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The other day I said something to Chris about the software I was currently working on being “obstreperous” without entirely remembering what that word actually means. As he observed, it’s actually a rather apt term for DSP code in development. From Webster’s:

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin obstreperus, from obstrepere to clamor against, from ob- against + strepere to make a noise

Date: circa 1600

1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous <obstreperous merriment>
2 : stubbornly resistant to control :unruly

The word came to mind again when some new code I was working on was both marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness and stubbornly resistant to control. Here’s what it sounded like–be warned that it’s kind of loud in places:

Obstreperous

Usually when I play something like this for Chris he asks whether we can preserve it and add it as a feature to the product. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, so to speak. This is why I don’t particularly enjoy most music classified as glitch and other genres that deliberately exploit DSP artifacts: it tends to all sound like a bad day at work to me.

UPDATE: Chris mentioned this post on his blog here; some discussion has ensued. A couple of questions regarding reuse of this recording arose, so I hereby state that the above recording is made available under the Creative Commons license stated here.