Auditory illusions with examples from Daft Punk

https://www.ugu.rs/blog/auditory-illusions-with-samples-from-daft-punk/

by ugurs • 3 years ago

258 96 3 years ago

AlbertCory• 3 years ago

Funny about them: I can hear the words either as "Mexican lucky" or "to get lucky" (the correct lyrics) depending on what I want to hear. Usually, once you know the right words, you can't hear anything else.

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-mexican-lucky-and-w...

mhh__• 3 years ago

"Legend of the penis"

"Rob a Mexican" etc

bloopernova• 3 years ago

I've always liked the incorrect lyrics "we're robot Mexican monkeys". Not sure who first came up with that. I remember reading it on reddit back when the short preview clip of Get Lucky was released to great excitement.

Hamuko• 3 years ago

The version I saw early was "We'll rub a Mexican monkey".

p00dles• 3 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qN1fVkeSUXE

I wonder how many people knew the correct lyrics before this commercial, I certainly did not

hydrok9• 3 years ago

"we're up all night to pet puppies"

tagyro• 3 years ago

The last comment on that page has another gem: https://youtu.be/BQ4c54rCJ_k

adamrezich• 3 years ago

for the Robot Rock one, the author should've clarified that it's not referring to the actual `rock. robot rock` voice part, but the part where the guitar chords sound like that. skip to about 1:50 in the linked video to hear the robot voice, then listen to how similar just the guitar chords after 2:00 sound like the robot voice saying `rock. robot rock.`

ugurnot3• 3 years ago

You are right. That part seems a little bit vague, I will update it.

brookritz• 3 years ago

...and the author should have clarified that this Daft Punk song is copied from a 1980's single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b0jWlPtP5o

spondylosaurus• 3 years ago

Isn't Daft Punk pretty famous for sampling/referencing other artists' songs?

veave• 3 years ago

HN discovers sampling in electronic music.

glandium• 3 years ago

Also, in that particular example, I don't think they made the guitar emit the voice-sounding sounds, but rather generated it electronically. It's not even obvious that the voice comes from guitar sounds... it actually sounds like a plain voice with effects.

As opposed to, say, Mark Rober's talking piano.

squeaky-clean2• 3 years ago

I would bet money there's still a vocoded guitar in that section, but about 18db below the regular guitar. It also sounds like they're running it through a resonant filter, probably their MS-20, which is probably helping the formants sound like it's speaking compared to a regular guitar.

Groxx6• 3 years ago

Open the song Aerodynamic and fast-forward to 2:28, start listening to the passage. I hear the higher pitch on my right and the lower one on my left ear. What about you?

tbh I'm not sure which notes they're referring to here. There are a couple overlapping high/low pairs in that segment, and I'm not sure which is the octave/those frequencies.

One seems like higher is more in my left, but it clearly follows the left speaker on my headphones. The others warble around for me, though I'm pretty strongly right handed.

---

Even after reading and listening to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave_illusion I'm totally lost as to what this post or wikipedia are describing. Are people hearing like:

    left ear        right ear
    -------------------------
    high                        (nothing in right ear)
                    low
    high       
                    low

or something else? I mostly hear:

    left ear       central       right ear
    --------------------------------------
    high           low           low
    low            low           high
    high           low           low
    low            low           high

I'm definitely hearing "low" while hearing "high" on the opposite ear, though it feels like there's a basically constant central "low" as well. The high tone clearly moves between sides.

Maybe worth mentioning: I've had a hearing test in the past year and I'm essentially completely balanced, so there likely isn't a tone-deafness issue on one side that could cause a reception imbalance. Could the illusion just be hearing damage? And then handedness just follows which ear takes more damage due to more noisy things happening / less protection on that side? That could also explain why left-handed people are less strongly sided, as they're forced to do things more balanced due to right-hand-only stuff existing.

gizajob• 3 years ago

It's the Shepard tone effect running in the background of the actual notes, which produce a mild illusion that they're ascending when they're not, but nevertheless they're moving up and then down in pitches so it's not a brilliant example. I think the author is a little confused in this short essay about a few things. His "talking piano" effect is just standard vocoding, which has made me think this is all fairly new to him and he's not an expert.

THIS is a talking piano: https://youtu.be/muCPjK4nGY4

ugurnot3• 3 years ago

The tone I'm referring to is the alternation between F#3 and F#4. I think your observation about the Shepard tone is valid. For the talking piano effect, I remember trying to play it on guitar to make it sound like "Robot Rock". I suspect this is in relation to Tethard's example of accentuation by spectral contrast, but that was a long shot to include.

Well, the audio area is full of masters and experts. I make no claim to be an expert, so you can ignore this writing as you prefer.

squeaky-clean2• 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure the blog author is referring to 2 hard panned synths, the sort of plucky one in the right and more smooth one on the left. There's also a 3rd more "nasal" synth voice in the center which is playing the same pattern with the high/low notes inverted except for the quicker 4 note run that happens on the 4th count of every bar, where it synchronizes again. I don't think it's octave effect, but it produces a similar result and all 3 synths seem to occupy their own separate frequency space while also sounding like one unit.

This article has a decent recreation of the left and right synths in Aerodynamic. It does not include the center sound though.

https://reverbmachine.com/blog/daft-punk-discovery-synth-sou...

There is no shephard tone running in the background, that's a phaser effect running over an otherwise plain pad playing chords.

You can hear from 2:52 to 2:55 it's descending and from 2:56 to 2:59 it's rising. Descending again at 3:00 to 3:03 and etc.

Here's a video of someone replicating that phaser fx tone very well. Though they use it in the guitar solo. Listen to the resonant sweep that seems to be in the background, it's a phaser on the guitar.

https://youtu.be/eN5LWM2b6co

Applejinx• 3 years ago

Yup. The Daft Punk 'Robot Rock' is a straight up vocoder (mind you, a cool effect!). I like your link, now that's a talking piano :)

gabereiser3• 3 years ago

people are hearing what you hear. It's the simultaneous tones, one low, one high, low in the left, high in the right. It's not that it's panning (one at a time), it's together (or within ms of each other when mixed with other techniques). Once you understand this, then the concept of just flipping it makes even more sense. Then get creative and flippity floppity the high/low left/right dance.

Groxx6• 3 years ago

That's what the sounds are actually doing though, so what would the illusion be?

ilyt3• 3 years ago

I don't hear that. I hear constant low tone in both ears with only high one bouncing around (i.e the ear where high is is perceiving low one even if it is not there)

ilyt3• 3 years ago

Same for me, just hearing the high tone bouncing around

Here is better video for that illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMsK9rjBWo

I've heard of an effect where brain synthesises lower tone from the higher harmonics, might that be reason why I hear the low tone in both ears at once?

samstave4• 3 years ago

I have a weird auditory illusion that happens to me ; I have tinnitus, and a super weird auditory response thing that happens to me occassionally:

So when I cant hear the high-pitched tinnitus squeal (very low volume, but still hear it) - there is something weird that happens which is that I can "hear" some sort of radio station - which plays music in the really faintest and far away sounding volume...

The other thing that happens, is that when laying in bed, attempting to sleep - there are times that when the house makes a "creak" sound of settling or whatever (you know how your wall may 'pop' or 'creak' at times - but the weird thing is that it simultaneously coincides with a pop and a flinch of my body, or 'sound' in my head.

There are times when this happens and I get a bright flash in my closed-eyes...

Anyone know what this is? Sodium defficiency? or aliens?

jrmg• 3 years ago

The flash thing sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Groxx6• 3 years ago

Radio receivers in your head! https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3638/is-it-poss...

Also perhaps most famously: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucille-ball-fillings-spie...

SpaceNugget• 3 years ago

I don't hear radio stations, you might want to get your antenna checked. But I get the same sounds when I am laying in bed before I fall asleep and they also coincide with twitches or flinches and sometimes visual flashes.

samstave4• 3 years ago

EDIT: I said "radio station" only because thats what most would recognize... its not a radio station its just a really really faint sound of music playing - like jazz or something. its too dim to make out.

ALSO - eveyone should checkout mynoise.net

---

Yes!

This literally usally happens right on the cusp of falling asleep...

I equated it to what I had read a long time ago that "in order for one to fall asleep the body shuts down the sensory systems, and the last one to turn off prior to sleep is hearing"

So I thought that it was caused by the creaks hitting my ears at time of turning asleep -- but it happens when even I am not fully asleep.

But the body twitches really freak me out. I'll basically hit 'asleep' and Ill have a flash in my internal vision (white light looking like an iris of an eye is best way to say it) - and a full body twitch, it jolts me back awake.

The morbid thought in my head is that this may be associated with sleep apnia and my body twitching back 'alaive' after stopping breathing ; however - this happens when I am not even fully asleep...

So I am at a loss - I presume it is a vitamin defficiency, so I just bout some multi-Vs this week...

jannyfer• 3 years ago

The sleep noise could be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome.

I read about it on Hacker News, and then later realized I had it... and now I can't un-hear it!

I also hear music when there's white noise around me (white noise maker machines or a showerhead). That one is called Musical Ear Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_ear_syndrome

samstave4• 3 years ago

Uhm is there a community of "us that we hear about"

EDIT HOLY FN SHIT:

* A similar occurrence is seen with strokes of the visual cortex where a visual field defect occurs and the brain conjures a piece of visual data to fill the spot. *

When I turned 45 (I am 48) - I began seeing "floaters"

Could micro-floaters in vison (in my right eye) perhaps indicate micro-strokes? or future-strokes...

I am serious - need to look into this.

jcims2• 3 years ago

I wonder how many folks that spend thousands of hours in front of a synthesizer or making electronic music or beats have identified similar illusions but don't really think of it as something 'interesting'. Like, 'oh yeah if you do this it kind of sounds like that'. Probably a whole catalog of tricks.

whiddershins• 3 years ago

Yes

v643• 3 years ago

Happens all the time. Most common one for me is when you're making a patch on a synth and by chance dial in those frequencies that align with formants (similar to the Robot Rock effect the post mentions).

Yesterday I was working on a bass drum beat, and after adding some synths playing on top of it, I started to hear the bass drum echo. So, my first thought was I had accidentally enabled some kind of reverb or echo effect on it while I was setting up the synths. After confirming I hadn't and isolated the track to ensure the bass drum was sounding as intended, I chalked it up to some weird illusion between the synths and drum that was making it sound like an echo. I know it's not there in reality, but I can't unhear it.

In this case, I went back and added a little echo to the drum to make the effect intentional, which turned out to sound good, but sometimes I'll try to make the illusion reality and it doesn't have the same effect.

mergejoin2• 3 years ago

would you mind sending a mp3 of that effect? just curious :)

metamet• 3 years ago

I always wonder if it's some odd thing going on in the DAW.

Would you be willing to export that track as two tracks--one with drums and one with synth? Then listen to them solo, then run them together (with WAV files instead of instrumentation)? Would be neat to have that illusion confirmed rather than it being a DAW artifact.

jnurmine• 3 years ago

When I was 14 years old, I noticed how pure saw waves make fast transient sounds go "whooshy".

1. Play a pure saw wave sound for several seconds, it has to be loud (use headphones), then

2. hit the keyboard keys, or snap your fingers, or make other sounds with fast transients, and the transient is no longer snappy, it "whooshes". It's hard to describe but there is like a flanging effect on it.

I guess there is some scientific name for this phenomenon, but I don't know what.

empath-nirvana• 3 years ago

There's entire books and blog posts and youtube channels that go into all of this. Music production is all about creating a "space" and a lot of what producers do is create the illusions that sounds are coming from particular places, and that sound like they're from a "big" source or whatever.

A common thing to do is to pan a synth to one side, then add a very short (milliseconds) delay panned to the other side, which makes it sound like a very large sound played from a large distance away.

Another is stacking up a bunch of oscillators that are slightly detuned from each other, which again, makes the sound "big", because it sounds like many sources playing together, rather than one source.

Just using a "reverb" is generating an illusion of being in a large, echo-y space.

I do think that most producers don't really think of it as creating illusions, and more as making "cool" sounds.

jonbell• 3 years ago

TIL the term “brown study”

beautifulfreak• 3 years ago

The Brainstorm/Green-Needle auditory illusion is more noticeable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g88BXUhR2a4

saghm• 3 years ago

When my fiancee showed me this, it took me almost a dozen watches to finally hear the one I didn't initially hear. I don't remember for sure which one I could hear at first, but I think I only heard "green needle", which was higher pitched, and it took me a lot of concentration to block that out and focus on the lower pitch enough to be able to parse out some semblance of speech. If my recollection is correct, my troubles with the lower pitched sound is a little ironic because I play bass and often try to point out bass parts I like to my fiancee, but she sometimes has trouble parsing out exactly what I'm referring to due to not having had any musical training and it not being as obvious to her which part is the bass when I'm showing her a song with lots of different guitar and keyboard tracks and lots of heavy bass drum.

stigz• 3 years ago

In a similar vein, here's an analysis of the illusion in Radiohead's Videotape I found interesting.

https://youtu.be/p_IHotHxIl8

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

I’ll have to figure out which Daft Punk song I’m thinking of, but there was this segment where I swear there’s this really swingy chord progression but when slowed down to study it turns out to be the same chord repeated over and over. It’s the other voices that are progressing.

mergejoin2• 3 years ago

commenting, in case you figure it out

MAGZine• 3 years ago

it sounds like you're referring to Daft Punk's "Giorgio by Moroder" from their album "Random Access Memories." The segment you're describing involves a repetitive chord progression, but the perceived variation comes from the evolving layers and elements surrounding the chords. This technique creates a sense of progression while maintaining a consistent base.

-- by chatgpt

wantguns• 3 years ago

i have always felt some unexplained effect while listening to Veridis Quo [1]. the melody start sounding different from the 0:38 mark, just as the kicks come in. it seems like some supporting keys are added with the kicks, to make the sound more full, but at the same time it could be my brain getting tricked.

sorry for botching the explanation, i have never studied music.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCd6PfxOy0Y

gzalo2• 3 years ago

Hmm, do you experience the same effect here? https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/daft-punk-veridis-quo-tab-s3... It could be just the other instruments providing harmonics and changing the feel of the melody

aatd86• 3 years ago

One that mix engineers use a lot and that is not mentioned is the Haas Effect. (micro delay between left and right channel that gives a stereo sensation to a mono source)

monkpit• 3 years ago

First off, I love Daft Punk and I’ve heard all of these song countless times.

But, sorry, I don’t buy it. I am aware of the talking piano effect, but even the wiki page [0] says it’s a vocoder, which is something entirely different.

Similar to other commenters here [1], I don’t hear the pattern described for the octave effect either.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Rock_(song)https://en....

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37104083

ugurnot3• 3 years ago

It is not the vocoder but the guitar riff that sounds like robot rock.

briankelly• 3 years ago

The “guitar” is actually a synth with guitar pedals, and yes the effect is from a vocoder. Linked in the wiki: https://web.archive.org/web/20080221104737/http://www.thedaf...

jpalawaga• 3 years ago

Switched on Pop dived into Daft Punk[1] and definitely identified Daft Punk's robot voices as vocoder. Actually, most robot voices are.

[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/52t5WCspFuFkow374P88wA (but also Ep 1 and 3).

a-dub• 3 years ago

my favorite are shepard tones, which literally look like the barber pole illusion in a spectrogram.

ilyt3• 3 years ago

This is a better demonstration of octave illusion, I had no clue wtf the article meant until I listened to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMsK9rjBWo

But I heard the lower tone in the middle of my head and higher tone bouncing from left to right. Not the "low on one side, high on the other side" article mentioned.

Kinda interesting to think some people might hear completely different thing in same song...

x3n0ph3n32• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. Oddly enough, I don't hear the illusion at all and it seemed very clear to me that they were alternating sides.

yencabulator• 3 years ago

Left-handed or more ambidextrous? The illusion doesn't work as well on us freaks.

anArbitraryOne• 3 years ago

Would someone please send him a tweet telling him that you can start videos specific timestamps on YouTube by adding "&t=0s" where 0 is the desired number of seconds to the URL? I'm not making a new Twitter acct just to contact a person who has "Contact Follow me at Twitter: @ugu_rs" as the only means of such on their blog

pests• 3 years ago

You can use 1m2s format too.

sublinear• 3 years ago

https://youtu.be/1oD2DWf4CjQ

Com Truise - Fairlight

I wouldn't call this an illusion as much as an interesting effect. Put on a good pair of headphones and listen to the intro at moderately high volume. There's a buzzing note in there that seems to resonate in a way that feels like it's coming from inside your head or maybe even your throat.

distantsounds• 3 years ago

This article is horribly written and executed for many reasons, but the primary one being that the vast majority of the music credited as Daft Punk is just sampled music from other artists. You can eloquently see this broken down here: https://youtu.be/lBSWw7RdZLk

At least get the original works correct.

teolandon• 3 years ago

The article is poorly written, but all of the examples presented are about effects that Daft Punk made and do not appear in the original works.

eyluo• 3 years ago

Whatever chopping and sampling Daft Punk does that the author tries to communicate in the article is pretty independent from the original works.

sowbug• 3 years ago

You seem to have a bone to pick with the idea that artists who sample can be colloquially credited as the songwriters of the songs they wrote. It's a surprising position to take; most people get by just fine saying that MC Hammer wrote You Can't Touch This, as one of many examples.

Please tell us more.

0x008• 3 years ago

<Wow i never knew their music was so complex. That video is amazing

IndySun• 3 years ago

"...Their albums have a variety of musical diversity..."

I like Daft Punk, but I, and they, I'm sure, never described themselves as such. It's worth addressing this sentence, it being an early sentence.

justsomehnguy• 3 years ago

Slightly offtopic:

One of my favourite comments on Youtube I saw was on some RATATAT song (probably Wildcat?), AFAIR:

"Those guitars are definitely trying to tell me something. I can't get a word but they do sing!"

And if you enjoy Daft Punk but never heard of RATATAT then you def should try, first albums for a more raw and hard sound, later ones for more electronic sound.

otherme123• 3 years ago

For guitars saying things, Steve Vai has plenty of them, also laughing, crying, meowing...

nerf0• 3 years ago

I want to make this random off-topic comment: For years I've been collecting various audio clips, where "environmental" sound (voice, noise, etc.) transitions into music, or vise versa, in songs, movies and TV shows. I've searched the web and the closest term I can find is "diegetic switch", but not quite. Here's the (short) list:

- https://youtu.be/9j9bVl3rfNk?t=29 In The Defenders, repeated piano note transitions into background music.

- https://youtu.be/isZyX1xd1VQ?t=159 (The Great American Nightmare - Rob Zombie)

- https://youtu.be/pU_mZ1X69Ho?t=364 (Out of Control - Miraculix)

- Justice League the movie where the song "Everybody Knows" transitions into the ambulance siren. Sorry I can't find this footage.

jcims2• 3 years ago

I don’t know if this counts but it’s one of my all time favorites.

- https://youtu.be/IXdNnw99-Ic (Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd)

oefnak• 3 years ago

Or the Gunners Dream, where a shout turns into a saxophone !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSE7qdjy3Q0&t=1

mgdlbp• 3 years ago

- "Worthless" in The Brave Little Toaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UfsEj7AOGI

- the chant in The Dark Knight Rises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxw-zXRqOs&t=130s

Probably a lot of variations in musicals, but most will be mundane.

stickfigure• 3 years ago

Wow, growing up in the 80s and thoroughly indoctrinated with musical theatre by my parents... how have I never heard of the Brave Little Toaster until now?

I'm not sure whether I should thank you or curse you. Let's see what my 6yo says.

The article reminds me of Pepe's Burningman operas from the mid 90s... "Devil's Delight, The Fire Tonight" blended into "Devils Do Light The Fire Tonight""

defrost• 3 years ago

Pink Floyd - Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (1970) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7pkOZ5n6PQ

John Cage - 4'33" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4

Slow_Hand• 3 years ago

I think you’d get a kick out of Chassol. He’s a French composer building entire compositions around the contours of environmental sounds.

I’d start with his Big Sun record. Listen to ‘Birds, Pt. 1’ and you’ll get it right away.

He also does these compositions he calls “ultrascores” where he’s composing to scenes from TV shows. Here’s one he did for The Wire:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bV1lY1UsEng&pp=ygUQQ2hhc3NvbCB...

fh973• 3 years ago

Björk - Dancer in the Dark

nyanpasu64• 3 years ago

It's a video game, but Yoshi's Island's title screen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkbxyPl83yI) has sound effects which fade out into a musical theme (which adds instruments after the noises stop). It fits cleverly into the SNES's 8 channels of audio which might not have been able to play ocean spray, birdsong, and multiple overlapping xylophone/melody lines at once.

mnw21cam• 3 years ago

Siren transitioning into the song: Rattlesnake - Bride https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cfc0vqf-_I

Waves on the shore transitioning into song: Luke the calf - Iona https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLx2bKdQIJA - though I'm not sure that one counts as the waves are all through to the end.

milleramp• 3 years ago

I am not sure I buy the argument here, but I really enjoyed listening these three Daft Punk songs!

gzalo2• 3 years ago

There's one weird thing that I've noticed with Daft Punk's The Brainwasher, my brain has two different interpretations for the main loop offset:

If starting here, I hear a loop that starts with fast notes and then has a silence. (warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=91

If starting a few seconds earlier, the previous melody seems to fuse with the part that starts at 1:30, and it sounds different, like a bit slower. (warning: loud) https://youtu.be/RdVEQbWjaTE?t=80

Not sure if that makes sense, hopefully some one else also hears both versions! I'm assuming it may have to do with interpreting the last note of the loop as part of the next one, but it could be something else too. It really is a brainwash :P

joecool1029• 3 years ago

Not sure if it counts as an illusion but one that comes to mind is Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood. There's a line "remember that it's all in your head" that was mixed in a way that phase cancellation will make it inaudible on mono playback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_xRb0x9aw&t=176s Now go and install: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/soundfixer/ and set output to mono and replay it.

teddyh• 3 years ago

was mixed in a way that phase cancellation will make it inaudible on mono playback.

That’s just what happens to the surround channel in audio tracks produced using Dolby Stereo, when, as you say, they are naively mixed to mono. This happens all the time.

rvieira• 3 years ago

Perhaps it's not really a "talking" instrument (as an actual voice is modulating), but Peter Frampton always comes to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rFYbMhcG8&t=345s

Auditory illusions with examples from Daft Punk

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