1Posted on 12/19/2015 at 10:00:04December 19, 2015 editorial: comments
A Pitch Shifter for Bees?
In case you’ve been wondering what frequency a bee buzzes at — and I know you all have — the answer is 250 Hz. That is, if you’re talking about an American honey bee. But if it’s an Australian blue-banded bee, the frequency is higher, 350 Hz. What’s more, the higher frequency somehow helps the Australian bees get more pollen than the American ones when they hover over a flower. So I’m thinking, duh, simple solution, the honey bees need a pitch shifter.
Ok, I wasn’t really thinking that, but I was wondering about the frequency ranges and SPL of animal sounds, so I did some research (which is always a dangerous thing).
Did you know that an elephant can make noises that range over 10 octaves, from 5 Hz to 10 kHz? Not only that, their sounds can go as loud as 112 dB. But that’s a veritable whisper compared to the Blue Whale, the loudest animal on earth, with a max SPL of 188 dB! (I bet you weren’t expected to read about whale specs when you opened this newsletter.)
Another interesting animal from a sonic standpoint is the bat. Certain bat species emit sounds that range from 14 kHz to a whopping 100 kHz. Anything over 20 kHz is considered ultrasonic, because it’s out of the range of human hearing. Or, if you’re a musician who’s been gigging for at least 10 years, anything over 15 kHz.
I also learned that rats emit a 20 kHz sound when they’re stressed. My question is: have you ever seen a rat that wasn’t stressed?
Quick quiz: what’s the frequency range of the sounds emitted by a sloth? The answer is 2 to 8 kHz. Therefore, I would recommend a condenser mic next time you record one, if you want to accurately reproduce the highs.
Here’s one that really freaked me out. Do you know that worms make sounds? They grunt, to be precise. A grunting worm, now that’s a lovely thought. By the way, in case you’re wondering, the grunts are centered around 80 Hz.
That concludes our lesson for today, kids. Happy Holidays, and watch out for stressed rats.
A few years ago I was in a lavender field in the middle of zillions of bees and I was thinking : "wow, that's a REAL chorus! Thousands of moving sources, sounds fat! We need to make such a virtual synth one of these days :D"
