Devlog #17
Hello hello. We're Duncan and Miriam, you're looking great today (did you get your hair done?), and this is the Loud Numbers development log - a weekly, newsletter-shaped update on how we're building the world's first data sonification podcast.
Recessions
Most of this week was spent finessing our sonification of US economic data back to 1969. We've described the basics in this newsletter before - in short, the Amen break plays forward or backward depending on whether the economy is in procession or recession, respectively.
We did have some other data in there - the probability of a recession in any given quarter, and the leading index. But we dropped these because they're essentially saying the same thing as the yes/no of "is the economy in recession right now?" In their place, we've added a couple more details.
The first is the share of income earned by the poorest 50% of the population, which is mapped to the amplitude (loudness) of a chipmunk vocal sample. Right now, that sample says "stupot" for reasons that are increasingly unclear to anyone, least of all us. We might change that.
The second is the share of income earned by the richest 1%, which is mapped to the amplitude of a sample of someone saying the Jamaican slang word "badman". It fits nicely into the old-skool jungle aesthetic. As you might expect, it increases in volume throughout the track. In recent years, badmen have been getting rather loud...
Then we also pulled in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average - which tracks the performance of 30 leading companies in the United States. We mapped it to a gentle, wispy arpeggio sample called 'Fairy Dust' in Logic, which feels about right if you believe that the stock market is basically fantasy magic numbers. As the track goes on and the Dow Jones rises exponentially, the sound fades into the stratosphere - far beyond the reach of most people.
To map the data to the sound, we saved out 21 different samples of the audio at different levels, with numbers in the filenames. We then used Ruby code in Sonic Pi to match our normalised data to the corresponding file number, which is then injected into the path to the file so the right sample plays. Translation: we taught the computer how to figure out which file it should play by itself.
The only other changes made are that we tweaked the bassline, and found a great chord sound in Logic that's going to be a purely musical element, not mapped to any data. Next week: loading up the track with samples. We're in the home stretch on this one!