![]() His albums combine natural ocean sounds with electronic ambience to create soundscapes specifically designed for underwater broadcast. ![]() French composer Michel Redolfi is something of a specialist in underwater music. However, underwater speakers like the Clark Synthesis Diluvio employ voice coil technology - essentially an electromagnet composed of coiled wire - to reach wavelengths as low as 20 hertz.īut hey, it's not all classic rock and rowdy scuba divers. To put that in perspective, the lowest and highest frequency notes on a typical 88-key piano are 27.5 hertz and 4,186 hertz. Some varieties of underwater speakers, especially older models, can't produce wavelengths lower than around 1,000 hertz. The range of typical human hearing spans from 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. The sound reaches the listener from all directions, and the human brain simply can't process the original sound source. In a swimming pool, fast-traveling sound waves leave the underwater speaker and bounce off the bottom of the pool, the surface of the water and each side of the pool. Maurer IV referred to as omniphonic sound. But that doesn't mean the sound itself is monophonic - rather it's what Stanford University music researcher John A. The skull provides only a single source of sound transmission, whereas air conductivity hearing provides two - one in each ear. How does it sound? Well, the limits of bone conductivity make stereophonic sound impossible underwater. This mode of hearing is 40 percent less effective than air conductivity, but it's still the primary way we hear underwater. We call this bone conductivity, the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull. When you're underwater, however, flooding in the outer ear prevents a lot of that necessary vibration and essentially nullifies your air conductivity hearing ability.įortunately, George Clinton and company don't just do it to us in our ear bones they also do it to us in our skull bones. Funk." As front man George Clinton point outs out in the lyrics, the song is in fact "doin' it to ya in the earhole." The sound waves vibrate the audio bones in our inner ear, an effect we call air conductivity hearing. Just consider Parliament's hit 1976 single "P. We evolved to process sound data on land, so we simply don't hear as well at the bottom of a river - despite the ability of some divers to have ultrasonic hearing underwater. Yet for all our submarines and snorkel gear, we humans are creatures of the air. So slip into your favorite high-cut swimsuit, shackle your ankles and prepare to slip beneath the surface of some hi-fi sounds. How better for 18 divers to communicate on a submerged Hollywood set? Plus, we also use the technology to interact with whales and repel fish from polluted waters. Lap swimmers, scuba divers, marine biologists, cave divers and underwater film crews all benefit from underwater sound system technology as well. In fact, Lubell Labs, one of the oldest producers of underwater speakers, got its start following a successful product demo at the 1970 National Senior Synchronized Swimming Championships in the U.S. Synchronized swimmers need to actually hear the music while they're practicing their art. Yet even outside the world of professional illusion, underwater sound system technology has its place.įirst, consider the world of water dancing. With a little AC/DC cranking in there, you know he could have shaved a solid minute off his escape time.īut of course you're no Harry Houdini, and you probably don't earn your living inside a theatrical drowning booth. Better yet, he could outfit the entire torture cell with a stunning underwater sound system. If the legendary escape artist were alive today, he could make use of special underwater earbuds.
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