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Cranial Microphone System

Records your voice as YOU hear it.
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I'm not entirely sure this is the right category, but since the voice IS a musical instrument of sorts, and microphones ARE a product that is essential for this Idea....

First, anyone who hears a recording of his or her voice is usually surprised by how different it sounds, from when using his or her voice to make sounds. A lot of people could save themselves significant public embarrassment by listening to a recording of their voice before auditioning for something like "American Idol".

Now here's the thing. If someone THINKS their voice is good enough to go public, it must have something to do with how it sounds, internally. We know that there is a resonance effect in the skull bones that each person hears, that affect how their own voice is perceived by self. So why not try to record THAT sound?

Which is where this Idea's product comes in. Attach microphone to skull, and record. Also, a second mike is needed to record external sounds, so that they can be combined (via appropriate electronic manipulations) with the cranial- mike sounds in such a way as to exactly match how the person hears their own voice. Using this tech, anyone might be able to sell a decent-sounding voice-recording.

However, here is the kicker. We all know how nice a good singer's voice sounds. But how much better does it sound, to the singer, that we never get to hear? If THAT was recorded with this gadget, and made available for sale....

Perhaps the title of this Idea could be "Electric Voice" (like "electric guitar" is an instrument)?

Vernon, Jan 14 2016

Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale by William A. Sethares http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ttss.html
Actually analysing and modelling "in tune" rather than bullshitting about "anything goes" or mystic ratios. [pocmloc, Jan 16 2016]

Older Version Mouth_2fBone_20Mike
Alas, it appears I've copied my own old Idea [Vernon, Jan 20 2016]

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       Great, I'll be able to share the voices in my head !
piluso, Jan 14 2016
  

       Presumably for best playback, it uses direct cranial excitation rather than a conventional loudspeaker?
pocmloc, Jan 14 2016
  

       I think there's more to hearing one's voice when one speaks than simply the sounds in your ears. For a start, it seems to me that one's own voice ought to sound a lot louder than it seems to when one hears it. One is also forewarned and I wonder if something like the ossicles getting moved a bit happens to damp it down. One's judgement is also bound to be biassed. When one sings out of tune, it doubtless sounds in tune in one's head, for example.
nineteenthly, Jan 15 2016
  

       //In reality, anything is “in tune” if you adopt a scale in which those frequencies are legitimately a part of the structure.//   

       Sorry [Ian], but that's just not true. Certain frequency combinations are simply unpleasant, regardless of musical scale definitions. Yes, there are many different musical scales, but they share many properties, including integer-multiple relationships between many of the notes. You can devise a scale that contains frequencies A and 2.01*A, and it will sound ugly.   

       In nature, fingernails can scrape down a blackboard and everyone complains, regardless of their preferred musical scale.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2016
  

       Okey dokey. Find me someone who enjoys fingernails down a blackboard.   

       Failing that, find me someone who enjoys the combination of 840Hz and 1628Hz.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2016
  

       Ah right. So it's just coincidence that all musical scales include a lot of nice simple-fraction frequency ratios. Well, that's that cleared up.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2016
  

       Right.   

       Why exactly is it easy, again?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 15 2016
  

       Sorry [Ian] and [Max] you are both only half-right, for the wrong reasons.   

       //the combination of 840Hz and 1628Hz// Are you talking of pure sine-waves or complex tones? Two pure sine waves at those two frequencies sound no better worse than any similar adjacent frequencies, i.e. if the first is 840, it makes almost no difference to their consonance or dissonance if the second is 1628, 1666, 1680, or 1681.   

       Its not the numerical ratio between frequencis that counts, its the matching or mismatchng of harmonics.   

       So if they are complex tones with harmonic overtones (such as from a vibrating string or column of air) then the harmonics of your two tones would clash.   

       On the other hand it is "facile" to engineer a non-harmonic chime tone so that the overtones of these two pitches line up perfectly   

       See the work of William Sethares for more info <link>   

       But the art school idea that something viscerally unpleasant and deliberately so, is not actually bad, merely "interesting", is bollox and we all know it.
pocmloc, Jan 16 2016
  


 

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