HBM029: Do Crickets Sing Hymns?

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