What is "white noise"?

[redcaimen]

Originally Posted by dusty

One of my favorite books. Maybe it's our age difference?

Interesting. You are one of the more sensible people on this forum. I just dont like the feeling that I am being manipulated when Im reading and if I am going to be manipulated I want to be manipulated by a less "academic" and predictable sensibility.



ps I am a big fan of actual white noise. Especially running water. Maybe its the cascading ions.

 

[dusty]

Originally Posted by redcaimen

Interesting. You are one of the more sensible people on this forum. I just dont like the feeling that I am being manipulated when Im reading and if I am going to be manipulated I want to be manipulated by a less "academic" and predictable sensibility.

Yes, I feel the same about you which is why your post stood out to me (no ****?). Anyway, I feel that in some way I'm a product of total media immersion (for better or worse) which is why I feel the book is especially relevant to people of my age and lifestyle. But I can certainly see gripes with DeLillo's writing style, and in White Noise especially.

 

[A Y]

As has been mentioned before, white noise is noise whose energy distribution is equal at all frequencies. The bin at 10 Hz has the same amount of energy as the bin at 10 kHz.

Pink noise is noise whose energy distribution is equal at all octaves (or any other logarithmic base). This means that lower frequencies have more energy because octaves are relatively narrower at lower frequencies: 20 to 40 Hz is 1 octave, whereas 10 kHz to 20 kHz is also 1 octave.

But at lower frequencies, you have more octaves, and therefore more energy. For example, there are over 3 octaves between 20 and 200 Hz: 20-40, 40-80, 80-160, but that's only a 180 Hz span. From 10 kHz to 20 kHz, there's only 1 octave, but that octave spans 10 kHz, so the density of octaves goes down as frequency goes up.

As a result pink noise sounds like white noise whose top end has been rolled off, and bass has been boosted. Pink noise is good for audio because it doesn't destroy tweeters when played back at high levels. It's only pretty grossly related to the human auditory system, and there are much better ways to deal with that.

It's pink, white, blue, etc. because it's an analogy to the visual spectrum. The red side of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) is lower frequency than the blue end. Since pink noise emphasizes the low end, it is like adding red to white and getting pink. Blue noise would noise that has more energy in the higher frequencies.

--Andre

 

[redcaimen]

Originally Posted by dusty

Yes, I feel the same about you which is why your post stood out to me (no ****?). Anyway, I feel that in some way I'm a product of total media immersion (for better or worse) which is why I feel the book is especially relevant to people of my age and lifestyle. But I can certainly see gripes with DeLillo's writing style, and in White Noise especially.

Its posts like this that make me feel like one of those old cranky muppets that sat up in the balcony and complained about whatever was going on around them.

 

[Crane's]

To me white noise is the ever present ringing in my ears.

 

[dusty]

Originally Posted by redcaimen

Its posts like this that make me feel like one of those old cranky muppets that sat up in the balcony and complained about whatever was going on around them.

If it's any consolation, I've always thought of those puppets as role models.