Freesound Forums

As everyone knows, sound is generated as waveforms of various shapes. There are many natural phenomena that occur as waveforms, such as ocean waves and tides. I have tried to convert data sets associated with these natural phenomena into sound files, but am not a great programmer, and could not generate a correct wav file from the data. When the data is plotted as x-y data, it looks just like a sound file, so I know it is possible to convert the numbers into sound. Does anyone know of software that will do such a conversion? I really don't want to have to learn, or re-learn, a programming language to do this. I looked at the format of wav files but wasn't able to get the data to build into the file in the proper sequence. I hope somebody has done this and can help. Thanks.

I believe audacity converts pictures into sounds. What file formats/types does the rest of your dataset include? Movies? Text?

I just have a string of numbers. If plotted on an x-y graph, where the numbers represent Y and x is an equal increment, a sine-wave type plot results. Audacity can take raw data files, but they are binary, and I don't know how to write an ascii file of numbers to the binary raw sound data format.

I can’t think of a way to do this that doesn’t involve programming, but it would be relatively simple.

For instance, in python:

>>> x = input()
[user inputs something such as 3.14]
>>> float(x)
3.14

I’ll see if I can write you something a bit more comprehensive.

I used Visual Fortran, but no longer have a version that works with Windows8. I was able to write a binary file, that had the numbers, but it wasn't in the correct format for Audacity to read, resulting in some weird-sounding files (which are posted), but not what I believe they should sound like if properly written into the sound file.

Gah... my Python has become very rusty.

I think the problem might be that there are various ways of storing fractions in computer memory (I presume the measurements aren’t just integers) and Audacity isn’t interpreting the raw data as you are expecting. Not to mention other variables such as big- versus little endianness, floating point precision and so forth.

Cool Edit aka Adobe Audition? (older versions, up to AA 3.0)

Yes, the whole "endiness" thing was throwing me off.

I'll check out Adobe audition and see if it will work for me.

Hi,

I dont know if this will help in any way... but at least its very interesting..

Recently I stumbled upon a book written by Miller Puckette called:
The theory and technique of electronic music.
In the book he explains every thing you need to know about making sound the electronic way.
There is a computer program thats also wrote by Miller Puckette based on the theory in his book... Quote:

Pure Data (aka Pd) is an open source visual programming language. Pd enables musicians, visual artists, performers, researchers, and developers to create software graphically, without writing lines of code. Pd is used to process and generate sound, video, 2D/3D graphics, and interface sensors, input devices, and MIDI. Pd can easily work over local and remote networks to integrate wearable technology, motor systems, lighting rigs, and other equipment. Pd is suitable for learning basic multimedia processing and visual programming methods as well as for realizing complex systems for large-scale projects.

Like I said am not sure this will be helpfull... there is a lot of hardcore maths involved.. so I didnt read the whole book jet...
But Pd should be able to translate data into signal and vice versa..

It used to be possible to do this using programs like Mathematica and MathLab.
However, these are expensive programs to buy just to use for this purpose for the fun of it...

I used the Adobe Audition to import as raw file and then export as MP3 to use with Audacity, which seemed to work. I'm going to post the new file "Sandy Hook Tides new".

I tried to use my new tide sounds file in combination with field collected water sounds (waves, creek, etc.) and found that my file didn't fit in, but ended up creating a mix of the water sounds tied together with a synthetic organ-sounding file someone posted. I call the combination sound file "Water Symphony".

beaconsound wrote:
... When the data is plotted as x-y data, it looks just like a sound file, so I know it is possible to convert the numbers into sound. Does anyone know of software that will do such a conversion?

Image-to-sound and vice-versa ... https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Photosounder+
e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8MCAXhEsy4 *****

or if want to use raw digital data [and free software]... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXjwJPz4qi0

The question was to convert text files (with numerical data) into sounds. Cool edit can do it, audacity - maybe (I don't remember).