Videos and Sounds

It's kind of ironic that we haven't posted any sounds on this blog yet..
Below are some video clips with sounds from a 17min movie we made. Each clip is 7-10MB (.mov).

- What is OTTO 1.1 and how does it work?

- How does OTTO sound like?
(Better to turn volume up. The sounds were recorded in domestic environments and followingly edited and processed using custom made filters on MAX/MSP. The 'ambient music' at the end is a mix of these sounds using basic effects like looping, change of pitch etc. and was sampled by Mathias Gmachl.)

also:
- An introduction to madsounds

- What on earth were we thinking?

- OTTO's Industrial Design

OTTO in the IDE Interim Show at the RCA

Madsounds and OTTO are now exhibited at the IDE Interim Show 2006 at the Royal College of Art.

From the show:

"Walls swinging, floors trembling, rain falling and ants walking; every object in our environment has a whisper that is often undetectable to the human ear. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it make it possible to 'compose' our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as new forms of instruments?

Mad sounds is a proposal for a different appreciation of our environment, space and objects; by making it possible to identify, combine and manipulate these sounds.

We designed OTTO (greek for 'ear'); a device that makes hidden sounds audible. This is achieved via a thin polymer piezoelectric contact that senses weak vibrations and plays them as a sound through an integrated speaker. OTTO can be positioned on almost any surface through a combination of suction and magnets. By placing several units on different objects, one can select and create a new sonic experience and a form of ambient music appreciation, thereby utilising our space as a multidirectional audio platform."

and its name is... OTTO 1.1

We decided to name our device 'OTTO', which stands for 'ear' in greek. A prototype of OTTO, just out of the SLA rapid-prototype is illustrated below:

Latest recordings

Some of the recordings to be used in the IDE Interim Show (sounds of the city, melting ice)

Final Presentation

some slides from our final presentation to IDE, which summarize the project up to this point.






































design proposal for our space in the IDE Interim Show.

Microphone evaluation

We attached the piezo buzzer, the Shadow guitar pickup and the piezoelectric film on a window and recorded their response to evaluate their quality.
After the recordings we performed a Fourier spectrum analysis of the sound-data.

Piezo-film analysis:


Piezo-buzzer analysis:


The comparisson shows a better response of the piezo-film, especially in the mid-range frequencies. Second came the guitar with the buzzer last, as expected.

Another factor that we evaluated was the unwanted noise levels picked up by the mics. Again, the piezo-film showed the lowest noise levels compared to the other two.