work_unit_enhanced4.wav

Many people keep asking me, how i achieved that sound from a SETI@home workfile. Many even doubting that i really processed the sound from the original SETI data and blaming me of making a hoax. Look, it is pretty simple. I made the sound in 2002 by opening a SETI work file as raw data in soundforge, to see if i can make anything out of it. Then i made like 10 or 15 steps of destructive eq-ing and pitching, not thinking that i would end up with a sound like this. If you open SETI raw data as 44khz 16 bit pcm signed, you will end up having 4 seconds of very strong hiss. Normalize it, pitch it down by 12 semitones, and then eq the 600hz area repeatedly until you get some sort of metallic warbling. Then pitch it down again, promote the bass frequencies so the warbling stream breaks up, due to bass overdrive. Then timestretch the whole thing, duplicate channels to stereo and then add a little flanger or phaser to make the stereo out of sync to have it sound really stereo. I mean, you can make ANYTHING from a hiss sound. Ofcourse these are NOT aliens talking. This is simply random modulation of the "telephone band", and it just sounds familiar because of self resonance in the 400hz area, i guess. Any only a bit advanced sounddesigner should be able to reproduce this sound from any source of hiss (random data) with a little time and curiosity and a vivid imagination. And please, i really cannot give you info about how exactly i made it step by step, since i did not document the process since i did not feel that this is something special there. A similar sound was achieved in Star Wars 2 (empire strikes back) (the black scout drones) and this is NOTHING religious. If you have no idea how to generate such sounds by using omnipresent contemporary sound-editing software (like SoundForge or the like) then i am really sorry and maybe you should stick with presets or sampling cds or just use this file, since i give it away for free. I am sorry for having to disappoint those who want to believe in magic or extraterrestrians, but i feel like there is no discussion about that. And ofcourse i am happy if you are happy to use this sound. Best regards, kollege (aka. battlecommand.org)