Making electronic dance music with seismic data

Scientific outreach is often made through visualisation: graphic design, filmmaking etc… As a seismologist, I often thought that seismic waveforms could look a little bit unappealing to the eye (some may strongly disagree with me). Fortunately, there have been recent efforts to use sound to visualise and listen to earthquake data, making for unique outreach exhibitions. Here, I propose to go beyond by transforming and arranging seismic data into electronic dance music. On this poster, I  show the workflow behind ‘Tremors’, a melodic techno track (made under the moniker of LEARTH), which was produced with almost exclusively processed seismic signals. I present the link between a variety of seismic signals and musical instruments frequency responses and show how the track can be built with Python, Ableton and Touch Designer. I also made an abstract music video that exhibits the range of processes we can record at the Earth’s surface. Meet me at my poster to listen to the music or watch the video. I will also bring my sampler with pre-loaded Earth sounds: come along if you want to do your own track !