This was not recorded with a microphone but made by shining a light through a glass beaker full of water whilst dropping an effervescent Vitamin-C tablet into it and recording the modulated light on the far side of the beaker with a photo sensor whilst it dissolved.  Multiple takes were recorded and layered together at various pan positions to create a pseudo stereo effect.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2023.

Sound of Light Thru Effervescent Vit-C Tablet... (Optical Sound)

Made by shining torch light through the glass envelope of a 1960s electron tube focused onto the halo getter wire at the top inside and then placing the Optical Mic on the edge of its shadow on the wall a couple of feet away. Whilst repeatedly tapping the tube I was eventually able to capture the tiny vibration of the halo wire resonating like a tuning fork by picking up the audio modulated light cast on the wall using the optical microphone. The resulting recording was noise reduced in iZotopeRX and then looped and transposed.  Like a lot of the experimental optical recordings I've made, the alignment is critical and I doubt a normal microphone would have picked up much of this through the glass envelope. Similarly, if a conventional contact microphone had been employed, the tiny vibrations from the halo wire would have been completely swamped by me thwacking the glass envelope of the tube with the rubber mallet.

A tube getter commonly consists of a metal wire structure (in this case, shaped like a halo but some have a rectangular profile) flashed with a deposit of reactive material (commonly barium) that is placed inside the tube to complete and help maintain the vacuum over time. When gas molecules strike the getter material, they combine with it chemically or by absorption to remove small amounts of gas from the evacuated glass envelope. The shiny metallic deposit often seen at the top of the inside of the glass outer is where the getter material condenses at high temperature onto the glass during manufacture.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2024.

The Optical Microphone: Tube Halo Knocker...

A segue of recordings played back at normal, twice and half speed of the sound of laser light being modulated by plumes of dust kicked up by dropping nuts and bolts into dry icing sugar in a large glass jar. The optical mic was positioned on the far side of the jar and sometimes you can just make out the glass walls pinging as the bolts land on the bottom of the jar.

The slowly building up vortex was made by swirling the icing sugar and then playing back the resulting return to still  air in reverse.

Rather like the oil in water and electrolysis experiments, since it all takes time to disperse, you get a kind of natural decay tail effect.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Sound of Light Through Icing Sugar Dust: Nut Drop Field Segue...

D.A.Wilson is an Electronic Engineer, Sound Designer & Vintage Synth Specialist with a particular interest in combining vintage tube, classic analog and modern digital technologies working as a synth engineer looking after a very considerable amount of vintage studio equipment for Will Gregory (Goldfrapp / Moog Ensemble) and a number of other internationally celebrated electronic musicians and producers.  Having undertaken several major restorations and produced custom electronic designs for a number of major artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Dani is also known for fully restoring two out of the world's four remaining 1979 Crumar GDS and partially restoring 1938 Novachord 346 (the only known operational Novachord in the UK) to playable order along with developing and producing the new Elfin family of 8-bit polysynths and the popular MIDI Front Panel Animator (FPA), Filter Defeat Module (FDM) and XD-280 Drive Emulator upgrades for the AKAI S612 sampler.

Demos of the S612 Upgrades in Action: 

https://soundcloud.com/hideaway-studio/sets/hideaway-studios-s612-front


Hideaway Studio Kontakt Sound libraries may be purchased directly from: 
https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/hideaway-studios
 

..and a nice introduction by Cory Pelizzari to the Hideaway Studio Kontakt Libraries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C7a3ChC9U&feature=emb_title


For more on releases from Hideaway Studio for Kontakt please visit the blog at:  www.hideawaystudio.net

New tracks tagged #Sound From Light