▶ wow, amazing collection of insect sounds here
▶ Experimental Practices and Subversion in Sound via Monoskop via Canadian Electroacoustic Community
▶ love this porcelain boombox by Katharine Morling
▶ damn those “amateur” composers!
▶ ‘instagram your ears’ as a catchphrase is probably enough to put me off, but I’m not really the target market for these so called ‘active listening’ ear buds – the video with musicians using it & reacting like it is something unprecedented seem a little disingenuous (or maybe they managed to find some musicians who have never done any recording & used outboard effects/pedals when playing an instrument before?)
As for its use as a ‘volume control’ or for noise cancelling, the limited battery life seems a bit of an issue eg they’ll only work on the first six hours of my 12 hour flight? But putting aside the questionable concept of ‘remixing’ a concert or movie or ‘real life’, the most important aspect has to be the audio fidelity, and for an audio company to state the “Frequency Response: 20 – 20,000 Hz” without any +/- X dB means they are deliberately withholding crucial information. A frequency response chart from mic > DSP > speaker would reveal just how accurate this system is – god forbid ‘active listening’ might actually mean “now you can hear the whole world like its an MP3!” – I’ve asked them for a frequency response chart, no doubt they have one as it would be a crucial part of testing & development, so lets see what they respond with…
▶ funny trailer for a non-existent horror film