8 ms·

Recreating the spectrogram face

79 points by DanielRapp 12y ago

rikkus 12y ago
This made me listen to some Aphex Twin. Ouch. Luckily I soothed my ears with some Black Dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUl6iJlEeTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUl6iJlEeTE
- y2bd 12y ago
  Aphex Twin has made some softer songs as well, a popular one being this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iiZEto2j2GQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=iiZEto2j2GQ His newest album Syro also has less aggressive tracks, but it seems to not be on YouTube.
  - rikkus 12y ago
    Apologies, I wasn't meaning to say I prefer 'softer' music, only that I can't stand Aphex Twin and love The Black Dog. Just a personal preference!
  - lifeformed 12y ago
    Or if you want a super soft one, how about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnUuosQwZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnUuosQwZY
  - staticshock 12y ago
    Fascinating! I never would have guessed that the Where We Live intro is an Apex Twin song.
- sneak 12y ago
  Don't be a jerk, please.
sprokolopolis 12y ago
Venetian Snares' also had something similar in his "Songs About My Cats" album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlpakpa8zIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlpakpa8zIA
- PavlovsCat 12y ago
  I made something like that, too, but it's not currently online and just a short derpy chip-ish tune anyway.. though the image I embedded was little heart shapes, and they went nicely with the music, so there's that haha. I used this for it: http://victorx.eu/BitmapPlayer.htm http://victorx.eu/BitmapPlayer.htm To imagine we can that with moving images in the browser now, well, whoa.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- DanielRapp 12y ago
  What do you mean by the original discovery?
- PavlovsCat 12y ago
  It is linking to a video from 2009, so I would say it actually does.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- time4hn 12y ago
  Discovery? That face was planted intentionally by the artist, and the knowledge of its existence has been passed around fans since its original release.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
mrkrd 12y ago
ARSS [1] is a similar tool, check the examples [2]. LTFAT toolbox could do something similar using isgram function [3]. [1] http://arss.sourceforge.net http://arss.sourceforge.net [2] http://arss.sourceforge.net/examples.shtml http://arss.sourceforge.net/examples.shtml [3] http://ltfat.sourceforge.net/doc/demos/demo_isgram.php http://ltfat.sourceforge.net/doc/demos/demo_isgram.php
wetmore 12y ago
This is really innovative!
dTal 12y ago
The Analysis & Resynthesis Sound Spectrograph[1] is a really nifty tool that can convert spectrograms to audio files and vice versa, making tasks like this trivial. Sadly the developer has shifted development into a proprietary project, but the last release of ARSS still works and is a real hoot to play with. [1]http://arss.sourceforge.net/ http://arss.sourceforge.net/
FraKtus 12y ago
MetaSynth is all about that, you can import visuals, draw over them, filter them and then go back to audio, MetaSynth is available since a very long time, it was first running on Mac OS 9. http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php
- sneak 12y ago
  This is what RDJ used to make the sounds in the b-side on Windowlicker.
sysk 12y ago
Forgive my ignorance but does a spectrogram carry all the information necessary to reproduce the sound that generated it? For example, assuming I had the spectrogram of a song, could I play the song using it?
- shabble 12y ago
  Yes, the FFT/STFT[1] is generally invertible, potentially subject to knowing the parameters it was generated with, or finding some reference markers in the original input you could use to derive them. There's also the possibility the spectrographic image itself might be a lossy representation of the actual frequency domain data, in which case you won't get a perfect result back out. Probably recognisable though. If I had time I'd do some flubbing with octave/scipy and demonstrate it, but alas, the margins of this weekend are too small, etc, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_Fourier_transform#Inverse_STFT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_Fourier_transform#I...
- AidanChurch 12y ago
  The Discrete-Time Fourier Series is invertible. The problem is that for each pixel the Fourier series is a complex number and what is plotted is the magnitude (so the phase is not shown). Reconstructing a signal from only the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients is ill-posed, i.e. there are multiple signals with the same Fourier coefficient magnitudes. Still there is active research on reconstructing signals from only the Fourier magnitudes (under several assumptions). This is called the 'phase-retrieval problem'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_retrieval http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_retrieval

79 points by DanielRapp 12y ago

This made me listen to some Aphex Twin. Ouch. Luckily I soothed my ears with some Black Dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUl6iJlEeTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUl6iJlEeTE

y2bd 12y ago
Aphex Twin has made some softer songs as well, a popular one being this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iiZEto2j2GQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=iiZEto2j2GQ His newest album Syro also has less aggressive tracks, but it seems to not be on YouTube.
- rikkus 12y ago
  Apologies, I wasn't meaning to say I prefer 'softer' music, only that I can't stand Aphex Twin and love The Black Dog. Just a personal preference!
- lifeformed 12y ago
  Or if you want a super soft one, how about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnUuosQwZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnUuosQwZY
- staticshock 12y ago
  Fascinating! I never would have guessed that the Where We Live intro is an Apex Twin song.
sneak 12y ago
Don't be a jerk, please.

sprokolopolis 12y ago

Venetian Snares' also had something similar in his "Songs About My Cats" album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlpakpa8zIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlpakpa8zIA

PavlovsCat 12y ago
I made something like that, too, but it's not currently online and just a short derpy chip-ish tune anyway.. though the image I embedded was little heart shapes, and they went nicely with the music, so there's that haha. I used this for it: http://victorx.eu/BitmapPlayer.htm http://victorx.eu/BitmapPlayer.htm To imagine we can that with moving images in the browser now, well, whoa.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

DanielRapp 12y ago
What do you mean by the original discovery?
PavlovsCat 12y ago
It is linking to a video from 2009, so I would say it actually does.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
time4hn 12y ago
Discovery? That face was planted intentionally by the artist, and the knowledge of its existence has been passed around fans since its original release.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

mrkrd 12y ago

ARSS [1] is a similar tool, check the examples [2]. LTFAT toolbox could do something similar using isgram function [3]. [1] http://arss.sourceforge.net http://arss.sourceforge.net [2] http://arss.sourceforge.net/examples.shtml http://arss.sourceforge.net/examples.shtml [3] http://ltfat.sourceforge.net/doc/demos/demo_isgram.php http://ltfat.sourceforge.net/doc/demos/demo_isgram.php

wetmore 12y ago

This is really innovative!

dTal 12y ago

The Analysis & Resynthesis Sound Spectrograph[1] is a really nifty tool that can convert spectrograms to audio files and vice versa, making tasks like this trivial. Sadly the developer has shifted development into a proprietary project, but the last release of ARSS still works and is a real hoot to play with. [1]http://arss.sourceforge.net/ http://arss.sourceforge.net/

FraKtus 12y ago

MetaSynth is all about that, you can import visuals, draw over them, filter them and then go back to audio, MetaSynth is available since a very long time, it was first running on Mac OS 9. http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php

sneak 12y ago
This is what RDJ used to make the sounds in the b-side on Windowlicker.

sysk 12y ago

Forgive my ignorance but does a spectrogram carry all the information necessary to reproduce the sound that generated it? For example, assuming I had the spectrogram of a song, could I play the song using it?

shabble 12y ago
Yes, the FFT/STFT[1] is generally invertible, potentially subject to knowing the parameters it was generated with, or finding some reference markers in the original input you could use to derive them. There's also the possibility the spectrographic image itself might be a lossy representation of the actual frequency domain data, in which case you won't get a perfect result back out. Probably recognisable though. If I had time I'd do some flubbing with octave/scipy and demonstrate it, but alas, the margins of this weekend are too small, etc, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_Fourier_transform#Inverse_STFT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_Fourier_transform#I...
AidanChurch 12y ago
The Discrete-Time Fourier Series is invertible. The problem is that for each pixel the Fourier series is a complex number and what is plotted is the magnitude (so the phase is not shown). Reconstructing a signal from only the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients is ill-posed, i.e. there are multiple signals with the same Fourier coefficient magnitudes. Still there is active research on reconstructing signals from only the Fourier magnitudes (under several assumptions). This is called the 'phase-retrieval problem'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_retrieval http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_retrieval