Results for whales

Sidsonic Libraries has released Drones – even whales would cry, a sample pack featuring sounds that would make whales cry.

This sample pack contains sounds you can use for a variety of musical genres and even for games, movies and theater.

The sounds within Drones having a long sustain with high chirps and modulation from deep and dark to high and light. They will bring some nice textures into your arrangements. Some of the sounds feature a sustain phase of up to 12 seconds, more then enough time to find nice parts to cut and re-sample.

“Drones – even whales would cry” is available to purchase for 19.99 EUR for the complete kit. Individual kits are 2.68 EUR each.

More information: Sidsonic Libraries / Drones – even whales would cry

Necromare has released some more free sample-based VST instruments for Windows.

What can I say I love building instruments. I think it’s part of being a composer, to finally make the sounds you need and want. I keep coming up with ideas for instruments and there seems to be no end. I already have 50 plus most in the testing stages. Looks like I will be releasing them well into next year.

New Necromare plug-ins

• The Panning Piano – Simple piano that automatically pans left and right slowly as you play. Good for filing out a mix. The last octave includes some piano screeches.
• Piano Harp – Imagine if you played the piano like a harp? What would it sound like? It would sound like this VST great sound for mystical or romantic moods. Included in the last octave are Gliss samples for effect.
• Simple Acoustic Guitar – Straight Foward guitar. Good for picking or sketch work.
• Soft Mallet Xylophone – The xylophone played with a soft mallet. Velocity sensitive over 4 octaves.
• Toys – Toy Piano, a small scale piano with a tiny sound + an electronic children’s piano with baby xylophones instrument.
• VL-1 Drum – Drum sounds from the Casio VL-1 keyboard/calculator.
• Zeboo Drum Kit – Acoustic drum kit, GM Mapped. The last octaves are samples of Zeboo himself!
• Lucivier – The keyboard produces a celesta like tone while pipes produce flute like sounds at the same time. The bottom octave and the last are the sounds produced by using the three pedals on the bottom.
• Kazoo – The only instrument you need little to no experience to play. So why not try a VST. It’s a bit harsh but fun to knock around with.
• Gamelan Music – Three Gamelan instruments: Reyong, Gangsa and Calung.
• Electric Bass – Simple Electric Bass, keys are velocity sensitive to give a short note on harder strikes. The upper octaves include a classic bass slide.
• Whale Song – Made from CC whale song files. Includes a whale purr, a trumpet, gentle underwater sound fx, and more.
• Sinsonic Drums – Like many old toys from the past some have actually been used by pros. Mattel Synsonic drums have been used by kraftwerk and others. This is a knock off the original pays tribute to our toys of a bygone era.
• Basement Piano – Most homes might have one of these lurking in there corner basement. An old upright that you may have learned to play piano on or liked to beat on. Either way this pleasant piano will convey a warm nostalgic sound for your next tune.
• Southern Banjo – For some there is nothing like the sound of a picked banjo. for others they can do without. This is an attempt to faithfully recreate the sound of a great instrument.

The Necromare instruments are available as freeware VST plug-ins for Windows PC.

More information: Necromare

Paul Middlewick discovered an elephant on the London Underground map during his daily journey to work.

From Animals on the Underground:

The Animals, made up using tube lines, stations and junctions on the London Underground map were spotted by Paul Middlewick some 17 years ago. The original Animal, the Elephant was discovered while Paul was staring at the tube map during his daily journey to work.
Since then, the Elephant has been joined by many other Animal friends.

Animals on the Underground: Bottlenose Whale

Check this page for images of more animals spotted on the tube.

Link via core77

WeirdConverter is a converter with a twist.

The site is simple: it is like a currency converter, but for completely unrelated items. Play around, and suggest other stuff you want to see – we will make it happen.

Good to know a Baby Grand Piano weighs only about half a Right Whale’s testicle

Currently you can convert things in weight and in length/height.

Link via Kottke

The New York Times has an article about Mark Fischer, an engineer by training who transforms whale songs into into movies and still images.

Mark uses a technique for processing digital signals called wavelets to visualize the sounds of whales.

From the article:

Among whales, certain sounds and patterns are unique to different species, and even individuals in a group — something like an auditory fingerprint, Mr. Fischer said. “To anyone who doesn’t listen to it on a regular basis it sounds like a bunch of clicks,” he said. “But if you’re a whale — or someone who studies whales — it becomes clear that they have their own dialects.”

Wavelets are capable of picking up those distinctions, Mr. Fischer said, nuances that may be missed by the human ear or less detailed visualization methods. “You can pick out any one of those movies and I’ll tell you what it is without hearing a thing,” he said. “The differences are that dramatic.” He envisions a day when researchers may be able to use images generated using wavelets to identify and track individual whales.

Mark Fischer’s art can be found on aguasonic.com.