Zooming In On Sound - An Ultrasonic Sound Exploration

[@MFKitten]

The crazy thing for me is that when you slowed down the toothpick, essentially "scaling up" the object, it actually sounds like a larger wooden object in a way that suggests that the scale vs sound relationship is more direct than I would have assumed!

[@iftah_fow]

I'm actually trying to understand (or better said wrap my head around) if there is a way to calculate the "assumed / perceived" size of an object after its been slowed-down given its original resonance frequency, if anyone knows please raise your hand :)

[@MFKitten]

@iftah_fow I would assume that you can go by how much you slpwed it down. If you slow it down 4X, you should get a 4X larger object in a 4X larger room (with 4X larger objects and surfaces in it), dropped from 4X higher, and the microphones are 4X further apart. I'm not sure, though, if that also means the object behaves as if the air has 4X higher density/viscosity/resistance and the gravity is 1/4 as strong?

[@mafoomusic8126]

That toothpick sounded almost exactly like a wood baseball bat being dropped which I’d estimate is more than 4x the size of the toothpick

[@MFKitten]

@mafoomusic8126 yeah, for sure. I'm sure it's possible to do some math with the shift in frequency to figure out the size of the wooden spear you'd need to make.

[@iftah_fow]

its actually slowed down by a factor of 16 (4 octaves) so it should be 16 times larger

[@TheTomzy93]

Awesome and interesting vid! At 8:51 it’s a perfect fourth BTW

[@iftah_fow]

true! i stand corrected :)

[@IvanEngler]

finally a really interesting video on youtube with insights into new territory. and nice visual style! thank you

[@tjn0110]

The bird slowed/pitched down was very interesting! I can only imagine that's what large dinosaurs sounded like! Very interesting video. I can remember doing so many experiments with wave editing from just basic recordings, it was like having a microscope to the world of sound.

[@smarterlife7250]

Funny, that you have the same idea. Once I had the same , when playing a recorded blackbird on my sampler 3-5 Oktaves down!

[@friedlotto]

Absolutely fascinating! The sodawater sounds like the viscosity has increased to frying oil.

[@simonbreak]

Stunning. An absolutely beautiful video, I find it very emotional somehow. How music can remind us of specific moments in our life, then evoke gigantic scales of space and time, and then focus a real microscope on these tiny moments. Thank you so much!

[@vinylarchaeologist]

Fascinating! What I find surprising is that the object sounds are way less alien than expected. Like you say, as if they're made by bigger versions of the same object. As for the birds - now THESE are proper alien sounds!

[@ettoremariotti4280]

Yeah the birds really freaked me out!

[@zootook3422]

Maybe not surprising but still amazing that the needle sounded lika a steel bar and the toothpick like a logg. How the sound of the material just scale. Thank you so much for sharing your efforts and knowledge!

[@smarterlife7250]

Hey, what an interesting field you experienced! What made me smile was the black bird! I did this too, 30 years ago and put this recording into my sampler asr10 and listened completely fascinated to a bird 3 to 5 okatves down that made me believe that birds are the real relatives of prehistoric Giants. Indeed I share your fascination with such recordings! 😎😉 Chapeau for your work on microphones with those abilities!!!!!👍💪🏼

[@MooImABunny]

Iftah, you really 'opened' up a new world of sound for me 😉 but really though, this video was so cool, it's insane. I also appreciate the simple presentation, no crazy youtuber faces and clickbait, just a man passionate about something amazing and obscure. You really let the world of ultrasonics stand on its own, and it's beautiful

[@Taetro]

what a masterlass. the table-tennis ball + espresso cup was especially satisfying.

[@iftah_fow]

the tennis ball took me 20 takes to get it right :)

[@MidBoss]

You have opened my ears to something that is very likely to be a new obsession

[@uttralcaroo6543]

as sound designer student, this was the most informative and interesting video I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you. Love the bats. Might go record them myself some night.

[@StudioMagnetique]

Beautifully done. Fascinating subject shown through the best possible production. Thank you.

[@4CloudySky]

Fascinating stuff. That's why I love physical modelling synths, they can create complex interactions in a virtual object.

[@stephenmurphy8349]

Super interesting. Thanks!

[@DashGlitch]

Absolutely exceptional video, I've been meaning to get into the world of ultrasonic!

[@DashGlitch]

That toothpick example was pretty fascinating! It sounded like a broomstick or something, it definitely increased the perception of size of the object

[@RikMaxSpeed]

Superb video - this is something I’d heard rumoured for decades, but it’s the first time I’ve seen a clear and comprehensive demonstration! Thank you.

[@DesoloZantas]

If we were tiny, everything big would appear to move slowly, with sounds resonating deeper. From our smaller perspective, we’d seem to move at a normal pace. Yet, to anything larger, we’d seem to zip around quickly, speaking in high-pitched tones. I’m not sure if there’s a definitive side to this, but it’s an interesting concept to ponder.

[@alexsmokemusic]

Excellent. Thanks.

[@farmboypresents9977]

Ive been working with bird song for years and love them slowed down. In New Zealand we have some amazing bird songs.

[@snoopywalker1881]

This is just remarkable . Well done!

[@Steveoaudioandstuff]

This is wonderful work, thank you for sharing this.🙏🙏🙏

[@bugman9763]

这研究也太酷了！

[@donniecatalano]

My favourite is the birds part. Fascinating and a bit scary. Many thanks!

[@vytispuronas]

Amazing research, thank you very much for sharing this! It's very interesting - there seems to be a relationship between size and speed of objects - the wooden toothpick sounds like an actual wooden plank, a needle sounds like a metal pole... Somewhat reminds me of the Walter Murch approach to "Worldizing" sounds in the seventies - where you would speed up the sound four times, record it in a hallway, and then slow down the recording four times - to get a reverb that is four times longer and the space is four times larger than the actual environment used to capture the reverb. Fascinating stuff. Subscribed! Cheers.

[@kaiherrmann3477]

singing bowl must be beautiful 🙏🏼

[@ettoremariotti4280]

My god thanks!!!! I have been exploring with ultrasound recently but only with a "bat detector", which just lower the frequency in a less graceful way. All those recordings are super interesting, I hope you will do more! Fun fact: Cats can hear up to 80kHz!!! So cats perceive a really different world than ours, given that as you said these ultrasound can be extremely loud

[@wernervannuffel2608]

This can be very interesting for FM sound synthesis because the modifiers (in the algorithm configuration of the six opertators as carriers and modifiers) aren't audible... Just an intuitive thought.

[@stephpicher]

Just wonderful. Thank you for this.

[@bart8205]

Great insights, awesome!

[@claytonchipper3874]

Such great work. Amazing to hear these unperceived sounds that turn into music

[@patrickross5509]

Super interesting video

[@patrickriggenbach3127]

13:51 The sound reminded me of a herd of cows with bells walking.

[@thmkly]

really really great!

[@ea_777]

Woow, this video is a technical and artistic masterpiece ! Color palette, sound quality, video editing, graphics, typography, slow motion capture and so many others to list that goes beyond my skillset ... Many thanks ! Curiosity questions: 1. Is human hearing system capable of hearing ultrasound but signals doesn't get to our consciousness ? 2. How is slowing down made, by lowering the sampling rate or any other method ? 3. For slow motion video recording, what was the frame rate ? 4. For ultrasound mic hacking, would a small piezo capsule be good enough ? --- no rush, I'm sure eventually in the coming years somebody / somewhere will drop a few lines. Best.

[@iftah_fow]

thank you, 1. our inner ear can not hear more than 20khz. 2. the slowing down is made by repitching (warp mode off) in ableton live. 3. i filmed in 240 fps and converted it to 480fps using optical flow - 480fps is the equivalent of 16 times slower, which is the equivalent of 4 octaves down. 4. piezo will probably work for contact mics etc, which can reach very high freq as well, but are not so practical. small electret capsules (6mm or lower) will do a good job, mems microphone capsules are the best for hi frequency range, but they don't sound very nice.

[@ea_777]

@@iftah_fow Many thanks for your ultrafast reply ! It all makes sense now. Your work triggered many ideas, like, when doctors listen to lungs etc, they are limited in their 20 kHz range, who knows what other information is in the ultrasound audio range ! Ultrasound is used for imaging but for totally different purpose.

[@tihinter]

@@iftah_fowgreat video, highly appreciated! One addition to the question of upper hearing range: us humans can only detect periodical (!) waves up to 20kHz. That most probably does not 1:1 apply to impulse analysis capabilities of our perception. Furthermore, it has been approved that timing differences between our two ears do exhibit a much finer timing resolution, than the old 20k “myth” implies.

[@iftah_fow]

@@tihinter Thanks for the interesting info! I have a question-when it comes to these impulses, are we actually 'hearing' them in the traditional sense, or are they more of a pressure or physical sensation?

[@tihinter]

@interesting question. I’m lacking the scientific expertise in understanding the full neurological process behind hearing. I’m just a Professor at University of Music, with not much knowledge about latest medical research. I tend to see the mechanism of perception to be separated into a whole lot of sensory data covered by the ears sensory parts and processed by our brain. So each moment of hearing (regardless of talking about periodic waves vs. impulses) might be understood as a whole sensory experience, including physical pressure impacts on the skin, e.g. After 30+ years working at music recording studios, I just know that I’m able to discern certain acoustic phenomena (in repeatable blind tests) that should be inaudible due to my limited hearing bandwidth. So there simply must be more to the whole topic. I think, human hearing is not fully understood by science, yet. Acoustics science is full of unsolved riddles, coarse approximations and assumptions (the much discussed Schroeders frequency being just one).

[@Vingul]

I collected random pieces of metal of various shapes years ago with the intention of doing what you did in the intro here, but never did. Pretty sure I still have it out in the woodshed, though. Interesting video, cheers.

[@soffter]

brilliant and inspiring! please keep making videos, you're exceptional at it !

[@distorson]

This is so freaking cool

[@deejaytracksuit88]

gratitude for this video!! it opened my eyes / ears ;)

[@EssubW]

This is fantastic stuff! I've wondered for the past 10-15 years how would birds sound when recorded like this and slowed down. If you need ideas about what to record, the crackling and fizzing sounds of different rocks when they are split using feathers and wedges. Some types of granite sound like opening a can of fizzy drink when the split finally happens, others sound a bit like oil on a hot pan. I've tried to record those sounds with simple piezo mic but that would've needed a flat ground/polished surface for the mic to get better contact, so the results are very low quality.

[@RobinDupuy]

Super cool 😎 🦇 it's opened a whole new sound experience dimension.

[@eky]

all the minimal goblins will have a field day sampling this video

[@WACkZerden]

cool. love from Arizona

[@AntiPattern123]

Nice Video. Fiddling around with it too. It made me baffled when i first heard all the sounds and they seem so familiar. First thing is.. Macrocosmos = Microcosmos and vice versa. A little toothpick sounds the same as a big twig or a tree when it breaks. The other thing is.... I heard all these noises in movies. I mean, they did this decades ago with tapes. But it has to be done in a studio environment. Now its to-go. I got me a Zoom M4 for this. It's a handheld-field-recorder 192kHz/32bit/float Zoom M4. You can slow down the recorded audio two times (2 octaves) and get the same resolution as with 48kHz Sampling-rate. (Amazing) It is very nice. The typical Zoom problems (touching noises) has to be considered without further equipment.

[@justinhuffman2430]

Amazing microsound exploration ❤ 🔥 beautiful ✨️ subscribed 🙏

[@erwinm187]

very informative. thank you Iftah

[@tColorsinspacerecordings]

Awesome video. Thanks!

[@ettoremariotti4280]

I have also heard that rats should be making ultrasounds... might want to try it! Also tinfoil sheet

[@blobmusica]

so so lovely. Thanks for the effort!

[@dcof546]

Brilliant work thanjs

[@benjaminjoeBF3]

wow I wonder how it would sound without slowing down the tempo, just the frequency, like a cat or something that size would hear it...thank you for the trip!

[@0FAS1]

Amazing video! Instasubbed. Dont know if requests are accepted haha but please do an ultrasonic recording of an euler's disc spinning on a mirror! Think it would be awesome.

[@antonv13]

thanks! so interesting.

[@Pazaluz]

I've always been fascinated by sound/music. This was a pleasure to watch! I have an older Tascam DR-07mk2 which i haven't used nearly enough. Might not be the best mic for it, but i'm curious what i can get out of it if i slow down recordings like in your examples 😄

[@snoopywalker1881]

Is there a sample library out yet for these sounds? Seems like the sound effects for the original movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger .

[@DelmaRaySmithJr]

oscillating is my go to relaxation

[@Michael_Jeromy_Kaiser]

The animals have so much articulation in their voice this is important work If you were to introduce this to an AI and let it train on the animals speech it might be able communicate with them or to them i think whales and dolphins are amazing sounding

[@danteleonelriego]

great, thanks Iftah

[@jonaswagner6816]

Very cool. :) Did you ever play around with pitch shifting/phase vocoders to decouple the time from the frequency aspects?

[@tazmanfck5268]

Very interesting, what did you use for slowing down ? PaulStretch ? daw algoritym ?

[@IgnatGorazd]

Amazing! Now “Secret d world of Arrietty” sound design makes even more sense. That kitchen scene with rapid sound zoom! Btw, which Primo capsule you can recommend?

[@paulflute]

was that a humpback blackbird..?

[@PhaseDeRecherche]

So interesring, thank you for sharing that! Do you slow down the sounds on Ableton live with the "pitch" Algorithme ?

[@iftah_fow]

thank you, i slow it down with warp mode turned off

[@the.ai.generation]

Are you creating the Ableton session at 192 kHz 32 bit and importing these recordings to that session? Then, pitching down with the slider (warp mode off)?

[@aeko]

The Sony D100 (popular field recorder) mics can do 50Khz

[@Dean-p1s]

So interesting. Where do we buy the sample pack?

[@iftah_fow]

i will probably release something bigger sometimes in the future

[@edjefferson9175]

Very good work and fascinating subject. I also appreciate your presentation. The slow speed video adds a nice touch to the audio. What type of high pass filtering do you use? This will be a fun project for me!

[@iftah_fow]

thank you, most of the time i use a steep 48/db filter

[@thekarmafarmer608]

What is a good software to use for post production of these sounds? Absolutely wonderful video. I realise that I`ve not been pushing my equipment at all.

[@iftah_fow]

thank you, all modern DAWS should be equally good, i basically use EQ and sometimes some denoising, but not more than that

[@thekarmafarmer608]

@@iftah_fow Thank you for your help. I`m using Ableton and will look into that. Really, a superb and interesting video.

[@laflamme7782]

Awesome. Subscribed. Maybe I missed something, but how do you actually slow down the recordings? Rx Izotope? Do you lower the sampling rate, and if so, how? Thanks!

[@iftah_fow]

Thank you, i actually use Ableton Live (warp mode off) to repitch most of the times. sometimes i use max if i want a slow down curve (like in the Metro example)

[@jdtorian]

No love yet for the color coordination and the square video!?!?

[@myNamezMe]

Interesting how much reverb there is, as if the audio were run through a reverb FX unit.

[@bastarddonthemove]

Hey Iftah, super intrigued, may I ask with what program you slown down the samples, i know about paul stretch but it always sound bit mush?

[@iftah_fow]

i use ableton live to repitch (warp mode off)

[@chillovmusic]

​@@iftah_fow Great ❤

[@daw6071]

is there a place i can get your recordings

[@te.hache.eo667]

Trank you

[@jmawa8616]

It’s the Alice in wonderland of sound