Sodankylä Jam Sessions produced a remote collaboration where musicians recorded their parts from home. I handled the sound post-production and mixed the final track, which was compiled into both a song and a video.
Category: Sound
Sound design, sound designer, sound effects made to order, sound engineer, live sound mixing, recording and production.
Does the aurora borealis produce sound? For some, it seems it does.
This piece is my personal reproduction of the auroral sound experience I had while working as a research assistant at the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory in Finland. It reflects what I heard, an approximation unique to my perception; others might experience it differently.
In the winter of 2001, during peak auroral activity, five of us witnessed a vivid display of northern lights. Initially, three parallel belts of light appeared, which suddenly merged into one directly above us. At that moment, I perceived a sound unlike anything I had heard before.
The sound created its own space within my mind – devoid of reverberation or conventional spatial cues. The sound was dry. It resembled countless layered noises, each distinguishable, producing a sense of infinite depth yet feeling somehow confined, perhaps limited by my own perception.
Intermittently, very soft and deep pops punctuated the soundscape.
The sound’s presence fluctuated with the aurora’s movements. It ceased when the single belt split back into three. Moving my head did not alter the sound’s characteristics.
I was initially hesitant to share this experience with others. At the time, a project at SGO was collecting reports of auroral sounds, so I submitted mine. Later that night, I created a reproduction of what I heard – this piece is a refined, modern version of that.
I later came across the Frey effect (microwave auditory effect), which aligns with my experience but does not contradict my initial impression that the northern lights sound was directly induced.
The accompanying image is from Pixabay.
Categories
Music video for Mr. Fluffs Shadow Waltz
I handled the production of the music video for Laura Iso-Metsälä, including recording both the visuals and audio. I also mixed the final piece, ensuring the sound and imagery were seamlessly integrated.
Mixed and edited dialogue for a promotional video showcasing Perdition’s Mouth, a fantasy-themed board game. The audio work focused on enhancing clarity.
The rings of Saturn resemble a spectrogram, which inspired this experimental sonification of space.
An authentic image of Saturn’s rings was used as a spectral source. A 1-pixel vertical slice of the image was extracted and separated into three color channels. The intensity values of each channel were mapped to the cutoff frequencies of resonant filters—effectively translating the visual data into sound.
Each color plane drives 256 simultaneous sound sources, spatially arranged across the stereo field to mirror their position in the image. Some variations use up to 1024 voices, creating rich, layered textures. Minor frequency offsets per color channel introduce a subtle chorus effect.
The result is an immersive soundscape—an audible interpretation of Saturn’s rings. Original lossless audio files are available on Freesound.