Friday, January 12, 2007

La Ring 01

(... or how to destroy your inner ear cells)

waveform
Ever noticed how difficult it is to hear your mobile phone in a noisy place like a sports stadium or crowded bar? "That's because there's a lot of noise" you think. But there's an additional factor: polyphonic ringtones are a lot harder to hear than the good old monophonic ones.

The problem with polyphonic ringtones is that since they divide their output power over the complete audible spectrum, they get easier masked by environmental noise. Monotonic ringtones stand out, putting all their power in a single frequency at a time. Anyway, polyphony is here to stay, so let's make the best out of it.

Here's how to make a ringtone that you can hear well in noisy situations (requirements: audio editor software + mobile phone that can play mp3s):
  1. Take your favorite song that has a lot of high frequencies (audio fx, percussion, hiss noises,...) and chop it up a bit. I took Vitalic's "La Rock 01" but you might as well try out some of Dave Tipper's stuff.
  2. Remove bass frequencies and add treble, e.g. with a filter like this:
  3. Transfer it to your phone, sit back and wait until you get called.
My ringtone is available right here, ready for download and transfer to a mobile phone. You can preview it with the applet below, although it sounds different on a pc speaker than on a phone. And be warned: listening to this kind of stuff a lot is not good for your ears.


Friday, January 05, 2007

Wedders with Hollywood ambitions

You like movies and you're about to get married? Enter the fine initiative of the people of bodametraje.com, who cast the pair of you in the roles of real movie stars, making a complete short movie with you as the stars/ heroes/ villains/ whatever suits the script. The idea was launched in Spain by bodametraje.com, and the wedding guests really seem to appreciate the dvds with the short films (which are mostly handed out at the wedding). Or, to quote the production team:
"Bodametraje.com ofrece la posibilidad de dar un toque inovador y exclusivo a su boda mediante la realización de un cortometraje de cine protagonizado por los novios, un "bodametraje".

Usted elige un tema y la organización se encarga de escribir el guión. El tiempo de rodaje suele ser de tres días aproximadamente, y no es necesario saber actuar, un buen trabajo de postproducción conseguirá un resultado espectacular.

El cortometraje podrá ser proyectado en pantalla gigante durante el cocktail de recepción o en algún momento del banquete o bien se repartirá un DVD con el mismos a cada invitado como recuerdo de los novios sustituyendo los típicos puros, bombones, o figuritas... (que tampoco nos sorprenden).

Sus familiares y amigos quedarán impresionados al descubrir su lado más Bond... y les agradecerán la originalidad, pues quién quiere ver otra boda estándar?

No solo tendrá el corto sino que además podrá disfrutar de las tomas falsas y entrevistas tipo Hollywood. El DVD tendrá un total de 30 minutos."

I programmed the flash website, easy and to the point. Check it, there's a nice shortfilm under the "ofrecemos" menu.