Sonification Workshop in October (& more)
Hello friends,
We're Duncan and Miriam, and together we're Loud Numbers - a data sonification studio. You're getting this email because you signed up for our newsletter, and you can unsubscribe at any time with the link in the footer.
In our last message, a month ago, we wrote: "We'll be back in touch again in a few months with another update, unless something dramatic happens that we need to tell you about sooner." Well, a couple of dramatic things have happened that we figured you'd prefer to know about sooner rather than later, so here's another newsletter!
Sonification Workshop in October
Big news! On 11 October 2022, we'll be hosting a one-day, in-person, sonification workshop at Mmouse in Amsterdam with the lovely folks at Graphic Hunters.
The workshop will cover the theory and practice of sonification. We'll go over what sonification can do, the different types of sonification out there, what it's best used for and which types of data work best in sound. We'll also introduce you to an array of tools for making sonifications - and you'll have the chance to make your own sonification using tools that require no coding knowledge, including the Loud Numbers plugin for VCV Rack.
It'll be heaps of fun for anyone interested in the meeting point between data and sound - journalists, scientists, designers, or anyone else who wants to reach audiences in new ways. It's a great way to spend your workplace training budget - and if you need any help convincing your boss then hit reply and let us know what you need and we'll sort it out for you.
Find the full details on the Graphic Hunters website. But don't delay - places are limited, and we don't want anyone to miss out!
P.S. The amazing Stefanie Posavec will also be hosting a workshop in dataviz drawing in the same venue the following day. Why not come for both?
A Sonic Vocabulary
Two days after the workshop, on 13 October 2022, we'll be in Luxembourg to deliver a keynote speech for The Sound of Data.
For this talk, which is titled "A Sonic Vocabulary - Turning Data into Sound and Music with Loud Numbers", we want to explore what a sonic equivalent to the Financial Times' Visual Vocabulary might look like.
That means we'll be walking through as many of the common and less-common sound-data mappings as we have time for, and talking about how each can best be used in the context of sonification. In the process, we hope to establish a useful resource for the wider sonification community, making it easier to see what's possible when communicating with sound and data.
We'll let you know more about that nearer the time.
Core77 Design Award
Valentina D'Efilippo's London Under the Microscope animation, which we composed a data-driven soundtrack for, was given a "Notable Mention" in the Visual Communication category at the Core77 Design Awards a couple of days ago.
That means that it's now up for the Community Choice Prize - a public vote. As far as we can tell, ours is the only sonification project in the running, so wouldn't it be amazing if it won? You can vote at the Core77 website - though you'll need to give them an email address to do so.
Loud Numbers VCV Rack Module Update
We've pushed another small update to our VCV Rack sonification module. This one fixes a problem where data values weren't resetting when a reset trigger was received - only the position in the dataset was.
That was an issue when you gave the module a reset signal when it wasn't running - it would go back to the beginning of the data, but keep outputting the same voltages as before. Now, all outputs are set to zero when a reset signal is received.
If you've been playing around with the module, then we'd love to hear your experiences so far. If not, then consider signing up for our workshop (see above) where we'll teach you in detail how to use it.
Elsewhere in Sonification
This is a short round-up of sonification news, links, and other stuff that's caught our eye.
-
'Singing' lava lakes could help predict when volcanoes will blow
-
How a Saxophonist Tricked the KGB by Encrypting Secrets in Music
If you've done something cool then let us know about it by hitting reply and we'll include it in our next issue.
We'll be back in touch again in late summer with another update, unless something else dramatic happens that we need to tell you about sooner. In the meantime, drop us an email if you have anything you'd like to chat about :)
- Duncan and Miriam