Sitting behind a laptop in one of Whitefish High School’s new music practice rooms, engineer and SnowGhost Music owner Brett Allen shows two physics students how “pink noise” he recorded earlier was translated visually into a graph.

“Pink noise is octave weighted, which is the way that we hear. It’s tuned so that it’s musical as opposed to white noise like a jet engine. White noise is all frequencies at the same amplitude,” Allen said. “We’re essentially filling it [the room] with water and seeing how it holds up.”

The practice room sits just outside the band room, part of the school’s new Center for Applied Media Arts & Sciences wing. 

Physics, music, woods, media and art students are all playing a part in designing or creating the acoustical treatment of the center’s music wing, which includes five other practice rooms, a choir room and multipurpose room that functions as a theater.

Since the fall, Allen has given talks to music and physics students on sound engineering and the recording process. 

He has an extensive background in not just the science but also the art of sound, having worked with musicians Kris Kristofferson, Death Cab for Cutie, The Avett Brothers, Peter Bjorn and John, Bela Fleck and Yo La Tengo in his Whitefish studio.

Sophomore Travis Catina and senior Michael Voisin take a look at the sound frequencies that have been captured in magenta- and orange-colored peaks and valleys using special software. Allen explains how the graphing software provides information on how to manipulate the acoustics.

“You can see the bass is really narrow and pointed, and then, as it starts to excite some of the upper frequencies, it starts to spread out more. So there’s a problem in the bass because it’s pointy. I like what it’s doing there and that’s the vocal range where we normally talk. It’s a little flatter, not as pointy,” Allen said. “When we get to the high, though, we lose all the peaks, so it’s starting to attenuate too much for my taste where it just flattens out and it’s just dead, it’s dull.”

Allen said the technology is not unlike an ultrasound machine.

“It’s called a spectrograph. It’s using the same technology where it’s basically charting amplitude of frequencies and people use this type of technology for sonar to map the bottom of the ocean,” Allen said.

Voisin, a light and sound technician at the Whitefish Performing Arts Center, said he has a better understanding of the intricacies of sound in a studio setting.

“I was always told, ‘Here’s a microphone; here’s a speaker; here’s the volume’ and so this kind of gets into, well if you turn up the volume you risk feedback,” Voisin said.

The temporary acoustical treatment in the practice rooms and band room are burlap bags that used to hold coffee, but now contain acoustic foam or cardboard wrapped in sheets. This particular practice room has two bare walls. Allen claps his hands in the corner to demonstrate reverberation.

“I like the air over here. I like the upper range,” Allen said before moving to the walls covered with burlap sacks. “Whereas if a singer were to sing over here, we don’t want them to sound like they have a cold. Over here it sound likes I have congestion.”

To cut some of the high frequency sounds Catina and Voisin carry in a ladder by an omnidirectional microphone and drape some burlap sacks over it, which improves and worsens different frequencies. 

“From a linear standpoint, I think we regressed but to me it sounds better so this is where we’re like, ‘OK so how do I keep amplifying these frequencies and bringing these down but still liking the way that it sounds,’” Allen said.

Will the perfect balance ever be created? Here is where science and art meet.

“Well, that is subjective,” Allen said. “From a physics perspective, yes, you want to make it flat,” Allen said referring to the linearity and balance of sound on the graph, not pitch. “From a musical perspective that doesn’t sound good,” Allen said.

Allen said he wants to take into account what students are listening to when tuning the practice room. What may sound like too much bass, for example, is not enough for some Whitefish students Allen said. He learned this about the students after recording the jazz and orchestra in the new band room.

“We took it into the studio and equalized it to simulate what it would be like if it was flat [neutral]. They didn’t like that,” Allen said. “We want to give them the option to control how sound is set up rather than hiring an acoustician and having them come in and dictate that.”

He likened artistic license in sound to film.

“Some movies like a Quentin Tarantino film, he oversaturates the footage so it looks a certain way, or even some nature films they make the greens greener and yellows yellower,” Allen said. “Maybe the kids want some more bass so we ‘color’ it and the cool thing is you can color with physics, you can color with materials and they’re starting to learn this is a musical instrument.”

As testing goes on in the music rooms, in Todd Spangler’s physics classroom, students continue their research on sound.

“Students are looking at how we produce sound, how we process sound in our brain, how it’s measured, how architects design rooms for sound,” Spangler said.

In the wood shop, teacher Ryan Boyle’s students are coming up with frame designs to hold individual acoustic panels. They are trying to come up with the sturdiest design that can be assembled efficiently Boyle said, because he estimates there will be hundreds of panels to make.

“[It’s] a lot of trial and error,” said Woods 2 sophomore Casey Valez said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.