What 18th-Century Paris Sounded Like | Hacker News Reader

What 18th-Century Paris Sounded Like

smithsonianmag.com

97 pointstintinnabula25 comments

The linked article (in French) contains actual 3D reconstruction with the sound scape https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/sound-18th-century-paris

Oh my gosh is this one of the coolest things I heard and see in a while. PLEASE whoever you all are, do Byzantium next. I would love to see what Constantinople and Hagia Sophia were like in the 500s

Sort of related, Stanford's Icons of Sound[1] project has digitally reconstructed the acoustics of the Hagia Sophia (present day) as basically the world's most grandiose reverb plugin. You can hear an example here [2] (need to skip around to hear the actual examples). The singers were recorded in a regular room and then post-processed with an acoustic model of the Hagia Sophia.

[1] http://iconsofsound.stanford.edu/index.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsLgLNgA-_Q

Cappella Romana is truly an amazing group. I was fortunate to have them visit my Church for the Nativity season last year.

Sounds absolutely incredible. Any idea if they've released the impulses? I couldn't find anything on the IoS site.

Indeed! No IRs have been released that Im aware of.

Awesome! But, "recorded using authentic 18th century devices"? How does that help?

I'm not sure if the article has been edited in the meantime (that exact text isn't there), but they mean that the devices that create the noises are from the 18th century (or at least replicas of the devices, I'm not clear on that), not the recording equipment itself.

Coming up with a blank page unfortunately. Maybe overloaded.

The map of Paris mentioned in this article reminded me of French relief maps of XVIII century, that can be seen today in Museum of Fine Arts in Lille. They were captured by Prussians in 1815 and moved to Germany. Some were even used in WWI by Germans. http://www.fortified-places.com/reliefs/beauxarts.html

Reminds me of recently being in a bazaar in a foreign country, taking some photos then using the voice recorder on my phone to capture the soundscape. The two types of media remain separate. Does anyone know of a simple way to intergrate media and post it online (with the ease of, let's say, Imgur)?

Wouldn't sound + image just be a video? So, YouTube or something similar?

Talking about youtube, I don't know how supported is the 3D video thing; but it fits the "virtual tourism" part neatly.

Yes and no. I think placing them together, without using video, makes for a unique experience. Check out HN user bahro's comment and the link to his project.

I coded a little thing for myself to do this a couple years ago: http://subject.space/postcards/4.html

Very cool. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It gives such a different feeling (v. video). I can also imagine some sort of Google Map integration where one can virtually walk through an area and be able to access the varied soundscapes at specific points.

I quite like this idea. The juxtaposition between a well considered image with the uncontrolled audioscape is a pleasant idea. I have a very small set of binaural mics (appear to be inconspicuous IEMs) that I've wanted to use for something similar, but my iPhone doesn't capture stereo through the audio jack.

This was fantastic; it's quieter than I would have expected.

Not Really Related: There are a few MMORPGs that have "soundscapes" in big cities that sound much like this. Guild Wars 2 in the human city is one that comes to mind.

One thing that caught my eye was the strange phrase trop va qui dure, which I was having trouble translating (I'm not a native speaker). I felt better when I looked at the Wikipedia page which said that the origin of the name remains mysterious.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_Trop-Va-Qui-Dure

The road was also called the Road Along the Seine and Misery Valley. It disappeared in 1813 when they demolished the Grand Châtelet.

You can still see traces on modern Paris--places like the Rue St. Denis. There are also remnants of the Grand Châtelet in place names, like the shopping center (more like a mall) called Châtelet - Les Halles not far from its namesake.

Ironically I don't think I ever experienced ASMR from those videos, but this one is doing it.

Same

Direct link to video: https://youtu.be/YP__1eHeyo4

Listening to the video linked by @mynegation, I was expecting louder traffic sounds (horseshoe on cobblestone, carriage wheels on cobblestone, creaking of carriages). In the summertime we visit an area with many Amish farmsteads nearby and I can hear their carriages coming from a few hundred yards/meters away.

It is the smell I would like to experience

Too bad there was little to no talking

the human voice is an important sound

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