CHANNELS INSPIRED BY NATURE
There is no doubt that sounds of nature have positive effects on our minds. That's why we’ve chosen only natural sounds as a base for your ambient soundscapes. Waves lapping on the sea shore, birds chirping, wind playing in the trees. All this evokes feelings with psychological benefits, from nostalgia to optimism, social connectedness and self-esteem.
Earth
Sounds of forest, birds singing, everything is alive with the music of nature, filling your heart with happiness.
+BINAURAL BEATS
Wind
Freedom for your mind. Meditate with sound of wind generated by filtering from white noise. Drift into enchanted lands.
+BINAURAL BEATS
Water
Allow the ocean waves to touch your emotions.
Slow down and relax. This channel contains natural white noise to help you sleep.
+BINAURAL BEATS
Fire
Travel to space and escape the ordinary with this combination of reverb and filtered white noise. Enjoy playful creativity.
+BINAURAL BEATS
SYNTH & EFFECTS ENGINES
Reverb & Filters
In the real world, reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected from and absorbed by the surfaces of objects in the space
– which could include furniture, people, and air - causing a large number of reflections to build up and then decay. In Glo, this effect is
simulated by repeating small chunks of recorded audio over and over. There are channels that combine this with low-pass filters that you can
tune up or down by tilting the whale, so only a certain part of the spectrum is processed.
Granular Sampler
Recorded audio is split into pieces, called grains. Multiple grains may be layered on top of each other, and play at different speeds,
phases, volume, and frequency. Some of these parameters are influenced by tilting the whale, for example left-right direction typically selects
major or minor chord and increases stereo spread. Tilting to front and back increases or decreases amount of grains. There is also a control
for detuning so you can get far away from the initial melodic chords.
Delay line with oscillators
Delay works by recording audio signal temporarily and playing it back after a short time and mixing it into
the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo. In this channel, sound generated by
"digitally controlled oscillators" is added into the mix.
This sound engine is based on Tiny-TS by Jan Ostman,
code has been extended to run 32 oscillators at once, in stereo. Every oscillator has individually defined parameters, but for the simplicity the
implemented controls affect all of them at once. An oscillator can run a few basic waveforms (sine, square, saw)
or be completely disabled.
Drum kit
This is a very simple but fun channel where you control three drums and one cymbal. Hold your Glo in upright
position and move it in four directions as if it was a drumstick and there were invisible drums around.
It is also possible to hit two of
them at once. LED light indicates which one has been hit (blue for kick, red for snare, green for cymbal, pink for hi-hat).
The usual controls apply, also holding the "play" button for 2 seconds is a shortcut to enable/disable echo
delay (and cycling through multiple timing options).
HIDDEN EXPERIMENTAL CHANNELS
Once you fully explore the 12 basic channels, you may want to check out the rest. To access them you need to key in the "unlock" sequence. To learn how to do this, and for a complete list and description of these channels please refer to 2nd part of the manual.
Complete list of channels
This is a default order, you can override it by holding (>) and (+) as explained in the basic manual.
- Earth element, “Air on the G string”, forest
- Wind element
- Water element, “Rachel’s song”, sea
- Fire element, space channel with reverb
- Reverb, decaying
- Granular sampler
- DCO, “Seasick Jonah”
- Drum kit
- Space channel (without reverb)
- Clouds by Émilie Gillet / Mutable Instruments
- Dekrispator by Xavier Halgand
- Song of Wind and Ice (with isochronic tones)
- Water element with alternative background (creek), featuring “Ghost in the Shell” score
- Bytebeat, music from math formulas
- Chopper
- Pass through (if you want to use the whale as a sensitive stereo microphone for field recording)
17-20. Water element with sea/creek background and alternative filter settings or chord progression
21-23. Water element with three alternative sea backgrounds, featuring chord progression from the amazing “Notjustmoreidlechatter” by Paul Lansky
24. High-pass filters, voiceover background, chord progression from “Notjustmoreidlechatter”
BINAURAL BEATS
A binaural beat is an auditory illusion perceived when you hear two different waves with slightly different frequency, one through each ear. Your brain then recognizes this difference as a third tone, in addition to the two pure tones presented to each ear.
They were discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, who published his findings in the scientific journal Repertorium der Physik.
The subject remained something of a scientific curiosity until 134 years later, with the publishing of Gerald Oster's article
"Auditory beats in the brain" (Scientific American, 1973). Oster's article identified and assembled the scattered pieces
of relevant research since Dove, offering fresh insight (and new laboratory findings) to research on binaural beats.
Source: Wikipedia [1] and [2]
You can access the binaural beats mode from the four elemental and some others channels. The LED light glowing in pink indicates that binaural mode is available. To activate it, hold ON button for 2 seconds. The LED colour will change to a pulsing light, indicating which binaural beat program is on. To move between programs, hold ON button for 2 seconds again. Short press stops binaural beats.
There are four basic types of brain waves that can be triggered by a binaural beats program. They are defined by a frequency at which neural signals oscillate:
- Alpha: 7.5 to 12.5 Hz, good for relaxation
- Beta: 12.5 to 30 Hz, help with concentration
- Delta: 0.5 to 4 Hz, helps with dreamless deep sleep
- Theta: 4 to 7 Hz, helps to achieve deep meditation and boost creativity
Although each channel has a pre-defined binaural program, you can skip to a different one if you prefer. They are arranged in a circle, as shown on this picture:
