I don't think it matters
It looks from the hardware he has on the desk that what he is actually doing is measuring the distance to the rock, and then producing an appropriate sound effect for the sort of isotope it contains, based on the distance.
Pretty neat stuff.
(, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 16:05, Share, Reply)
I'm almost certain
that he's using an Arduino with what looks like 1 or possibly 2 geiger counters (which would give you a sort of stereo geiger counting effect)... from there I would guess the signal is routed into either Max/MSP or Supercollider where each pulse could be made to represent almost anything to your choosing... the bubling sound at the start of the video sounds like a simple synth sound triggered by each pulse, with a small amount of reverb added (very easy to do in either of the softwares I mentioned). Later on it sounds like he's interpreting the pulses in terms of their collective intensity - basically turning the rock into a glorified knob or slider.
If I'm correct, it's all quite tame in terms of sonification - I have a friend doing a masters by creating a sort of feedback loop using an ECG (e.g. brainwaves - you hear music, it stimulates you brain, ECG reads your brainwaves, software interprets them musically, which you hear.... repeat)
(
mr.dogshit The world's premier anthropomorphic canine faeces, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 16:51,
Share,
Reply)
It could be an pair of geiger counters
Which would make them the smallest geiger counters I've ever seen.
Or it could be a fairly common ultrasound rangefinder. Which would also explain why the sound stops so abruptly when he takes the rock away from directly in front of the thingy he has on the table.
(, Thu 20 Oct 2011, 2:05, Share, Reply)