JEREMY SCOTT OLSEN

science

audio / entertaining / industry insight / inspiring / interviews / media / science / sound / sound design

Favorite feed: Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast by Defacto Sound

Twenty Thousand Hertz is a great, easy-to-listen-to podcast with stories and interviews about those hidden elements of sound and sound design throughout our world, the ones you might never have considered or even heard of before. The NBC chimes, the voice of Siri, the sounds of the cars we buy, the hum generated by a secret government project—lots of neat little explorations.

  • April 10, 2017
entertaining / media / science / sound / video

Vsauce asks: What is the loudest possible sound?

Although this is a “Best Of All Time” spinoff-version from the original V-Sauce, it’s the same host and the same basic format: Host asks question, host answers question with science, host goes off on tangents and more extreme questions. Fun and interesting little adventure into sound, sound pressure levels, and shockwaves.

  • July 23, 2014
science / sound / sound design

Sound effects for silent cars.

Okay, well, electric vehicles aren’t silent. But having nearly gotten run over by them as they back out of driveways and parking spaces, I think it’s fair to say they’re a little too quiet for safety. Something that weighs over a thousand pounds shouldn’t be able to roll into you without some warning. So there is research and legislation in progress in various places to require that sound effects be used to warn pedestrians at low driving speeds.

Ignore the horrible grammar and writing and you can learn a few of the policy wonky elements on Bloomberg.

Or see the version on Wikipedia.

But the closest we get to hearing about the sound design itself is on Popular Science.

  • July 16, 2014
audio / media / music / science

The mysterious power of music: hearing four pieces at once.

If I ask you to think about the song “Happy Birthday,” your brain can probably recall it for you and you can hear it playing in your head. This is called audiation.

Well, what if I asked you to hear “Happy Birthday” in your head… and at the same audiate “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as well? Can you do it? I can’t either. Suddenly we’ve dropped off from a nearly universal, inborn ability to a very rare skill.

Now that you’re thinking about that… you HAVE to hear the Radiolab piece called “A 4-Track Mind” about the stunning and unique gift of ragtime pianist Bob Milne.

  • May 23, 2012