Re: Underwater latency (not completely OT) ;-)

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 01:08 PM 3/15/2005, Per Boysen wrote:
>Excuse me for this crazy topic, but I can't stop thinking about how music 
>would sound under water? Wouldn't it be possible to manufacture 
>"underwater loudspeakers" with rubber cones? Have someone here 
>experienced 
>this? Sound travels faster under water. How should you mix for underwater 
>performance? Are different frequencies affected differently by the water 
>molecules?

Actually, if I remember my (very) basic college classes in acoustic 
physics, sound travels more slowly in water than air.  I think this is due 
to the density of the medium that the sound wave is travelling 
through.  There's less dispersion, however, because the medium is more 
coherent.

What you're probably thinking of is the fact that sound can travel greater 
distances through a denser medium (if you put enough energy into getting a 
wave moving in the first place, it takes more to eventually stop it).  And 
that does carry over into your comment about how different frequencies are 
affected by water molecules.  Since lower frequencies typically 
contain/require more energy in the first place, they have a tendency to 
stay more coherent over a longer distance.  That's one reason why the Navy 
can use ELF (extremely long frequency) waves to communicate with 
submarines 
over distances of many, many miles.

If I were mixing an underwater performance, I think it would be difficult 
to maintain a decent amount of top end to the mix.  The bass, however, 
should really kick...

         --m.

_____
"i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
                                                 -recoil