage to the world and many people appreciate it

[@IEaTpoopy]

My grandmother plays the organ at our church and i must say they are super talented musicians! My grandmother sings while she plays and they way she can switch up her voice is truly a gift from god.

[@x3-PC]

I hear her saying "Low" and the other saying "High", the word "Low" is said in a low tone of voice while "High" is in a higher pitch. 10:17

[@tabbitee]

Same here! Low and high a third apart

[@RichardFineAustralia]

Same here

[@nanopi]

Fly Lung

[@Hris4eto]

10:17 on the left i hear tie low and on the right low lie

[@virginiaorganbuilder]

I am a pipe organ builder, and I have lived in the world of sound for nearly 50 years. This is thrilling!

[@guyincognito9410]

@@virginiaorganbuilder thank you for your service my good music man

[@noooooo1426]

little joel put you to shame man

[@brandonbryant2480]

Was looking for this lmao

[@shaeisgae8952]

Not rlly, I came from Joel's video and sound A is clearly higher to me.

[@LlywellynOBrien]

​@@shaeisgae8952oh no, little Joel put to shame. What is Big Joel going to say?

[@truthwatcher2096]

lol of course most of the comments will say "B sounded higher to me", if A sounded higher to me I wouldn't comment just to say "yes you're right". Not to mention that many people couldn't even hear sound A because of bad speakers, what do you expect the comments to look like?

[@bartymurns]

10:50 I heard "low, high"

[@a5c0]

Totally wrong. It was obviously "high, low" 😆

[@GonzPaoli]

Same

[@cardshark38]

I heard “love pi”

[@jerramoshea8164]

Left right for me 😂

[@dontcomply3976]

I heard 'contact'

[@solandri69]

A bit of trivia on beating. The modern 12-tone musical scale (equal temperament) simply divides the frequencies in an octave (a 2:1 ratio of Hz) into 12 equal parts on a logarithmic scale. This has the advantage in that you can transpose any song up or down an arbitrary number of notes, and still play it on the same instrument. But the proper interval between notes (just intonation) are ratios of integers. 2:1 is an octave, 3:2 is a 5th (e.g. C-G), 4:3 is a 4th (C-F), 5:4 is a third (C-E), etc. This frequency spacing does not match equal temperament. It's close, but slightly off. Piano tuners use this when they're tuning a piano. The slight difference between just and equal intonation means there will be beating when you play a fifth, a third, etc. By counting the number of beats per second, they can tune each note to an equal temperament scale using only their ear. (The process is similar to how x-ray crystallography can be used to resolve atomic structure. You use the slight differences in multiple repeated patterns as a sort of vernier to resolve much finer details than you can with direct observation.)

[@schraderclemens6122]

Wow, that is fascinating.

[@codygaudet8071]

This comment actually helped clear up a lot of things for me. Thanks for this.

[@stefanfincken4359]

This is intersting. Can you point me to a drawing or diagram of this? Aphantasia...

[@solandri69]

@@stefanfincken4359 The wiki entry on piano tuning has a chart with the precise beating in Hz. (You can read further on stretch. In case you thought this was all there was to piano tuning.) For a visual example of how x-ray crystallography works, try looking at something with a fine repeating pattern through a patio door screen. You'll see a Moiré pattern appear. Observe how the pattern changes as you move slightly side to side, and closer / further from the screen. When I was renovating my home, I was able to easily see a Moiré pattern from a second screen 25 ft away in my backyard. Far enough that the individual holes in the distant mesh were completely invisible to the eye.

[@lindafoxwood9091]

For many years (30) I have always had trouble listening in a noisy environment. I can hear a pin drop at 50 feet and a footstep in the woods at 100 yards. When 2 sounds I hear from anywhere - I can not detach them and is always the sounds combined and I can not split them. Your view on this matter has greatly improved my ideas of how to repair my hearing abilities. I think that just me thinking about your ideas will be enough for me to get better. Thank you for this great information. 🙂

[@Reverend_Salem]

could also be some form of auditory prossessing disorder.

[@lindafoxwood9091]

@@Reverend_Salem 30+ Years ago I had my last hearing test! Most of the sounds I heard were in my right ear, even the ones played only in my left ear! Your idea sounds like what I have. Thank you. ♥

[@hotflashfoto]

I like this video a lot. Especially when hearing the higher harmonics being played and yet "hearing" the lower note! At the end, the wrap-up seems to point a listener to conclude that our brains developed on their own. Seeing how complex they are, it's much easier to conclude that they were created. Couple that with the advert right after where it wants you to use critical thinking skills and one might be led down the path of wanting to believe in evolution. My critical thinking skills tell me to look at how something is designed and then ask who the designer is, not assume that it just happened by chance.

[@AndrewMillar_Zim]

As a musician, sound A sounded lower, and sound B sounded like a chord with the same root note as A, the 5th and the octave,, and sounded higher because of the two additional notes, mainly the octave.

[@iang0th]

As a musician, I heard them as the same pitch, which makes sense, since the fundamental frequency was the same. B just sounded like a different "instrument," maybe a bit brassier.

[@jameshalldorsson9695]

I concur that's exactly how I perceived it

[@David-bp9lr]

same.

[@armelind]

Thats what I thought. I am also a musician and I produce music. I have trained my ears to listen for certain frequencies. And as for the jumbled notes on the song, I still only heard jumbled notes the second time because logically, it was the same and my ears heard the same thing.

[@K1mmo]

@@iang0th Had to get so far down to someone comment my immediate first thought, glad you did. Obviously heard the higher frequencies and the "made up" 50hz.

[@dalyxia]

22:59 "a cocktail party would always just sound like a complete mess" yep, thats what it always sounds to me, i cant for the life of me hear anyone in a noisy environment.

[@harpintn]

That is the way I am. and if I stay in that type of environment for more than 45 minutes I get a bad headache.

[@MacrosBlackD]

That's what ADHD does to us... I've never been able to enjoy a drink with friends because I can't hear anything what they're saying most of the time. It's truly insane.

[@silverbluewolf406]

I’m guessing it’s part of my adhd But i Find it extremely hard to isolate a single sound in a “noisy” environment This makes it very hard to talk to people in a room of multiple people talking as all of the sounds (including any traffic noises or birds singing outside) sound to be roughly the same volume when i hear them If i’m not directly trying to speak to a specific person it causes discomfort after some time and if i can’t take a break can even lead to a panic attack

[@dalyxia]

@@silverbluewolf406 yep, i was diagnosed with ASD when i was 18.

[@Sopel997]

yep that's how I realize I may have some auditory processing issues. Even that isolated left ear voice I just can't do.

[@stardustjustlikeyou]

recognizing and hearing the changes in the "beating" when 2 similar notes are played is how my music teacher taught me to tune my instrument!

[@SD-cf3tj]

the "almost" part of the title is well placed. Some things worked for me, and others very much did not. Although I will say, going back and trying it again changed my experience/result. Likely because my brain was expecting/primed.