My father is an M.D. and we were listening to Dark Side of the Moon. During the heartbeat at the very beginning of the album (before “Speak to Me”) he heard a heart murmur which he describes as “mid” (rather than early/late). We had to use headphones to hear this, and even my untrained ear could hear it once I knew what I was listening for.
I did a Google search and apparently nobody has heard this before.
This was from a vinyl 33 using solid state equipment. Nothing unusual about his turntable except for the fact that it’s pretty high end.
My questions:
Are there any medical professionals here who have heard this before on this track or could listen to it and verify?
Perhaps this is an artifact of the recording process. Is there anything that could cause such a sound on the vinyl? A loose snare on a snare drum could cause the sound, but the heartbeat noise would not be on the studio speakers during recording so this doesn’t make much sense.
For anyone else who is curious, this is kind of a “whooshing” noise between the first and second heart noises of each cycle.
This is driving us nuts. Any theories would be welcome.
Thanks for listening to it, Qadgop. I (as a non-medical person) could definitely hear something, but like I said, it could just be some kind of artifact which is perfectly in time with the heart noises. I’m a skeptic by nature and I’ve tried to rule out as much as possible. This noise does not occur after the 2nd heart noise in each cycle which rules out a whole bunch.
Perhaps some recording industry insiders or audiophiles might have some input. That’s the great thing about The Straight Dope… a wide variety of expertise. And I figured that with the Wizard of Oz deal and whatever else has been cooked up about the album, this would be mildly interesting for folks around here.
The only thing I would have liked to add to my original post is that this noise sounds almost like tape hiss to me, it’s that subtle, but it only lasts for a fraction of a second after the first heart noise in each cycle (almost like an immediate echo), and of course it’s vinyl, not tape. Tape hiss or water running through a pipe from a distance is the only way I can describe it as a layman myself. Even with my father’s stack of speakers I could not hear it… headphones was the only way for me to hear it.
Well, the heartbeat on Dark Side of the Moon was created with a modified bass drum, so it’s not an actual heart murmur. I suspect that a pair of beats was looped to create the sound, and the perfect timing you’re hearing is due to that.
This was one possibility I threw out when discussing it with him. Unfortunately the making of that heartbeat was the one thing I neglected to Google.
Do you have a cite for this information? Not that I don’t necessarily believe it; I’m just going to need all the help I can get if that’s the embarrassing case.
Even before I made this post I asked my father (keep in mind an M.D.) if he could tell the difference between a heart and a bass drum. Surprisingly, he didn’t laugh me out of the house. He paused and then said yes. I reminded him that rock band bass drums have holes cut and blankets stuffed inside to deaden them, so they weren’t the bass drums that he remembers from marching band. He still maintained that he could tell the difference. I’m surprised that Qadgop didn’t notice the difference between a drum and a heart, if he’s been classically trained too.
But your suggestion about looping makes the most sense that I’ve heard so far. You may be onto something there. But why would the hiss only occur after the first “heart” noise and not the second? Sloppy recording? Something happened in the studio equipment that precise moment?
Where would someone go to find interviews from the folks that did the sound effects from that album?
Now what about this, just throwing it out as a possibility:
I’m not a drummer, but I have played drums before and I do own a drum kit. If one were asked to make a “thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP” noise on the bass drum, what you’d do is hit the pedal and keep your foot hovering mid-stroke on the pedal after the first thump. The mallet would be away from the face of the drum. And then for the second hit you’d just tromp on the pedal and plant your foot firmly down; the mallet would deaden anything further. This could possibly explain why the noise is only after the first “heart” noise and not the second.
A lighter or other potsmoking materials parked on top of the bass drum (a convenient place) would vibrate whether the mallet was against the face of the drum or not. So I can only conclude that whatever is making that murmur/hiss noise must be on the face of the drum itself? This is, of course, assuming that the heartbeat was in fact created by a bass drum.
For a lot of people one of the first signs you had a really good sound system was when the heartbeat was clearly a bass drum. It is subtle, but when you have a very good system you can hear the furry mallet texture, and hear the remnants of the tuned modes of the drum skin. I only hear it on headphones - and they are quite high end phones (either Etymotic ER-4S or Sennheiser HD-650) and usually with pretty solid source and drive. But It is there.
As for noise, it is worth remembering that Pink Floyd (with Alan Parsons) was was one of the progenitors of very complex layered studio production - and pretty much everything has been bounced around, remixed and layered. It doesn’t have the signal to noise that you might see with other recordings. At least the heartbeat is on the outer edge of an LP, so the track speed is good and you are not really cramping the system’s ability to reproduce higher frequencies.
WOW. Thank you Francis, excellent post! See I just knew the folks of the Straight Dope would come through with the goods. He’s going to love when I share your post with him. (Although he might not like to hear that his setup is substandard!)
Indeed, fortunately the speed is up there on this track. Now why they usually avoid putting the good tracks on the outside is beyond me and has no doubt been the subject of countless threads/columns over the past 42 years… if memory serves it had something to do with not trusting the vinyl to spread out properly to the edges in the mold. But then the leader groove wouldn’t work so that doesn’t make sense to me. Subject of another thread, and that I can research.
Thank you so much Francis. You sound like a man who knows what he’s talking about with respect to this issue. I’m quite in awe that this exact sound was used as a benchmark at one point, and the right person happened to be reading the thread at the right time. I’m amazed.
There was no heart murmur heard by me there. No drum murmur either.
Seriously, I didn’t think the recording was an actual heartbeat (based mainly on what I knew of how the song was recorded), I was just checking for a murmur. Which was absent. I did note but didn’t mention, that physiological S2 splitting was absent.
That is one way of doing it, but you don’t have to bury the beater (and many drum teachers advise strictly against it, because it does deaden the sound. But if that’s the sound you’re going for, go for it.)
I was born in 1974. Never saw the inside album cover until Google, about 15 minutes ago. (My copy was on cassette, taped off a friend. Because no one ever stole music before torrents.)
Do you know how long it took me to realize that WAS an EKG? Too long. Plus, it’s not on the CD booklet. I should say “my” CD booklet–I may have a foreign pressing.
You’re one up on me; I’ve never heard “torrents.” Too old (1960).
