Data sonification of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genome sequence (Hunter & Wei, 2020). This coronavirus has a large genome compared with other viruses, at nearly 30,000 bases long (the common cold has around 8,000 and flu has 13,500) which is one reason why COVID-19 is a difficult disease to deal with (Fischetti, 2020).
The genome data was converted to MIDI files using a program written in Mathematica. The MIDI files were split into separate tracks for each of the 4 amino acid bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine). These were edited in Reaper and played with Razor synth. Effects include SoftTube Saturation Knob, TDR VOS SlickEQ and Valhalla Super Massive.
Hunter, C. & Wei, X. (2020). Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus genome assembly, chromosome: Whole_genome. GenBank.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/LR757995.1
Fischetti, M. (2020). Inside the Coronavirus: What scientists know about the inner workings of the pathogen that has infected the world. Scientific American,
www.scientificamerican.com/interactive/inside-the-coronavirus/
released September 4, 2020
design: Joe Gilmore
