HBM029: Do Crickets Sing Hymns?
Here Be Monsters
Here Be Monsters Podcast
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2013
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A bit of stunningly beautiful audio has surfaced online recently and it's riling up two different kinds of people--churchgoers and audio engineers. Some are saying that this music proves God's intention, others say it's a load of crap. The funny thing is that it's just recordings of bugs, crickets chirping, but with the speed turned waaaaaayyyy ddoooowwwnnn. Whatever it is, it's...undeniably "church-y".
But some have argued that it's not just bugs in the recording, that there's voices or guitars accompanying the insects...it's just too good to be true.
So, in this episode, audio engineer Toby Reif takes us down the rabbit hole of audio theory to help us understand how sound-stretching works, and the reasons why this long loop of cricket noises has touched so many.
Jeff also buys 50 crickets in this episode to see if they'll chirp. Tune in to see what happens.
Toby and Jeff originally heard the cricket audio from a Croatian Sound Cloud user who uploaded the sounds and mis-attributed them to the theater director Robert Wilson. (UPDATE: the Soundclouder who uploaded this has since corrected much of the misinformation that was formerly in the sound's description).
Toby and Jeff love Paul's Extreme Sound Stretcher. It's free. (Windows/Linux only. sorry Apple folk)
Music from: The Palisades ||| Phantom Fauna
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | What you're hearing right now is the sound of a music box, one of those little wind-up toys that you have when you're a child. |
| 0:19.0 | But in this recording each note has been stretched out to five or ten seconds long |
| 0:32.3 | a piece. |
| 0:35.0 | Some strange things happen when you stretch out sound in this regard. |
| 0:41.0 | There's gaps in between each piece of audio that you have to |
| 0:46.4 | fill with with something and that's what today's show is going to be about |
| 0:52.3 | I'm going to be about. |
| 0:53.0 | I mean to talk about audio and gaps and gaps between audio and what happens when a computer tries to fill those gaps with what it thinks we want to hear. This episode of Hereby Monsters is brought to you by Square Space, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy for you to create your own professional website or online portfolio. |
| 1:33.5 | For a free trial and for 10% off your new website, go to Squarespace.com and use the offer code |
| 1:38.8 | Monsters 11. |
| 1:41.0 | If you follow the show regularly, you'll know that the new Kirby Monsters website is just a millimeter away from launching. |
| 1:47.0 | One feature that I really appreciate that that Squarespace offers in all their templates is a feature that's becoming increasingly important in building |
| 1:54.6 | a website and that is called responsive design. |
| 1:57.6 | Responsive design is this concept that you have one website that looks good on every single |
| 2:02.2 | device so be at a laptop or a |
| 2:05.4 | mobile phone it doesn't matter it's going to look great and you'll notice this |
| 2:09.7 | with the new here be monsters website that it looks it looks awesome on cell phones and that's |
| 2:13.9 | because it's based off of one of Square Space's professionally designed templates. |
| 2:19.0 | So if you're looking to start a new website or upgrade the one you already have go to square space |
| 2:24.2 | dot com and use this show special offer code for 10% off and a free domain name when you |
| 2:29.8 | sign up for a year that's square space.com and use offer code monsters and the number 11. |
| 2:36.1 | That's monsters 11. Here be monsters, the podcast about. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Here Be Monsters Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Here Be Monsters Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.