I would like to tell you about an idea I just had, so you can tell me what you think about the idea itself and its feasability.
The "problem" is the following : I live in a big city in France, and I am getting tired of the noise around, especially in the bedroom which has a window on the street. The kind of noise I am talking about is mainly traffic noise.
So I thought about noise cancellation, but I think it is too complex to be done with an arduino and a good result. I also imagine it is only efficient for very specific noises (plane take of ...).
So instead of noise cancellation, I thought I could do what I call noise Replacement : I mean by that replacing the nerving sounds by nice sounds (nature, wind, sea ...) to create a peaceful environment.
The sounds would be triggered by a certain level of outside noise, and their magnitude would be aligned on the magnitude of the noise outside.
Questions :
What do you think of the idea itself ? Maybe you know better concepts that could be applied ?
What do you think of the feasibility ?
What kind of device could I use to store and play sounds in interface with arduino ?
math0pla:
So instead of noise cancellation, I thought I could do what I call noise Replacement : I mean by that replacing the nerving sounds by nice sounds (nature, wind, sea ...) to create a peaceful environment.
The sounds would be triggered by a certain level of outside noise, and their magnitude would be aligned on the magnitude of the noise outside.
Questions :
What do you think of the idea itself ? Maybe you know better concepts that could be applied ?
To me it sounds like a weird idea to add a new sound to disturbing loud sound, to create an even louder sound mix.
I'd close the windows.
If the windows are closed and it is still loud, replace the windows with noise reduction windows.
Could it be as simple as feeding a pre-amped mic input to an audio transformer with the output wires phase reversed. The output goes to an amp & speaker to produce the anti-waveform?
My understanding is that noise cancellation is just the reversal of the phase of sound picked up by a microphone. Of course you may need powerful speakers to match the amplitude of the external noise. And the phase reversal may only be effective in a particular place.
I found it very effective with earphones for cancelling noise inside an aircraft.
The simplest way to add "pleasant" noise is with a HiFi.
So instead of noise cancellation, I thought I could do what I call noise Replacement : I mean by that replacing the nerving sounds by nice sounds (nature, wind, sea ...) to create a peaceful environment.
I don't think it makes sense to build something. There are "sound masking" machines you can buy or you can search for sound masking CDs or downloads.
The machines aren't particularly loud. The are usually designed to sit beside your bed near your ears so they the sound hitting your ears is loud enough to mask annoying sounds.
[u]Audacity[/u] (a free audio editor) can generate white noise or pink noise, which you can save-as MP3 or WAV (or burn to CD with a different program). But, sounds like rain, ocean waves, etc., will probably be more pleasing than constant white or pink noise.
The sounds would be triggered by a certain level of outside noise, and their magnitude would be aligned on the magnitude of the noise outside.
I don't think that will work psychologically. You need a constant sound that you can get used to and generally ignore.
if the sound is coming through the window, try to put a speaker at the window and as Robin2 said, create an anti-phase sound.
if it is coming thru the wall, is it high or low pitch ?
they make wall speakers that attach to the wall and make the wall the speaker.
same thing, need to modulate the phase to eliminate the sound.
if you have ever seen one on equipment, it is quite remarkable.
About double/triple glazing : I am not owner of the apartment so I don't want to make this expense (and I want to try something more original :))
I have been reconsidering the antiphase noise. The thing I thought was complex is to have the cancelling noise at the right distance from the source of noise so that the phase are 180° opposed. Then I considered the "wall speakers" suggested by dave-in-nj (thanks :)).
What do you think of vibrating directly the window (which I think is the source of noise) with the opposite phase of the noise retrieved by a mic on the same window ?
