Fake Bird Song
July 26, 2026•232 words
I became interested in the idea of fake bird song as part of the Cities and Memory Spring Project where I re-imagined an audio sample from the Gare Du Nord in Paris that featured fake birdsong piped onto the platform. My track is called 'This is not a simulation?'
A recent publication by a group of scientists in France says that they have discovered the building blocks of the incredible diversity of birdsong.
Across 3000 different species of birds they identified 8 motifs that shape the sound of the individual sounds suggesting "a simplicity underlying the spectacular diversity of birdsongs".
Sound artist and fellow Cities and Memory participant Tim Waterfield has taken these 8 motifs and created an Interactive Birdsong Synthesiser.
The sounds are generated purely through code and synthesis. A probability matrix generates patterns on the fly and as a user of this device you are free to model your own variations.
Assuming that we want fake bird song to sound like real bird song, then some ideas for fake birdsong might include imperfections in the quality of sound, ambient sounds introduced to add an element of reality, some variety in the repetition and some high frequency reverb roll off mimicking real sounds as well as the idea of motifs and structure highlighted in the article above.
Tim's Birdsong synthesiser is a great place to start experimenting.
Links
https://map.citiesandmemory.com/maps/point/3801