Translating Brain Waves to Reconstruct Sounds

rhythm ranch · Post by **rhythm ranch** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 9:08 am

Cool, but spooky: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 ... -we-think?

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:34 pm

Awesome! Thanks for posting.

Nick Sevilla · Post by **Nick Sevilla** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 6:12 am

Oh this will open a can of worms for the artistes:

Artist: "It is not sounding like I imagine it"

Engineer: "Sorry, but these electrodes are wired correctly..."

Artist: "But it sounds so much better in my head!"

Engineer: "This equipment records exactly what is in your head. During the chorus, it seems to go to some Brazilian kind of beat, are you SURE that is what you want?"

Artist: "Yes, that is what I envisioned"

...

Artist: "Wait, WHAT!?!?!? BRAZILIAN BEAT?"

Engineer: "Yes. Maybe you should stop thinking of Ms. Lima..."

jhharvest · Post by **jhharvest** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 6:44 am

Indeed. I'd imagine the signal-to-noise ratio of your average musician's brain is going to be rubbish!

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 7:10 am

I think eventually that's how all music will be recorded-- straight from the composer's brain, with editing capability after the fact. Playback will be into the recipient's brain, and it will be a multi-sensory experience. People won't play instruments anymore-- it will be all about pure creativity-- the ability to imagine an experience worth re-living. Great composers/film-makers will also imagine touch, taste and smell to be played back, and the best experience-creators will be master meditators, people who can get into deep trance states and dream up worlds for others to experience. We're still quite a ways off from that time (a couple hundred years?), but I think that's where things are eventually heading.

Int'l Feel · Post by **Int'l Feel** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:13 am

When I'm trying to work out an arrangement in my head, I always think it would be sooo much easier if I could just plug a 1/4'' cable into the back of my skull and hit record.

goose134 · Post by **goose134** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 9:45 pm

Well instead of a 1/4" jack in your head, it'll more likely be a firewire port.

Int'l Feel · Post by **Int'l Feel** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 8:26 am

Firewire? Or USB 5.0?

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 8:51 am

Connectors? Who needs connectors? Our brains will be hooked up wirelessly. Actually, if that's the case, the whole idea of individuals composing or listening to music will be moot, because we'll all be one super-person with a gigantic, shared super-brain. Unlike the Borg, I think it will make us more human, not less.

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 12:41 pm

goose134 wrote:Well instead of a 1/4" jack in your head, it'll more likely be a firewire port.

Only if you go digital. Let's start a digital vs. analog tangent to this thread. I think digital and analog could both have their places in this type of recording. Only in this case I imagine early analog would sound harsh and spiky compared to the digital.

I heard that Thomas Dolby expressed this sentiment (wishing he had a jack in his head) back in the mid 80's. (That's when I heard that he'd said that.)

donny · Post by **donny** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:39 am

this is like some retro futuristic thing where everyone thought we'd have flying cars by now.

people will always eat, have sex, ... and play physical music.

Int'l Feel · Post by **Int'l Feel** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:45 am

Okay, so maybe music won't get THAT cerebral (har har har), but I think Delany had an interesting invention in "Nova" called the sensory syrynx: a sound, scent and hologram projector. Basically a portable acid trip generator.

Back to recording brain waves: With the way our ADD/multi-tasking culture is going, I'm thinking people will have some sort of dongle in the back of their heads, streaming data wirelessly. You're accessing cyberspace in the back of your head, like an ambient daydream. A thought triggers the record function and that mental music gets sent to the cloud.

So I'm thinking William Gibson pens the screenplay for this, with Ridley Scott (circa Blade Runner) directing. Oh yeah, and Donald Fagen is scoring the thing.

accordion squeezist · Post by **accordion squeezist** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:08 pm

Ever notice that sounds in your head, that is, not what your ears are hearing but sounds that you imagine in your brain have no dynamic range at all. At least that's the way it works with me. If I imagine a very quiet sound in my head and then the loudest I can possibly imagine, it is all the same "volume".
Maybe that's why heavy compression sounds so "dreamy". Is your brain like that?

signorMars · Post by **signorMars** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:18 pm

This similar thing was pretty neat too:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 ... ain-images

we're almost to where one person can watch a terrible remake of The Pink Panther and then directly communicate that back via brain waves so that the rest of us can watch a terrible remake of the Pink Panther, too!

coolnm57 · Post by **coolnm57** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:21 pm

I studied undergrad neuropsych a few years ago. Learned about some really interesting brain mapping techniques for stroke victims (ie, controlling a mouse from their head). Another example is where they put light sensors on someone's neck (they would get hotter or prick the neck or something when activated), who was able to rewire their touch receptors into light receptors even though they were completely blind.

I'm kinda ranting, but even though this stuff is cool, I think the military will lead any substantial research into making a functioning brain recording device. And it's my opinion that it'll take years for one individual to reroute their own thoughts into such a device (plasticity). So we're probably 40-50 years out from a brain-controllable keyboard, 60-70 from a commercial one.

Wiki for thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution

But man it would be awesome to have something that could do that. Nerd out...

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Translating Brain Waves to Reconstruct Sounds

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