Singing Power Lines

How it's made

Source

crosswind excites aeolian vibration in suspended conductors. A moving narrow noise band models vortex shedding; soft sine components model the coherent lock-in of the vibrating wire.

Body

three adjacent conductors sing near 330 Hz, 342 Hz and 493 Hz at the default tension. Each has a weak second partial and an independently wandering wake, avoiding a fixed organ chord.

Envelope

smooth 12 s and 6 s wind cycles drive pitch, noise brightness and squared excitation. Each wire responds at a slightly different threshold; random wander adds 1–3 s irregularities.

Layers

broad, quiet pink turbulence occupies 180–3000 Hz under narrow wire bands. High-pass at 110 Hz removes pressure rumble; low-pass at 6200 Hz keeps the exposed country air thin and clean.

Variation

seed changes wind phase, tuning within 0.7 percent and independent wire motion. Wind controls excitation and pitch travel, tension scales resonance, and beating separates wires.

Presets

distant high wires, a lower long span, close beating conductors, and forceful crosswind change register, spectral balance and gust depth. The renderer crossfades the 12 s loop seam.

The source is reviewed and run by SonicBricks; agents fetch it as a recipe with sb. It is not published on this page.