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 is UX sound designer Harrison Zafrin who, in his words, "nobody cares more about 8ms sound effects." Harrison works to design sound for multi-sensory interactions on technological devices. I was extra excited to talk to Harrison because he does not work with robots, but the crossover in his professional skillset was seriously illuminating for me.

Harrison's LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/harrison-zafrin

Harrison's Website - https://www.harrisonzafrin.com/

Featured clips -

Star Wars battle droids are not very likeable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShQwuJi_FwM

Brian Eno, The Microsoft Sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno#The_Microsoft_Sound "...when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time."

HBO brand ident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Oh7HizY5I

Bernie Krause, natural soundscape book: The Great Animal Orchestra

Harrison's favourite sound: Noisia & The Upbeats

***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.

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.

_______

Show notes:

This month's guest is composer and sound designer Mike Forst who released Amazon's home companion robot Astro. Mike worked as Audio Lead and then became Character Lead on that project. He is now a freelance composer, sound designer and artist.

Mike's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-forst-77823718

Mike's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mikeforst/?hl=en

Amazon Astro - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj1t3msy8dc

Definitions: I noticed Mike and I reference "TTS" several times without defining it as "Text To Speech" - the ability for a computer system to generate speech audio from text rather than pre-recorded voice lines.

***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.

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.

_______

Show notes:

This month's guest is composer and sound designer Tracy Bush who worked at robotics company Sphero on several licensed robots from film - R2D2, BB8, Lightning McQueen.

Tracy's Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/tracywbush

Mars Rover birthday song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGkUbvPsgNY&t=7s

Neal Stephenson w/ Lex Fridman https://youtu.be/xAfdSak2fs8?si=i9ZZSk4QccBNXAFl

BB8 from Starwars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgP5flzrcE4

Lightning McQueen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdGWRq1dVBA

Kuri robot https://robotsguide.com/robots/kuri

Star Trek Scotty "hello computer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWhugUmV5U

Definitions: 2 terms from our discussion that I thought could be useful to define.

Nyquist - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency

Eprom - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM

***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.

Lead Audio for Anki - Vector / Cozmo

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.

_______

Show notes:

This episode’s guest is Ben Gabaldon, formerly Audio Lead for robotics company Anki, where he shipped audio for robots Cozmo and Vector.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-gabaldon-0b829110

Cozmo/Vector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-MsY9pLWKI

Ben's WIP videos creating voice for the robots: https://vimeo.com/345223512

Elevenlabs - cutting edge voice synthesis: https://elevenlabs.io/

Ben Burtt IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0123785/

Facial micro expressions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5751645/

Railway station robot promo video - "Furhat": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irx30qbiVlU

Game audio: https://youtu.be/89_WG5PiTpo?si=V-Pqp3mUzk-1uRbt

Boston Dynamics - Spot new feature video: https://youtu.be/qgHeCfMa39E?si=dCBskTrV4kuqFWAi

Children do better with 1on1 tuition study: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-schools-and-16-to-19-providers/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-16-to-19-providers-phase-1-findings

***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.

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.

_______

Show notes:

This episode’s guest is Dr Iain McGregor, an Associate Professor of sound design at Edinburgh’s Napier University.

Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/driainmcgregor

Link to Dr McGregor’s survey “What's in a name? Human-Robot Interaction” Please fill it out if you're interested.

https://survey.napier.ac.uk/TakeSurveyPage.aspx?s=b0311e403a7c405f8e56d34f1b538981&tsid=064aa7b448124d29b481d09a546edd60&c=en-GB

Dr McGregor’s article on robotics sound design

https://www.asoundeffect.com/robot-sound-design/

Moxi hospital robot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLY3XxLtkng

Audio watermarking in advertising

https://medium.com/intrasonics/can-audio-watermarked-connected-ads-reverse-the-drop-in-tv-ad-spend-and-help-save-commercial-tv-8df06fa3a94b

Boston dynamics robot “abuse” testing videos *trigger warning*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuA50H9uek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR5Z6AoMh6U

Boston dynamics spot with ChatGPT integration: https://youtu.be/djzOBZUFzTw?si=eK3nc0u-G3PRu66V

***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.

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