I remember when I was in secondary school starting a diving class & quitting during the first session because I simply couldnt manually balance the pressure in my ears via my Eustachian Tubes… But quitting didnt bother me at all because I was totally distracted by some other people also using the diving pool for underwater audio experiments. I can still vividly remember how the sound (they were playing music) was omnipresent once you put your head underwater!
Funnily enough I know a few people who work with sound for a living who also cant balance the pressure in their ears, so I decided to consider a blessing… Heres some more info on the process ie ‘prevention of middle ear barotrauma’ – damn! I wish I knew that phrase back then; I can’t go diving cos I’d get barotrauma!
Anyway it doesnt stop me from enjoying sounds underwater. And some of the most beautiful to my ears are Weddell seals, who apparently have 34 different calls & can be heard more than 15 miles! They also happen to sound like analogue synths! check these examples (from here):
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There is some great info about underwater sound here with a ‘focus on musical applications and computer synthesis’ – but of course! And listening to these sounds makes me want to see this Werner Herzog documentary ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD & sure enough, what I previously would have thought was an analogue synth sound is, I am pretty sure a Wedell Seal; have a listen @ 1.40 in the trailer:
I just know there are some people reading this with far more experience than i with modular synths, so a question to you: how would you put together a Wedell Seal patch?
hi! a friend sent me the link to your article. i have a project called ‘notebook of a mermaid’ that is experimenting with the underwater theme. so far, i have mostly done experiments with guitar, bass and voice – played through different pedals. i have also done some stuff on ukulele and piano. last year, i started doing some synth stuff on my roland sh101, but i have not recorded it. i have some seal sounds from the british library. for the weddell seal i used a lot of pitch bend and portamento/glide. i like your synth examples a lot, though! if you like you can contribute a track to the World Ocean Day 2009 compilation which I am currently assembling:
http://notebookofamermaid.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/wanted-world-ocean-day-2009-tunes/
we also recorded a 5-hour live improvised soundtrack to diving footage last year. there were some good sounds in that – especially from the stylophone connected to various effects! still haven’t chased it up to edit it for the web unfortunately.
got to see this Herzog film!!
Ah those are actual Weddell Seals, not synths
will check out your project, it sounds fantastic!
hi! herzog film is great… fun coincidence, I saw it last month actually… the sounds in the film were recorded by Douglas Quinn. its worth listening to his album Antarctica too.
http://www.greenmuseum.org/c/vop/quinn.php
http://www.antarctica2000.net/