s/d: aural illusions

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i mean like the musical equivalents of Op Art. or Trompe L'Oeil.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i guess Steve Reich's Piano Phase springs to mind.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Artificial reverb?

― dylan (dylan), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

could be used to gain the effect: examples?

― mullygrubber (gaz), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, the extreme reverb used on surf records such "Pipeline" or lots of stuff by Dick Dale conjures the appropriate aquatic illusion.

― dylan (dylan), Monday, 12 January 2004 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know what the effect is called, but in some records some vocals are processed in such a way, that if you listen to them through headphones, they sound like their coming from the room you're in instead of the headphones. This happens at the end of Mr. Bungle's "Girls of Porn", for example. The first time I heard it, it scared the Bejesus out of me, because I thought someone had sneaked into my bedroom.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:11 (twenty-two years ago)

ai! might hafta find that.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Monday, 12 January 2004 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Tuomas - That's probably a reverb effect, or more likely - the vocals have been recorded by two mics (stereo) to get the room ambience in stereo.
It can be done by using a high quality reverb too.

― Jim Janse, Monday, 12 January 2004 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I immediately though of when an instrument melds into a vocal,
or vice versa.

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Or maybe when just one instrument starts out a tune, and the phrase that it plays does not start on the 1, but you hear the first note as the 1 anyway, and when the rest of the group comes in everything seems to shift over.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I Went To The Mirror-Rundgren

..isnt there something aurally tricky bout'this one?

― thomas de'aguirre (biteylove), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Good one, Jordan.

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 12 January 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

there's a track, I think "Yellow Kid" on Royal Trux's Accelerator where Neil Hagerty just lays track after track of guitar over one another until it sounds like piano.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 12 January 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Is that Mr Bungle CD mixed with an Ambisonic system then? http://www.ambisonic.net/ explains it in tedious detail, but the basic idea is that you get a surround sound effect from a stereo playback system. I think it's achieved by shifting EQ patterns across the stereo field or something but it's all beyond me really.

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Monday, 12 January 2004 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Really stoned with friend first time we both hear "I just can't be happy today" by the Damned. When the solo comes in after ' the devil commands! ', I am impressed at the tone of the organ and say something like "cool organ". my friend seems to think it's a crazily processed guitar and points it out to me, and I agree, sort of, and then counter that they might not have had effects like that then (I am not a guitarist) but it being punk, who knows maybe they nicked a new pedal, then he says "no you're right it's an organ" but now i'm convinced it's a guitar, cos of the sustain on the notes, but when i mention it, i change my mind again and think it's an organ cos of the sort of flattened sloppy sound, like how an amateur would do a fancy solo, whoever's doing it in the damned, and then my friend concurs due to the sustain i mentioned that it must be a guitar, cos of the decay rate or something, that of course he can hear while stoned. we've been rewinding the tape btw. anyway long story short, we were confused. i read recently that it's a heavily treated yet broken marimba so that's that.

― Dr. Annabel Lies (Michael Kelly), Monday, 12 January 2004 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i guess Steve Reich's Piano Phase springs to mind.

I have no idea how they play this. I would get so thrown off it's not even funny. I can't even do the clapping one. I suppose I'm not very musical.

It's Gonna Rain is an even stronger example of an aural illusion to me, as it seems like when I focus on one channel's loop, especially near the halfway point, the other channel sounds like it loses a fraction of the word "it's" or "Rain". Its very creepy and redemptive at the same time - like i think "you maniac, you're so fully losing your mind listening to this... ROCK ON!"

mullygrubber if you haven't heard Maryanne Amacher's "Sound Characters" you might want to give it a shot - at high enough volumes some tracks are meant to make your inner ear reverberate so that they produce tones themselves, making it seem like music's coming from inside your head.

― Dr. Annabel Lies (Michael Kelly), Monday, 12 January 2004 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's an odd one -- put on Peter Gabriel's "Milgram's 37" but make sure your speakers are out of phase. Some v. strange interference/cancellation happens, and the stereo soundstage becomes absurdly huge, so that the drums sound like they're coming from about 5 feet to the left of the left channel.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 12 January 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm. not many answers...but some good ones. thanks.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 04:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Err, how do u put yr speakers out of phase?

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

When they're correctly in phase, the connections are all postive to positive (red to black) etc. Just switch one connection so it's positive to negative. When this happens one speaker will be pushing air while the other is pulling (if they're both playing the same thing.)

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

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