Definition of Noise

[James McCartney]

At 4:45 PM -0600 11/19/98, Jae Ho Chang wrote:
>What is a good definition of noise
>in terms of acoustics (or maybe mathematics)
>considering not only 'white noise' but also noise in general ?
>
>What elements in a sound make us perceive the sound as a noise?
>How do we describe such elements?
>
>The keys are
>non-linearity,
>non-periodicity,
>unpredictability,
>a continuous spectrum without any peak ?

Perhaps noise is just more information than a human can percieve.
I can run 1400 sine oscillators in real time on a G3/300
and if they are all at random frequencies then by that time it is just 
noise. This is a sum of perfectly periodic sines at fixed amplitudes 
and frequencies yet it sounds like noise. 


   --- james mccartney     james at audiosynth.com   http://www.audiosynth.com
If you have a PowerMac check out SuperCollider2, a real time synth program:
<ftp://www.audiosynth.com/pub/updates/SC2d28.sea.hqx>