Science: Auto-tuned

It's Carl Sagan like you've never heard him: his digitized, remixed voice sounds more like something emanating from a radio tuned to a pop music station than from a TV playing a public television documentary. Footage of the scientist in his award-winning PBS series linkurl:Cosmos;http://www.hulu.com/cosmos mingles with stunning computer animations depicting complex scientific concepts. This is all part of a novel project called linkurl:Symphony of Science,;http://www.symphonyofscience.com/index.

Written byKatherine Bagley

| 2 min read

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It's Carl Sagan like you've never heard him: his digitized, remixed voice sounds more like something emanating from a radio tuned to a pop music station than from a TV playing a public television documentary. Footage of the scientist in his award-winning PBS series linkurl:Cosmos;http://www.hulu.com/cosmos mingles with stunning computer animations depicting complex scientific concepts. This is all part of a novel project called linkurl:Symphony of Science,;http://www.symphonyofscience.com/index.html which is meant to bring science to the masses with the use of modern media. Nearly five million YouTube users have already tuned in to watch.

Symphony of Science was created in 2009 by John Boswell, a Washington-based electronic musician that specializes in audio remixing. Boswell was a sophomore at Western Washington University when he stumbled upon Sagan's __Cosmos__ series late one night on the Discovery channel. "I immediately fell in love with the show, like so many people did," he told __The Scientist__. As Boswell's interest in electronic music and composition grew throughout college, he started thinking of what he could do with the series. "Carl Sagan's voice lends itself perfectly to auto-mixing," Boswell said. "His voice is very mellow and consistent in tone, which means there are fewer adjustments that have to be made to the pitch levels." When he graduated in 2008, Boswell started focusing more of his time on creating original electronic music. By the fall of 2009, inspired by compositions from linkurl:The Gregory Brothers;http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho and linkurl:DJ Steve Porter,;http://www.youtube.com/user/djsteveporter he started remixing scientists, using the __Cosmos__ series as the centerpiece of the audio and video. He released his first piece, linkurl:"A Glorious Dawn";http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc featuring Sagan and Stephen Hawkins, in September of 2009. It has already been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube. Boswell then released linkurl:"We Are All Connected";http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk and linkurl:"Our Places in the Cosmos";http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioZf4TjoUI&feature=related in October and November, respectively. The musician's latest video, linkurl:"The Unbroken Thread,";http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLAGYmUQV0&channel=melodysheep has received nearly 250,000 hits since it was released about a month ago. For each song, Boswell combs through hundreds of science documentaries available on the web, pulling audio and visuals from conversations with scientists like Richard Dawkins, David Attenborough, and Jane Goodall. He then remixes the material using the software Reason 4.0 (instrumentals), Adobe Audition (audio editing), Melodyne (auto-tuning), and Sony Vegas (video editing). The musician doesn't own the rights to any of the material he uses, nor has he filed for permission to redistribute or alter it -- a fact that worried him tremendously when he received an email from Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan.

"I never expected anyone to watch the first video, so I didn't bother getting permission for the content," he said. "And then right off the bat I get an email from Ann. Luckily, she said she loved it, and that she thought Carl would have loved it. It was a very gracious first contact." No one else has come forward with any complaints, he added. Boswell is currently taking a bit of a break from Symphony of Science, which is solely supported by linkurl:donations,;https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=4e-TiDk4i6oVn1dxDma9rhKrski99QrZrOOukx7J0WZPvlySE0wN8cN2PQa&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1ffc45dc241d84e953c6c47237de2bc4f5b43fafc6513a8a86 to work on other projects, but, he explained, he is "definitely going to keep going, and without a doubt, Carl will continue making appearances." To watch all of the Symphony of Science videos, please click linkurl:here.;http://www.symphonyofscience.com/videos.html
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Scientific song and dance;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56138/
[5th November 2009]*linkurl:The Future of Science Videos;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55859/
[August 2009]*linkurl:Online videos catch on;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53500/
[22nd August 2007]