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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperAudioSo NASA Just Released Several Sounds We Can Use
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Author Topic: So NASA Just Released Several Sounds We Can Use  (Read 1698 times)
Kyle Preston
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« on: October 23, 2014, 01:54:02 PM »

Saw this on Reddit. Thought I'd share it here as well. The sounds. Are. Awesome! Us ambient composers will have a field day with these.

NASA Soundcloud
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rj
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« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2014, 01:59:42 PM »

well excuse me while i go and incorporate these samples into every song on my album-in-progress

thanks very much for this link!

i'm loving all of the vocal clips especially but some of these more abstract space sounds

also i don't know what this or what purpose it has or why it's bizarrely in the "solar system and beyond" section but it makes me smile because of it being in there

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Audiosprite
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« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2014, 05:58:02 PM »

These are rad. You would probably enjoy this series of albums; it's radio emissions from the planets digitized & converted to audio.  https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/various_artists_f2/symphonies_of_the_planets_1__nasa_voyager_recordings/



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Jasmine
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« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2014, 01:57:29 AM »

This is awesome!

And creepy...

Knowing these transmissions are sounds picked up from the far away areas of space.

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« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2014, 04:20:21 AM »

Tangentially related; Soma FM's Mission Control station rocks:

http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/

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amushel
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« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2014, 07:18:20 AM »

It's a shame they were all uploaded in mp3 format, though. That kind of limits their usefulness for me.
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rj
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« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2014, 10:50:53 AM »

what, are you so incredibly afraid of making something that has anything that isn't a lossless source

like, i get being an audiopphile; i myself have a bit of that syndrome. but mixing hi and lo fi isn't...necessarily a bad thing? as long as you know what you're doing and can balance the sound source, layering some lossless drums over a low-qual sample isn't gonna hurt anything. hell, if you are really worried, run these samples lovingly through an analog tube amplifier and record the result for the final sample take, because it'll add more distortion (and warmth) and the light lossless disto will fill out the sound like nothing.

i don't get this bizarre mentality that every single sound source needs to be hi-fi for the output to be hi-qual. you can make a hi-fi record with lo-fi samples as long as you buoy the lo-fi samples with a lot of hi-fi ones that hit harder and use the lo-fi as texture.

sample mp3s! sample tapes! sample vinyl! sample everything! record something with a ten thousand dollar microphone and record something else on the same album with a laptop onboard mic! this is 2014, making things sound good has never been easier. so why be so afraid of working with things that sound less good?

sorry for ranting, but it's really baffling, honestly

shrug

like i'm legitimately curious as to why them being mp3s is such a barrier

it's not like these are professionally recorded with super stellar sound equipment (well. i mean, technically a lot of these were stellar sound equipment, but) in the first place; getting a lossless file isn't gonna change that there's a lot of crackle to work with.


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amushel
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« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2014, 11:53:10 AM »

Because mixing in extremely lossy files is just poor production practice in general. There is a big difference between that and studio quality recording, and the more clearly low quality shit you mix in, the clearer that quality difference becomes. "It's 2014" doesn't make crappy mp3s suddenly sound great. But it's not just that. While I fully admit that I am a bit anal about that stuff, it's just a shame to introduce lossy compression artifacts into what are some really cool historical sounds with their own personality. If I want "lo fi texture" I can create it myself from an original source. There is a big difference between "a lot of crackle to work with" and the distortion introduced by low bitrate mp3 files. It's not like the imperfections introduced by quality analogue hardware. It just sounds bad. These are 64kbps mp3s, which is HALF of the low quality streaming standard. I think that's a disservice to the historical moments they feature.
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« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2014, 12:35:06 PM »

yeah, there is a big difference! but tbh if you're a careful enough producer you can pretty easily make everything cohere well without it mattering much.

"it's 2014" doesn't make 64kbps sound good, but it does mean there's really no excuse to claiming you're unable to rise to the challenge of working with it if the need arises. these are workable samples and molding them to your aesthetic isn't the hardship it sounds like if you put the effort in.

i'd love a wav soundbank of all of these, but that's obviously not ever happening. i'm pretty damn happy with what we do have, because it's pretty amazing stuff all around regardless of the fidelity. i'd still use these if they had half the bitrate to their name.

edit: i admit that i'm being rather confrontational for basically no reason about this because it's a pet peeve of mine; i used to have the kinda-snobby "always lossless forever" thing about sample sources but then i grew out of it as i learned more and actually got access to professional studio setups. it changed a lot about how i thought about sound sources and how they could be used. i dunno. my aesthetic is not your aesthetic, i guess.

i always subscribe to the idea that there is no such thing as "good" mixing, just "incoherent" mixing; if the mix is doing something unconventional and that's what you want, then holy shit, good for you. that's powerful artistic sentiment coming out of something that's largely and widely considered cold and calculated. if you're making something that coheres, then you've succeeded.

i think that the go! team, for instance, have phenomenally mixed records, even if most engineers (of which i am one) would probably strongly disagree

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mscottweber
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« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2014, 01:41:14 PM »

For me at least, its not a matter of not being able to use low quality mp3s.  Its just that there is so much more that you can do to something with a high sample rate. 

Obviously, recording these sounds at 96K wasn't a priority of NASA (and rightly so), but it sure would be cool if they HAD done that...

All the same, these are still really great!
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Dacke
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« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2014, 01:43:54 PM »

But.. 64kb/s mp3 is super-duper low quality. I would understand it if you said that 256kb/s was acceptable to work with, even though it's clearly suboptimal. But 64kbps?
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« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2014, 03:52:29 PM »

They're from space which makes them awesome by nature. I do agree with amushel though, it's a bit sad they sound like poor quality recordings from space. No matter how much you edit them, you will never get rid of that connotation. That kind of limits their creative potential to a niche.
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« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2014, 03:58:22 PM »

I'm somewhat surprised and deeply saddened by the negligent lack of lazers. What has NASA been doing this whole time?
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Kyle Preston
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« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2014, 10:33:43 AM »

Quote
i don't get this bizarre mentality that every single sound source needs to be hi-fi for the output to be hi-qual. you can make a hi-fi record with lo-fi samples as long as you buoy the lo-fi samples with a lot of hi-fi ones that hit harder and use the lo-fi as texture.

Totally with you on this.  There are too many examples of artists/composers mixing these formats in a unique and inspiring way to think that having mp3 samples is a limiting factor.  Besides, you can use this 'restriction' as a creative technique; figure out how to blend the samples together seamlessly and then you've earned a nugget of wisdom.  Also, there certainly has been a rise in this 'audiophile' mentality, I imagine some of it has to do with this stupid

; which is the most unscientific approach to a subject I've ever seen and it mixes and matches so many important terms together without displaying the important distinctions. I'm surprised to see so many hi profile people in it. But in a nutshell, it's wrong about nearly everything. [rant over]

Quote
These are rad. You would probably enjoy this series of albums; it's radio emissions from the planets digitized & converted to audio.  https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/various_artists_f2/symphonies_of_the_planets_1__nasa_voyager_recordings/




THANK YOU Audiosprite! I do love this; so many cool possibilities.  Never thought I'd be able to incorporate the sounds from my favorite planet into my compositions so thank you much for sharing. 

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amushel
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« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2014, 06:17:39 PM »

It's a personal preference, but I think the whole "anti-audiophile" argument is pretty irrelevant when we're dealing with crazy low quality mp3s. The argument can certainly be made that 320kbps mp3 files are generally comparable to lossless, 64kbps files are a different story. It's an inherently limiting factor, because it's a simple fact that you're dealing with far less audio information. That's not being picky or elitist. It's lamenting an unquestionable limitation of these files.
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« Reply #15 on: November 13, 2014, 11:42:03 PM »

Quote
I think the whole "anti-audiophile" argument is pretty irrelevant when we're dealing with crazy low quality mp3s
I'd probably agree with you if these were recordings of a world-class orchestra or something, but half of these recording are weird beeps and clicks from stellar radio transmissions, and the other half are astronauts talking to control with their shitty microphones and stuff. There's not really any quality benchmark for buzzing and humming radio singles from space, is there? If these were uploaded as wavs, but sounded exactly the same, would you still object to using them? Or is it purely a matter of principle?

It's like sampling an old record. Just consider their shitty quality part of their character, no?
Just the two cents of someone who admittedly knows fuck-all about sound design. I guess my point is that even if I heard these low-quality sounds in a high-quality mix, I wouldn't think twice about it. These kinds of samples always sound shitty.

Isn't the final sound all that matters? "What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to the mind?"
« Last Edit: November 14, 2014, 12:03:33 AM by HopelessComposer » Logged
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