Hello friends,

We're Miriam and Duncan, the duo behind Loud Numbers -- the studio that turns data into sound. 

This is our highly irregular newsletter, which you're getting because you signed up for it - likely via loudnumbers.net. It's free to receive, but if you need more calm in your inbox then there's a quick and easy unsubscribe link lurking in the email footer.

Quick reminder that you can hire Loud Numbers to work for you - we've done all kinds of projects, for all kinds of budgets, in the last few years - ranging from commercial to scientific to artistic to educational. Stuff we love to work on includes commissions, mentoring, sound design, collaborations, consultancy, workshops, and more. We've got availability towards the second half of 2026, so if you've got an idea you'd like to talk about then drop us a line at hello@loudnumbers.net.

A Symphony of Bureaucracy Video

We've finally completed the edit of the music video for the Symphony of Bureaucracy live installation we created last year, and you can watch it here:

The full details are in the YouTube description, but the short version is that it's eight Eurorack modular synthesizers being used to sonify the EU's legal database. The more synthesizer voices you hear at once, the more laws being made by the EU and its predecessors at that point in the timeline (which runs from the 1950s to the present day). Read more (and see photos of Duncan dressed up as a bureaucrat) over on our website. We suspect it might be the most baroque sonification in existence, and we love it that way.

Huge thanks to team Masomenos for filming and editing the video, to all the folks who contributed Eurorack cases, to our hosts Lararium & Sonic Citizens, and to everyone who came to see the installation.

Create Your First Sonification - A Second Workshop

Last newsletter, we announced a workshop called "Create Your First Sonification" - a total-beginner-level, zero-tech, introduction to the Loud Numbers approach to turning data into sound. And now it's sold out! So that's nice.

Well, it's nice for us but not so nice for you. So to redress that balance and share the love we've announced a second date. We'll hold the workshop again on 9 May 2026, from 1300 to 1730 UK time (check what that is in your timezone here).

The event, which will be held over Zoom, will take you through the process of creating your first sonification - from gathering the data, to mapping it to sonic parameters, to creating a short piece of music from it. It's a complete beginners course - you won't need any specific musical or technical skills, just a desire to create something and share it.

The cost is £140 (full-rate), or £90 (low-income). For that price, you get a four-hour workshop where you'll make your first sonification, a recording of the workshop, and a lil "Loud Numbers guide to sonification" digital zine that we're in the process of designing. You can ask whatever questions you like. Use this link to sign up.

As we mentioned last time, we're mostly doing this because we love sonification and want to see more people doing it, so this is just the first of several workshops we have planned - future topics we're considering for more advanced workshops include "music theory for sonification", "storytelling for sonification", "sound design for sonification", and maybe even "sonification with live data". If you'd like to help us shape those workshops, or have something else you'd like us to give a workshop on, then fill out this survey. Otherwise, here's the link again to sign up for our 9 May workshop.

Elsewhere in Sonification

This is an originally short but increasingly lengthy round-up of sonification news, links, and other stuff that's caught our eye in the last few months.

• Greek journalist Chrysoula Marinou has written a nice overview of the use of sonification in journalism, interviewing us and some other folks in the process. You can read it in English or Greek.

• If you're a sonification artist under 35, you might be interested in this opportunity from U-boot.lab, for a data-driven sound and visuals residency in a port and on cargo ships.

• Shazeera Ahmad Zawawi has made a sonification of the experience of fasting during Ramadan. One of the first Tableau-hosted sonification works that we've seen.

• Clara Grüner has created an interactive sonification of urban heat in Berlin - it's a research project and there's a survey attached, so be sure to complete that once you've checked it out.

• Prolific sonification experimentalist Ljómi Systems has published some interesting works in the last month or so - including a Git sonification tool, and an image sonification of an alpine landscape. He's also working on a sonification of Goodreads book reviews.

• Jorge Boehringer has published an article in the Journal of Performing Arts and Artistic Research titled Norths: Navigating Instability by Ear - in which, and I quote, "some of my recent sonification adjacent sound installation pieces are used as springboards to leap into skeptical perspectives on how it is possible to know anything at all or say anything about it, particularly with data".

• Jim Kang made a data sonification of the world's ocean heat content, using chord density (one of our favourite unusual mappings) to represent the amount of heat energy absorbed over time. You can listen on the web or on Bandcamp.

• Leif Karlstrom from the Volcano Listening Project did an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting show Think Out Loud, about "turning explosive data into song".

• School of Machines published an interview with our friend and collaborator Max Graze about her multisensory data representations of fermented food. It's a tasty read.

• Finally, there's a little time still before the deadline for submissions to the top data sonification conference, ICAD. We've sent in a couple of proposals, so if they're accepted then hopefully we'll be able to attend in Bielefeld, Germany - see you there in July perhaps...

Spotted or created something we should feature here? Hit reply and tell us about it. 

Decibels

Dipping your toes into sonification? We help run a friendly and welcoming sonification community over at decibels.community. There are spaces to ask questions, share your work, find an audience, and exchange tips. You can also just join and hang out. Go sign up here.

We'll be back in your inboxes again when we've got new work or courses to share. In the meantime, don't hesitate to hit reply if you have any questions, want to work with us, or if you want to share something sonification-adjacent that you've made.

See you soon.

- Miriam and Duncan