Come On Feel The [Red] Noise

Sitting on the sofa, I'm chilling out and trying to achieve a Zen-like mood. Well, maybe not. Actually, I'm feeling a little fragile right now. The wheels are beginning to fall off again - the clutter in my house is making a return and it's been a while since I've been to my local "cardroom" to indulge in a spot of poker. Also, organizing the trip to Oslo is going to be a bit more complicated (and a bit more expensive) than I'd like. Then of course, there's my feelings about the people I have the misfortune to work with. They seem to see me as some sort of figure of fun and I've decided the less these people know about my life, the better. It's not my fault they're too ignorant to appreciate we don't all want to live our lives the same way.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with a noise generator over the last few days. It's available on the web at Simply Noise and is a pretty cool piece of kit. It does one thing, and one thing only - generate a source of noise. You get a choice of white noise, pink noise or red/brown noise (different people call that last one different things - personally, I'm in the "red" camp). What's the difference? Well, white noise is the classic "FM radio hiss" we all know. Pink noise is white noise with a bass boost, described by Groupie as sounding like "BBC closed down after the [TV] programmes have finished". Red noise is pink noise with a further bass boost and is my particular favourite when it comes to noise. I do like my bass after all :)

Why would anyone want this sort of thing, though? Well, I find it works great for "tuning out" the outside world, which I tend to do a lot... particularly on occasions like the weekend when a bunch of the local feral youth decided to park a mobile disco outside in the street. Their "banging tunes" - or rather, just the bass component - was not exactly what I wanted to hear that evening, so I cranked up the noise generator to tune it out. You don't have to turn it up loud (I've got it at about 55 dB right now), and I'm not saying it would work as a substitute for soundproofing, but it does lessen the impact of the sound outside.

Another thing you can do at the site is "oscillate" the volume of the noise - it'll slowly cycle louder and quieter, and I really like to do this around bedtime with the red noise. It sounds just like the surf pounding against the shore, and I can easily imagine myself to be living in a lighthouse or something like that. Very calming. Incidentally, the site also offer a free download of a thunderstorm which lasts about an hour which I also find nice to listen to when I'm chilling out. Add that to the oscillating red noise and all that's missing is the shipping forecast :)

Finally, there's a rather unexpected use for the generator I discovered - adding it to music. Back in the 1980s, I was listening to most of my favourite tracks on AM (or even longwave) radio, usually late at night from transmitters on the other side of the North Sea, and the reception sometimes left a bit to be desired. Of course now we have Spotify offering all my generation's music in crystal-clear digital format, but I was thinking to myself one night "it would be nice if I could occasionally add in some of that AM interference to really complete the nostalgia trip". No problem - just add some oscillating noise at a low level (pink or white noise seems to work better for this) and I'm right back in my 1980s bedroom with that white double-cassette beatbox...

Go on, make some noise!

slade

cum on feel the noize

sladest 1973