Sunday 18 November 2018

Arecibo Sound

Google had a doodle for the Arecibo Message the other day so I looked it up.

It was a message for alien life sent in 1974 to the star cluster M13 some 25,000 light years away! The message had 1,679 binary bits at a frequency of 2,380 MHz with 10 Hz modulation. It was at the speed of 10 bits per second, or 600 bpm.

I played the pattern on my Yamaha keyboard using the Vox Humana voicing and frequency scaled down to A note, 220Hz, because we can't hear 2,380 MHz! I recorded that onto my Tascam recorded and edited it in Audacity. I recorded it at 100bpm, but Audacity speeded it up to 300bpm, half the speed of the actual message, because it sounded best.

I wanted a static fuzz effect so I used an English Electric Lightning jet engine sample from my Samsynth Blue Noize Project. I chose the Lightning because in it's time, it was cutting edge but it's a bit obsolete nowadays like the Arecibo Message.

That was good but not very musical so I added a "Lost In Space" woo-woo sound using the oscillator in my Blue Noize Machine.

I used some stereo panning in Audacity so wear those headphones!

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/arecibo-sound

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