A listening field.

Leave a sound. Let the microphone wander.
Hear what chance brings into focus.

Listening journal

AWAITING YOUR SOUNDS00 / 01 TAPES
100%

DRAG TO ARRANGE · SELECT TO RECORD

Bird’s-eye view · downward-pointing microphone · collection sector O→M

NOW IN FOCUSSilence

Negative reverses the motor. Zero stops the drive; passive motion settles.

Increase the sound radius to blend neighbouring tapes. A wider angle hears more of the field.

Drag a tape to arrange. Drag the background to pan. Scroll to zoom.

Focus a cassette and use the arrow keys to move it. Hold Shift for larger moves. Escape cancels a drag. Drag the background to pan the view, or use the zoom and Fit all buttons. The numbered cassette buttons bring overlapping tapes to the front.

Field mixer

0 fields playing

Mix several fields together, including tabs you are not viewing. Recording and previews pause the mix.

Mixed output

Silence · flat trace

All playing fields · after master volume · fixed amplitude scale

Phantom V3

Sounds share a field. A moving microphone brings one into focus, then lets it disappear.

Phantom V3 installation: a tall rotation mechanism with microphones suspended above cassette players.Cassette players scattered on the floor around the microphone stand and audio electronics.

This is an interactive extension of Bryan Yueshen Wu’s physical sound installation. One motor drives a rotating rail, with a second rail on a passive bearing. A downward-pointing microphone is suspended from the second rail on a cable three times that rail’s full length. The bird’s-eye view shows the horizontal projection of this motion; the microphone appears as a circle.

Record your sounds into virtual cassettes. Each tape loops continuously. An angular collection sector is centred on the main origin O and follows the outward radial direction O→M, towards the microphone. This is the virtual field’s listening rule. Listening angle and cassette sound radii soften its edges, letting nearby recordings overlap and crossfade. Outside the listening regions, the field fades into silence.

A narrow angle and small radius isolate sounds. Larger radii blend neighbouring recordings; the radius control changes all cassette circles together. Motor speed ranges from −225°/s to 225°/s, matching the personal site’s rotation study. Negative values reverse the motor; at zero, the drive stops and the passive motion settles. Listening angle ranges from 10° to 180°.

Begin with one cassette, then add as many as your arrangement needs. Remove a cassette from its editor; Undo restores it and its recording. Zoom with the + and − buttons or scroll over the field. Drag the background to pan, and use Fit all to see every cassette and the microphone together. Zooming changes the view while listening stays anchored to the field.

Drag any cassette with your mouse or finger to define your own listening field, including while the microphone is moving. Tapes can be clustered or spread apart. Their sound circles and playback follow their new positions. Use the numbered buttons to select overlapping tapes, or focus a tape and move it with the arrow keys. Reset arrangement restores the original layout while keeping your sounds.

Keep a listening journal with a separate tab for each day, place, or sound study. New field creates another field with its own cassettes, arrangement, listening settings, name, and date. You can return to earlier fields as your journal grows.

Each field has its own wandering microphone. Use the Field mixer to play several fields together, even when their tabs are not in view. Adjust each field’s level, mute it, or solo selected fields; Master volume controls the complete mix.

Mixed output shows an oscilloscope of the final audio signal from all playing fields, after master volume and output compression. The amplitude scale stays fixed, so lowering the output level reduces the trace. Silence appears as a flat line.

Your fields, sounds, cassette arrangements, and mixer settings are saved locally in this browser when storage is available. They are not uploaded or shared with other visitors. Export notebook keeps a separate copy of every tab or moves your journal to another browser. Import fields adds the incoming fields as new tabs; older single-field sets can also be imported.

Microphone recording needs browser permission. If the embedded view blocks access, open the full page or upload an audio file. All listening pauses during recording, cassette previews, and when the page is hidden.

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