Eric Archer mods old 8mm cameras to record sound instead of light.
He chose vintage movie cameras because of their amazing design, and
because the 8mm format fits well with semiconductor light sensors. He starts by removing the film transport and shutter, leaving just the optics, "My standard modifications include a battery-powered preamp with
audio line-out (1/4″ mono jack) + a viewfinder-mounted LED that
indicates sensor overload, and a headphone amplifier (1/8″ jack).  I’ve
prototyped an accessory mount that holds the sound camera steady along
side a video camera, focused on the same point for audiovisual
recording. Looking through the viewfinder, you see a normal image. The light
sensor’s active region corresponds to a tiny spot in the center of the
viewfinder; sweeping the camera across a scene can reveal different
sounds, and their source can be pinpointed easily." [via Retro Thing]

The wine glass shape speakers and the wine vat digital amplifier brings home the bar atmosphere while enjoying your drink. The LED light adds the fizz to the drink. The wine vat digital amplifier with rated output of 4 W × 2ch, input sensitivity of 3000mV reproduces natural and realistic sound. The wine vat digital amplifier measures 62 × 80 × 71.5mm, weigh 200 g and the speaker with 32 mm diameter aluminum dome-shaped inverted full range speaker with 4 Ω impedance measure 62 × 130mm, weigh 145 g (each). The Mini Clear Sound System DT-SA101 is available in Japan for approximately 26,250 yen ($240). [via fareastgizmos.com]

AudioCookbook.org
is a non-profit resource for music and sound enthusiasts made possible
by contributions from Unearthed Music. The content has a slant toward
the avant-garde or experimental side of audio production. Whether you
have years of technical experience or you are just getting your feet
wet doing sound design, you’ll find unique, interesting and useful
information that might inspire you, give you an idea, or simply
entertain. [via Attuworld]

Soungle is a free site, developed by Southern Codes, for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples on their mega online library. As different from most of similar sites, Soungle is NOT a Web search engine. It only searches in their growing monster database. Our goals are to keep it simple to use (search, preview and download) and to keep it free.

The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical structure modelled on the firing of the human brain’s neurons. The Fragmented Orchestra will connect 24 public sites across the UK to form a tiny networked cortex, which will adapt, evolve and trigger site-specific sounds via the FACT Gallery in Liverpool, the current European Capital of Culture from December 11th 2008 – February 9th 2009.

Each of the sites will have a soundbox installed, which will stream human-made and elemental sound from the site via an artificial neuron to one of 24 speakers in the FACT Gallery. The sound will only be transmitted when the neuron fires. A firing event will cause fragments of sound to be relayed to the gallery and will also be communicated to the cortex as a whole. The combined sound of the 24 speakers at the gallery will be continuously transmitted back to the sites and to this website at which the sound from the individual speakers can also be listened to.

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