Follow-Up: Soundscapes On The Emacspeak Audio Desktop

1 Executive Summary

Nearly a year ago, I blogged here about Soundscapes on the emacspeak Audio Desktop. That article ended with this following paragraph:

I implemented package soundscape to create a platform that would let me experiment
with different tools that aid in concentration. After using Soundscapes for about a week,
I have also found that it reduces some of the fatigue that results from having to listen
to synthetic text-to-speech for extended periods. The true value (if any) of this package
will be a function of how heavily I find myself using it six months from now --- as a
metric, complete success might mean that in mid-2016, I still have automatic soundscapes
turned on.

2 And Nearly A Year Later …

I have not found the need to turn off Soundscapes in Emacspeak. As conjectured, it has definitely increased my productivity, specifically in terms of staying focused on a given task at hand. Over the year, I've also augmented the emacspeak Audio Desktop with support for binaural audio — see module sox-gen — which provides a collection of binaural themes for use during different times of the day. Binaural themes generated by that module overlay Emacspeak Soundscapes to provide an ideal auditory environment for use over headphones.

3 Soundscape Enhancements

Since the publication of the original article, Emacspeak Soundscapes have been enhanced with additional sounds from Freesound.org. Emacspeak Soundscapes have been updated to take advantage of Boodler's limited abilities in the areas of spatial positioning. I typically use Soundscapes with one of several virtual ALSA devices that have been configured to apply different Ladspa effects such as reverb or crossfeed depending on the ambient environment where I am working — this significantly improves the spatialization of soundscapes being played — see file ladspa-asoundrc. Finally, the mapping of Soundscapes to various Emacs modes has also been tuned. — see table below.

Soundscape (Mood) List Of Major Modes
BirdSongs shell term
BlopEchoes elfeed-search
Bonfire calendar diary
BuddhaLoop comint
Cavern prog
ChangingLoops special
ChangingLoopsPitches lisp-interaction
Drip message gnus-summary gnus-article gnus-group mspools vm-presentation vm mail twittering jabber-roster jabber-chat erc
LoopStew emacspeak-m-player
NoStormYet fundamental
RainForever Info help Man Custom messages-buffer
RainSounds magit vc
Still text view
SurfWaves w3 eww
TonkSpace tabulated-list
WaterFlow dired

4 Summary

As outlined in a previous article, sound on Linux provides unending possibilities with respect to innovation, here's looking forward to better things to come.

Date: <2015-12-18 Fri>

Author: T.V Raman

Created: 2016-11-29 Tue 14:48

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