The Noise Most Wanted Ahmad Faudzi Musib Noise can be defined as unwanted sound. But noise can be useful depending on its usage. In a digital audio system such as pulse code modulation (PCM), a throughput signal at 44.1 kHz will be monitored by complex mathematical calculations. This is to ensure that the fidelity of the audio signal would be of the same quality of what was sampled. One of the components that uses noise in the pulse code modulation encoding section is the dither generator, a device that is used to mask any quantization error of a sampled signal. The other important usage of noise is a technique used by live sound engineers known as ȃringing out the system.Ȅ ”y using this technique a sound engineer is able to gauge the strength that every band of frequencies produces through spectrum analyzer, enabling a sound engineer to manipulate and calibrate sound produced by the ȃfront of houseȄ speakers equally. There are also noises that are widely used in music compositions, particularly in electronic music. In electronic music composition, a synthesizer programmer is able to manipulate, and create noise as part of its sound sources in the composition, as seen in my electronic music piece entitled Berita Bencana [2007] performed with two synthesizers and tape. A contemporary approach with real-time sound manipulation demonstrates that with a complex algorithm, a synthesizer is able to create distorted radio signal-like sounds that one would normally hear during the event of tornado or hurricane. The piece Berita Bencana focus on ȃsynthesizer component designȄ that allows the composer to design multiple waveforms to pass through several different filter poles that gave the composer the right overtones for this piece. My experience of surviving ȃ“ndrew,Ȅ a category five tropical hurricane that struck the city of South Miami in Florida in August 1992, inspired me to compose the piece. A transistor radio is one of the few things that I brought along in the closet that I used as a shelter. Listening to the unclear and distorted news is one of the effects portrayed in this piece. There were three things that were in the air waves: news, noise and hope. 16