What Do Robots Sound Like?

Professor of Music Cognition and Percussion, McMaster University

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

Contact: [email protected] Any comments or guest suggestions are welcome.

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Show notes/links:

This month's guest is Professor Michael Schutz from McMaster University where he is Professor for Music Cognition and Percussion.

Professor Schutz's Ted talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8geRll6F0

Patterson Alarm sounds paper: Alarm_Sounds_for_Medical_Equipment_in_Intensive_Care_Areas_and_Operating_Theatres

Alarm examples: https://th.id.au/alarms/

IEC alarm specification article: https://puiaudio.com/resource/iec-60601-8-application-guide/

Bernie Krause book: The Great Animal Orchestra

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20 year veteran voice designer, Amazon, Microsoft, Ford etc

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

Contact: [email protected] Any comments or guest suggestions are welcome.

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Show notes:

This month's guest is Adam Elman, a veteran voice designer with 20 years experience working on Amazon Alexa, Ford Sync, Xbox and more.

Adam's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vuiadam

Conversation design list, curated by Adam - https://medium.com/@aelman/list/conversation-design-d03ad47d84b8

Adam's "Favourite Sound" example I used was the trumpet stem from: "Carousel Ride" by Rubblebucket

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Principal Conversation Design | Amazon Lab 126, Emerging Products and Consumer Robotics -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

Contact: [email protected] Any comments or guest suggestions are welcome.

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Show notes:

This month's guest is Chelsea Titus, Principal Conversation Design at Amazon Lab 126 - Emerging Products and Consumer Robotics

Chelsea's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-titus-cat

Extra links

How button boards are changing human-canine communication: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTnVSJ8V4wk 

Immanuel Kant quote: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made"

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amazon Device Design Group - UX Sound Designer -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

Contact: [email protected] Any comments or guest suggestions are welcome.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Vasundhara Gupta, is a Senior UX Sound Designer at the Amazon Device Design Group.

N.B. One editorial note: we discuss the delicate art of tiny sounds that is the domain of the UX designer. We mention 3m/s sound (three one thousandths of a second), but realistically we should've been speaking in multiplications of 10, to quote Vasu; "3ms is not a number I play with haha. It’s more like 30!"

Vasu's website - https://www.vasundharagupta.com/

Extra links

Lata Mangeshkar (legendary Bollywood female lead playback singer) https://tidal.com/artist/30815

Audio UX Sonic branding https://www.auxnyc.com/about

Article about San Francisco Int'l Airport's quiet spaces project: https://www.airport-technology.com/features/san-francisco-quiet-airport/

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Associate Professor - HRI - Bristol Robotics Lab -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

Contact: [email protected] I welcome any comments or guest suggestions.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Paul Bremner, is Associate Professor in Human-Robot Interaction at Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Paul's publications - https://scholar.google.fr/

Extra links

Bristol Robotics Lab - https://www.bristolroboticslab.com/Core-Staff

Sellafield UK Nuclear site - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

Paro seal robot - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJq5PQZHU-I

Geminoid realistic clone robot - https://robotsguide.com/robots/geminoidhi1

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Human Robot Interview -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

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Show notes:

This month's episode was experimental. With the help of my friend Matt I attempted something I've been thinking about for a while. A human robot interaction - with ChatGPT as the robot.

Extra links:

Andrej Karpathy explains the workings of Large Language Models (1hr) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkBMFhNj_g

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Composer and sound designer for games -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Kenny Young, is a 9x academy nominated composer and sound designer for games (he got one more since I recorded the intro!!)

Kenny's website - https://www.audbod.com/

Kenny on socials: bsky - https://bsky.app/profile/kcmyoung.bsky.social Twitter - https://x.com/kcmyoung

Extra links

AURA at the sphere - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRo2qLMcUw

"Enshittification" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Astrobot game trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unYFdcEjV9k

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Director of the Human-Robot Interaction Lab Sønderborg -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Professor Kerstin Fischer from University of Southern Denmark, she is Director of the Human-Robot Interaction Lab Sønderborg and

Professor (MSO) for Language and Technology Interaction.

Kerstin's Google Scholar page - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CSf7_Q0AAAAJ&hl=en

Kerstin's LinkedIn - https://dk.linkedin.com/in/kerstin-fischer-sdu

Extra links

Pepper Robot https://us.softbankrobotics.com/pepper

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer/Host Shell Game Podcast -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Evan Ratliff, is the writer and host of the 2024 smash hit podcast Shell Game. He is also an award winning investigative journalist and author, having written about technology for the past 25 years.

Shell Game Podcast - https://www.shellgame.co/podcast

Evan's substack - https://substack.com/@evanratliff

Evan's website - https://cazart.net/

Radiolab episode about Shell Game - https://radiolab.org/podcast/shell-game

Extra links

Character AI https://character.ai

Zoom CEO wants AI clones in meetings Article

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professor of Spoken Language Processing at the University of Sheffield -

Interviews on the topic of sound for human-robot interactions. Game audio designer Ali Tocher enjoys long form conversations with a wide range of guests.

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Show notes:

This month's guest, Professor Roger Moore, is Professor of Spoken Language Processing at the University of Sheffield. He was head of the UK Govt’s Speech Research Unit from 1985 to 1999 and is also chair of a multi-disciplinary research group called VIHAR - which stands for Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots.

University of Sheffield - https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cs/people/academic/roger-k-moore

Roger's LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/roger-moore-6671972

VIHAR - https://vihar.lis-lab.fr/

Extra links

Hanson Robotics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Mwl6p1enA 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qxRsCZwcQ 

MRI of a tongue when singing (trigger warning - slightly gross) 

https://youtu.be/zGi3CrFx1S4?si=uaUzU8Vb5mlzq1dY

***SPECIAL THANKS***

Original Music: Mara Simpson "Ropes" https://marasimpson.bandcamp.com/

Original Artwork: Ben Pearce https://www.benpearce.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.