Making audio sound bad on purpose

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Making audio sound bad on purpose

Postby Bushido Philosopher » Fri May 23, 2003 7:00 pm

Here's something a bit different. How can I make an audio clip sound bad intentionally? More specifically I want to riddle it with static and make the vocals almost unrecodnisable. Though I do not really have any sounds of static so I can't simply just blend it.

Any methods?
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Postby burntoast » Fri May 23, 2003 7:41 pm

Compress it at a very low bitrate. :wink:
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Postby the Black Monarch » Tue May 27, 2003 1:24 pm

Reanimation.

'nuff said.
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Postby AbsoluteDestiny » Tue May 27, 2003 3:20 pm

You can increase the gain until you get lots of clipping, that would be nasty :)
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Postby Tom the Fish » Tue May 27, 2003 3:27 pm

buy a cheap microphone and speakers. really cheap, really crappy. re-record the song with these tools.

Tom
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Postby koronoru » Tue May 27, 2003 3:39 pm

It all depends on how you want it to sound.

For static: I can't believe you really don't have *any* audio of static at all, but if you really don't, then make some! Stick a microphone into your sound card and record your computer's fan. Use a software synthesizer to generate white noise. If you're using Linux, do
Code: Select all
dd if=/dev/urandom of=noise.raw bs=1024 count=1024
to grab a megabyte of random numbers, and then use your favourite sound converter to translate that from "raw PCM" to whatever format you want. If you have a record player attached to your computer, get a dusty scratchy record and record the gaps between songs. If you have a radio tuner in your computer, record the static between stations; or plug a microphone into your computer and record an actual radio. Plug in a cassette player and record tape hiss. Each of these techniques will give you a slightly different flavour of static which you can mix into your music.

To simulate the sound of music played through a telephone connection, or on a small portable device like a Walkman: use a filter, either high-pass or low-pass depending on the effect you want. Telephone lines can reproduce roughly 100Hz to 3000Hz, so you configure your filter to cut out everything else. Just doing a sharp low-pass at about 3000 is probably good enough. Small speakers or earphones tend to do pretty well with high frequencies but not low ones, so you'd use a somewhat more gentle high-pass somewhere in the bass range. Experiment with different kinds of filters and different cutoff frequencies and rolloff rates.

I wouldn't recommend using low-bitrate compression as a "static" effect unless you're specifically trying to make it sound like low-bitrate compression, because it tends to be pretty distinctive - not pure static, but more sort of whistles and electronic-type sounds depending on the algorithm. That could possibly be a fun effect, though; it might, for instance, be nice for a high-tech communications link that's undergoing heavy interferance. ("Your signal's breaking up, captain!" *zonk* *whistle* *blorp*)

Another fun and vaguely related effect, although it would be a little more involved, is called "vocoder"; the idea being to take one track and apply its spectrum to distort another track. You should be able to find software to do this for most platforms; I don't know if the popular editing programs will do it as a plugin or not. Some rock bands in the 1970s and 1980s used it to good effect. (My favourite example: Tommy James and the Shondels, "Crimson and Clover")
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Postby Tab. » Tue May 27, 2003 5:06 pm

you know whats really fun, encoding pure static as a 16 kbps mp3
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Postby ongakuka » Wed Jun 25, 2003 12:57 pm

If you have compression/limiting plugins in your audio app, check those out. White noise, brain/biorythm (Cool Edit). Avoid flangers, reverbs, and phasers. A lot of what you want to do is layer sounds or effects on top of each other (starting with a 'clean' music source) and if you have a multitrack editor (Cool Edit Pro.. Premiere even - just doesn't have many plugins), it's a lot easier to experiment to find what you are looking for.
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Postby Tab. » Wed Jun 25, 2003 10:26 pm

DUDE!
how many people have said now
> 2 week old posts = NO
maybe even 1 week
:?
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Postby ongakuka » Wed Jun 25, 2003 11:22 pm

dude, give it a rest already.. if there's no definitive "I ACCOMPLISHED MY QUEST" post, it's fair game and I consider it open for discussion.

seriously, why does my posting pertinent information to legit questions in this forum really hurt you guys so severely? time to grow a set..
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Postby EarthCurrent » Wed Jun 25, 2003 11:38 pm

Maybe it differs from other forums, but we are comfortable with our established definition and treatment of necroposting.
Get used to it, because there's no reason to start rocking the boat simply because you feel you aren't being appreciated. :?
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Postby ongakuka » Thu Jun 26, 2003 11:00 am

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... .php?t=289

There was nothing about 'necroposting' in the rules. Maybe it's an understanding you all have, but if it's not stated, how am I - or other new users - to know this *before* being trolled after the fact?

Not really sure where the 'appreciated' thing came from or how you made that conclusion, but I don't really care. I'm really not out to 'rock the boat'. I will participate in topics here that I think I can provide an answer to, or at least possibly influence positively in some way - in a non-gratuitous and non-condescending manner. I'm not looking for praise or glory.. mainly sharing the wealth. If you can't accept that, I suggest you rock your boat.

You're the only person who's addressed me about this in a civil manner, and I do appreciate it - it's really the only reason I'm responding / continuing to this now. No disrespect intended.
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