Yomega Yo-Yo

This Yomega brand yo-yo has ball bearings inside it that spin and make a sound when it's in "sleep" mode after a throw. From the Wikipedia entry on "yo-yo":

[I]n 1980, Michael Caffrey patented what would later become the Yomega Brain, a yo-yo with a centrifugal clutch transaxle. Designed with a free-spinning ball bearing linkage, "The Brain" could spin much longer than previous fixed-axle designs. In addition, the axle was "clutched" with spring-loaded weights which would pull away from the axle at higher speeds and grab again at lower speeds. The result is an automatic return of the yo-yo when speed drops below a given threshold.

The noise is very cool, and if there's a note it's close to a B2:

Different Gas Pump, Same Notes

Splotchy shared the notes of his gas pump experience.

As for my own recent visit to the fuel trough, the notes turn out to be the same, even though the gas station brand was different!

As before, the machine plays a D5 to ask me if I want a receipt, and then it plays a C6 when I push "NO".

Friendly Gmail Chat Bloop

I use Gmail as my primary email account these days. Gmail has a handy-dandy Chat widget that you can use to connect with other Gmail users.

Every once in a while I'll initiate a chat with another user, or a user will initiate a chat with me.

When I don't have Chat as my active window I'll hear a very pleasant bloop that lets me know when someone has just chatted something to me.

It's two notes played together at an octave interval -- a C4 and a C5.

Toy Elephant Meets The Beat

Just the toy elephant from the last post mixed with a dance beat and some drums.

Toy Elephant

While over at my brother and sister-in-law's recently, my sister-in-law suggested I record the cool sound of this toy elephant, part of my four-month-old niece's playpen. Luckily I had my recorder with me.

When you pull down on the elephant and let go, it rewards you with the noise as it raises back up.

I'd wager it's close to an F#2 (very bassy), though the pitch drops as the elephant gets halfway up or so--a nice effect.

I could listen to this one over and over.

Goddamn Alarm Clock

Here it is, my morning nemesis. If I hear any sound remotely like this when I am out and about, I involuntarily flinch.

Never has an A5 sounded so goddamned obnoxious.

TV Bleep Censor

According to an article at Wikipedia that doesn't cite and references or sources, the TV bleep censor--the tone played over an increasingly small list of curse words when they're uttered on TV--is generally a 1000 Hz tone. That would put it just flat of a B4.

Let's take an episode of South Park, the very first episode actually ("Cartman Gets an Anal Probe"), then select a few lines with lots of bleeped expletives (the scene where Kyle cusses out the aliens) and see if the bleep tone is near a B.



Nope, in this case it's just flat of a C5.

Backyard Gate Squeak

So the gate on the side of my house that leads to the backyard has a pleasant high-pitched squeak.

It's a B♭6!

Pizza Store Doorbell

One nice thing about digital voice recorders like mine is that they look like cellphones.

So no one thinks weird of me when I'm on my way out the door at the local Papa Murphy's and I whip out such a device and push a button on it.

The talking in the background is over the radio in the store.

That doorbell note is an appetizing E5.

Why Yes, My Refrigerator Is Running

My refrigerator's air compressor makes a humming noise like most do, I imagine.

Here is mine AMPLIFIED.

It's very close to an A#2 similar to the hair clippers and the microwave.

A Grocery Store Scanner Of A Different Note

Tim has shared his grocery store experience. Now I must share mine.

I was waiting to pay for groceries at my local supermarket and decided to record the sounds being made by the price scanning device used by the cashier (that's not me in the picture, by the way. Tucking your shirt in to go shopping? Are you freaking kidding me?).

Well, the lane I was in was definitely beeping an A5, though you can hear a scanner in a nearby lane happily chirping a C6.

Civil Defense Siren

Yesterday I scored a recording of the Springfield, Illinois, civil defense siren system during one of its scheduled 1st-Tuesday-of-the-month tests.

If you listen closely in the first few seconds you can hear two sirens of different pitches. This happens as they are warming up.

That alarming note is C5!

Gas Pump

I had to visit the neighborhood gas station for a minor fill-up (y'know, the $30.00 kind).

For the past couple of years I have paid at the pump with a credit card rather than actually interact with a human being.

I noticed that the gas pump makes two different kinds of beeps. There is a beep when the gas pump is trying to tell you something, and another kind of beep when it is acknowledging some action taken by the human interacting with it.

For this recording, the first beep you hear is a D5. The gas pump is asking me if I would like a receipt.

My "NO" response is replayed to me in the form of a C6.

Thank you, friendly gas pump!

March Compiled

We posted 21 audio files this month.

As a public service, of course, here are all of them strung together. March 2008 in one listen.


Link

And now with a funky beat...


Link

Windows XP Hardware Connecting Dings

Thought I'd give my sound recorder a breather. Here's a sound from my computer, currently running Windows XP Home edition.

This is the default sound it makes when I attach my iPod or a thumb drive to a USB port while the computer is on.

It is two tones, starting on a C4 and ending on a G4.