New Rubber Tiles could help with Soundproofing bass

By Alex Massaad

THE rumbling bass from the party animals next door need no longer keep you awake at night. Cheap and effective soundproofing can be yours in the shape of novel tiles made from latex and a few plastic buttons.

Low-frequency sounds, especially, seem to seep through most domestic walls. That’s because of their long wavelength, says Zhiyu Yang at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Kowloon. Bass sounds at 100 hertz have a wavelength of over 3 metres in air, “and several times longer in solids”, he says.

To block out all sound, buildings would need walls several metres thick. Now Yang and his team have developed soundproof panels made of latex and plastic buttons, that will do the job (Applied Physics Letters, DOI: 10.1063/1.3299007).

These noise-cancelling panels consist of a latex rubber membrane stretched over a 3-millimetre-thick rigid plastic grid of 1-centimetre-wide squares. In the middle of each square is a small, weighted, plastic button.

When sound waves hit the panel, the membrane and weighted buttons resonate at difference frequencies. “The inner part of the membrane vibrates in opposite phase to the outer region,” says Yang. That means the sound waves cancel each other out and no sound gets through.

Each weighted membrane only cancels out sound waves within a small band of frequencies. But changing the weight of the buttons alters the operational frequency, says Yang. By stacking five membranes together, each tuned to a specific band, you can create a soundproof panel that works in the range from 70 to 550 hertz.

With these panels you can soundproof homes, says Yang. And the panel’s weight is equivalent to ceramic bathroom tiles, “although it’s slightly thicker at 15 millimetres”, he adds.

The panels could be used “in noisy environments such as airports”, says Xuanlai Fang at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. “If these metamaterials can be manufactured economically, the impact can be very significant.”

Edited: February 27th, 2010

The XX vs Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot – Silicone Shelter – King Unique Bootleg download

I’ve been listening to this for a long time now, and I really love this song. While this zippyshare download isn’t a release quality link, it does allow me to play this song out to more people who can love it too via iTunes or Ableton!

You can download this song here: The XX vs Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot -Silicone Shelter (King Unique Bootleg) on zippyshare

Here’s proof that our future is not becoming less free.

Edited: February 3rd, 2010

The History of the Boombox

This NPR video looks at the history of the boombox:

The boxes had to be big, to make that bass boom. The speakers in early boxes had extra-large magnets to push all that air around, and they were housed in heavy metal casing to deal with the vibrations from all the bass. Fab 5 Freddy says they got pretty big.

“I remember some boxes so big, they required 20 D-size batteries to an already heavy box,” he says. “So these boxes were so heavy that some cats that would carry their boxes all the time, they would develop massive forearms and biceps.”

The boxes were part of a style that included white Adidas and big gold chains. Freddy was a filmmaker and artist at the time, and he says he took his box everywhere.

“I traveled with my massive boombox,” Freddy says. “That thing moved with me, you know. I remember, like, being on the plane — it couldn’t go in the overhead bin, but that was my baby. It traveled first class right along with me.”

Doesn’t it make you want to go hunting for a vintage boombox?

via noiseforairports

Edited: January 27th, 2010

Merry Christmas from Little Boots

Little Boots records a special merry christmas song. I love how she made a Christmas video specially for the Internet. Awww

Edited: December 30th, 2009

Laser Synth!

Edited: November 25th, 2009

PvD pulls a dirty trick by cancelling ATB at Planet Love 2009

Politics will always prevail in conflicts . . . even at planet LOVE. You would think that with a name like “Planet Love” this party would be the perfect scene for some collaboration, but there was no good will to be seen.

According to the myspace and Twitter account of trance DJ ATB, Paul Van Dyk told the organizers that he would refuse to play if ATB was on stage before him. My best guess is that Paul Van Dyk was afraid of too much similar music being played. It seems petty that anybody that considers themselves a professional would pull this sort of childish bullshit in the middle of a large event.

I feel bad for the fans . . .

“You won’t believe what you will read now. I’m just back in my hotelroom (05.09.2009, 10:30 PM), but actually I should be on stage at the Planet Love Festival in Belfast now.

Edited: September 6th, 2009

Deadmau5 “For Lack of a Better Name Tour” Ottawa September 23, 2009

In four weeks Ottawa clubs are getting a revolutionary change; deadmau5 returns!

Often found in the creative lab known as the ‘deadmau5 disco den of despair and inequity’ this creative genius is comparable to no other. For the last two years his releases have steadily GROWN from the first time I heard him featured by Tiesto.

deadmau5’s magnificent stylings have a captured an audience that moves with him and his sounds. Ranging from electro to progressive one thing has become synonymous with deadmau5; consistent quality.

Currently working with the group 24twentyfour, the future is powered by the sounds of deadmau5. Now with his own label ‘Xfer records’ and ‘mau5trap’ the house of mau5 is a powerful force on the dancefloors of the globe.

It has been over a year and a half since this Canadian has graced the clubs of Ottawa with his presence. One of the best things about his live show is that he performs part of it in his mouse head! (I previously saw him at Stereo over a year ago in Montreal) He also is able to perform it as a “concert” through the use of Ableton Live. Check out an article I wrote earlier this week on how Depeche Mode uses Ableton Live.

On September 23, 2009 I hope to be in the crowds, with my camera phone, and ipod, blogging and taking pictures to post up here as soon as I’m within wifi range of home! For any locals feel free to use the link below to purchase tickets for this show.

http://www.wantickets.com/affiliates/EventDetail.aspx?id=495&e_id=68050

Edited: September 1st, 2009

Sebastien Leger – The People (Pryda Friends)

Here is a fairly new track from Leger. It’s an interesting mixture between the alternative metal version from the 90’s and a solid pumping house track. My favorite part is how it manages to retain the feel of the original while still bringing something new in the way of production technique.

“The Beautiful People” is a song from Marilyn Manson’s second full length album, Antichrist Superstar, released as a single in September, 1996. An alternative metal hit written by Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez, and produced by Trent Reznor, Dave Ogilvie and Manson, its lyrics discuss two major themes: what Manson refers to as “the culture of beauty”, and that culture’s connection to Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of master-slave morality — the song’s “weak ones”, who are “always wrong”, are oppressed by and exist solely to “justify [the existence of] the strong” (the so-called beautiful people).
The single peaked at number 26 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and remains known as one of Marilyn Manson’s most famous and most successful original songs; in a 2004 review, Richard Banks of the BBC called the track “still the most impressive” in the band’s catalogue, and it was ranked in 2006 at number 28 on VH1’s 40 Greatest Metal Songs.

Download:
Download at zippyshare.com

Or watch on YouTube:

Edited: August 31st, 2009

Damn I need content

Well if I had the cash, I would be hiring writers, but I currently don’t. . . but that all may change shortly. This site might become a major source of news info over the next six months.

Edited: August 30th, 2009