Singing Bowl

[woah]

Not sure if this deserves a full topic, but what the hell.

 

Today my parents brought home a "Singing Bowl" used in meditation. It's basically a large bowl made of crystal (at least in this case it was) that reverberates when you slide a wooden stick (covered with some sort of material) around its edges. I thought nothing of it until I heard a quite familiar, hypnotic sound coming from the other room; I immediately realized where I had recognized it from.

 

Thief II utilized some intriguing ambient noises that established an unprecedented mood and atmosphere, and this was undoubtedly one of those ambient noises (Either that, or it's striking coincidence; in either case, it doesn't matter). The pitch of the reverberations from the bowl continually increase and decrease, invoking a mystical sort of feeling that--just as the nearly identical sounds did in Thief--would clear the player's mind and assist in immersing them into the game (making them feel as if they really are the player, and not just someone controlling them through an interface). I'm not one easily taken by "such things," but listening to one of these singing bowls seems to put you in a sort of trance; your mind almost seems to go numb and you can easily relax and concentrate at the same time. It reminds me of Thief immensily, both in the feeling it invokes and the familiar tone that is unique to Thief.

 

If the team is looking for a superb source of ambient sound that would help establish a memorable and alluring Thief atmosphere, I highly suggest looking into obtaining (borrowing might be wiser, as they are extremely expensive) one of these and forming some recordings (and then, of course, editing them to suit a looping ambient noise and adding any necessary effects). Perhaps you would be able to generate sounds similar to these with your own tools, but I think the natural form would be better in either case.

 

There are actually some short clips you can listen to here on Amazon.com, but none of them do justice as to what it sounds like in person. In any case, turn your speakers up really loud as they are quite faint in those recordings. I'd recommend checking out "Golden Alchemy," "Binaural Entrainment," "Crystal Healing," and--most especially--"Tibetan/Egyptian." (Yes, the names are quite rediculous)

 

 

Here is a picture of a singing bowl similar to the crystal bowl my parents brought home if any of you are at all interested in seeing what they look like. http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/crystalbowlpix/rosequartz.jpg

[Gildoran]

That's the sound of resonance, so it's no suprise to hear it other places... although singing bowls may be engineered to have better sound, you can do the same thing on an ordinary wine-glass: fill it about halfway with water, get your finger wet and drag it around the rim of the glass.

[Maximius]

A wok with a bit of hot oil in the bottom will "sing" as well. I used to belong to a wok band called General Tso, the group broke up when our drummer fell into a vat of monosodium glutomate and dehydrated himself to death.

 

Woah, I bet I know which sound from t2 you are referring to. Is it that really spacy piece that sounds like ghosts moaning, the one that is soooooooo good for setting up a scary old mansion or dungeon? Theres another one as well, even more spacier than the first one, that sounds like a devotee of Dagon playing an electric organ. THAT one is damn near the best piece of sound in any media I have ever heard. Actually, there was a thread on here about a year back when someone posted links to Thief 2 sound bites.

Edited June 22, 2006 by Maximius

[ZylonBane]

Today my parents brought home a "Singing Bowl" used in meditation.

Your parents are hippies. Get the hell out of there! Run! While you still can!

[woah]

Your parents are hippies. Get the hell out of there! Run! While you still can!

Yes, they are (well, my mom at least)

 

Right now I'm having to listen to her give some random other hippy that I've never seen before a sort of "reading." They're both sitting cross-legged, facing each other with their eyes closed in the living room with one hand's palm faced up, and the other grasping the other's hand. And now she's murmuring things that I can't distinguish from this far away...

 

"Spiritual Hippy" might be a more accurate term

 

 

As for the singing bowl thing, I don't know. Perhaps it's really nothing to get worked up about, but it's just that the sound is so foreign and thief-like--moreso in person when you can practically feel its vibrations on your head; you'd doubt the noise was coming from such a small and simple thing. Without infringing on any

copyrights and such, I think one could make something very similar to Theif's ambience had they one of their own.

[Darkness_Falls]

That's cool; I've never heard of a "singing bowl." But some of the sounds it makes -- like in Golden Alchemy -- sound like a sound my keyboard makes called "Glasswaves." In a couple of the samples, I also hear a sound which is reminiscent of the "Glockenspiel" sound on my keyboard.

 

I actually used Glasswaves in one of my Dark Mod ambient tracks already (because I observed its use in Thief 2), but I digitally tweaked it a bit so it may not be 100% recognizable as such. I planned to try and use it more because the sound is very "Thief 2". I think I used some Glockenspiel in the same ambient track, too.

 

Thanks for the heads-up regarding this singing bowl. If and when I ever get professional microphone/recorder equipment, I will definitely look into recording a singing bowl

[ZylonBane]

I've noticed that a lot of ordinary sounds can be turned into "Thiefish" sounds just by slowing them way down. Heck, the "Thooooooom" sound that starts all the Thief missions is just the slowed-down sound of a ball being hit.

Edited June 23, 2006 by ZylonBane

[Darkness_Falls]

Yep, that is a key, indeed.

[bob_arctor]

A ball being hit? What the classic sound? Wow. I love that sound, and I was happy when they used it in TDS.

[Maximius]

I've noticed that a lot of ordinary sounds can be turned into "Thiefish" sounds just be slowing them way down. Heck, the "Thooooooom" sound that starts all the Thief missions is just the slowed-down sound of a ball being hit.

 

 

Where did you learn about that?

[Denny]

Maybe he speeded it up?

[Dram]

LOL, that was what I was thinking, but Zylon usually has backings to his arguments, so probably was said somewhere.

[ZylonBane]

The fact that the sound file is named "keehit_s.wav" was somewhat of a tipoff. From that point the empirical approach took care of the rest.

[bob_arctor]

So what's a "kee" then?

[Darkness_Falls]

From dictionary.com:

\Kee\ (k[=e]), n. pl. of Cow. [AS. c[=y], pl. of c[=u] cow.

The plural of cow??? And here I always thought the plural of "cow" was "cows"...

[Komag]

cattle?

[Dram]

Hitting a cow's ass?..thoooooom

[ZylonBane]

Pffft, you linear thinkers. Just swap the "s" around to the beginning and you have "skeehit".

 

Yah, nevermind that you don't hit skee balls, you throw them.

[OrbWeaver]

cattle?

 

Cattle is a mass noun, not a plural. You can't have "a few cattle" any more than "a few water" (not that people don't use the former, but it is incorrect).

[bob_arctor]

Skee. Skee. Urm...

 

Nope.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skee ??

 

Ah!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skee_ball

 

Oh that! Yeah we have that in England. No idea what we call it.

[marya]

I found some Tibetan Singing Bowls as well. Here you can listen to each bowl. They are pretty cool.

http://www.silverskyimports.com

http://www.silverskyimports.com/category/Singing_Bowls.html

[demagogue]

I vote we lock ZB in a room with some Bob Marley or Lesbian Seagull piped in through speakers, a plateful (or should I say a singing-bowl full) of magic brownies, the TV on Animal Planet, plenty of beads, birkenstocks, bree and burlap, and some free-love hippy girls. That ought to calm that cat down.

Edited March 6, 2007 by demagogue

[Gildoran]

What necromancy is this?! Quick, somebody get the holy-water while I restrain the accursed thread!

[demagogue]

Wow ... I didn't notice it at all!