Freesound Forums
Light to Sound Sonification
Started July 21st, 2025 · 7 replies · Latest reply by Timbre 1 month, 1 week ago
Hi,
I got a bit of a rabbit hole of Si-FI sound design. Noticably from Starwars but other space-ship fly-by and all.
Especially after this sound from Newlocknew https://freesound.org/people/newlocknew/sounds/611715/
Digging though youtube I ended up on this nice technique by Paul Stoughton,
https://youtu.be/lN6WRS96q70?si=OJWKsGefXO4t07bq&t=392
Sonification of light, distorting the light though water on a subwoofer.
I love that sonification of light!
I want to give it a try, light to sound converters do seem to exist. Though even if it isn't live, any software I could use to turn a video to sound? Focus on some pixels and tweek parameters to extract the sound or convert specific stuff like contrast or saturation or just brightness etc?
Yes. A very interesting way with lights and a subwoofer, opening up a field for fun without borders. Unfortunately, I don't know any programs for converting video to sound. Just from the photos, a few.
Thanks for the suggestion Lujainsameer!
For extracting a video's audio, I personally use Davinci resolve, or Audacity to sample quick things from my desktop's audio to make "snippets" (samples) of a cool sentence or something I like.
However I'm having a different objective here, to convert actual image frames and light data to sound 
Newlocknew,
Indeed!
Come to think of it, it's mixing a light and audio input back to sound, processed by fluid dynamics? xD
There's perhaps ways to go even more experimental, such as fiddling with the viscosity, or say even shine the light though water at it's triple point. Maybe there are filters that change depending on temperature too. So many ways to play with elements!
Reminds me, I saw that for the Starwars light-saber, they had a source (CRT TV + the hum of idling interlock motors) and they emitted it out of a speaker then swinged a microphone infront of it in time with the video's actors. For the doppler effect; but I wonder also how directional the microphone was and affected off axis frequencies, also some natural "fading" of volume must have been there.
Don't hesitate to list image to sound softwares
Cheers!
Sadiquecat wrote:
Newlocknew,
Indeed!
Come to think of it, it's mixing a light and audio input back to sound, processed by fluid dynamics? xD
There's perhaps ways to go even more experimental, such as fiddling with the viscosity, or say even shine the light though water at it's triple point. Maybe there are filters that change depending on temperature too. So many ways to play with elements!Reminds me, I saw that for the Starwars light-saber, they had a source (CRT TV + the hum of idling interlock motors) and they emitted it out of a speaker then swinged a microphone infront of it in time with the video's actors. For the doppler effect; but I wonder also how directional the microphone was and affected off axis frequencies, also some natural "fading" of volume must have been there.
Don't hesitate to list image to sound softwares
Cheers!
Yes. There was clearly a directional microphone. I tried to recreate a lightsaber. But I've suspended this case for now. And I can say that omni microphones are unsuitable here. You can't get Doppler with fades with them. About the software from picture to sound... 2C Audio Kaleidoscope, MetaSynth.
Sadiquecat wrote:
I want to give it a try, light to sound converters do seem to exist ...