tricking sound editors and other forced randomizations

["Rick Walker (loop.pool)" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Hey gang,    I read in the really thought provoking sound design supplement
to a recent Electronic Musician Magazine, that one could
rename a text file or jpeg file as a .wav file (or .aiff file for you
mac-ies out there) to create some interesting random noises.

   I just tried doing this in sound forge and
got this prompt:

"The file you tried to open is not a Wave file or contains an unrecoverable
error.
A valid RIFF tag could not be found in the specified file."

I had just tried taking a .txt file, copying it, and renaming it with a
".wav"  extension.
Does anyone know how to trick the sound editor into recognizing a text or
jpeg (or any file for that matter).
Please don't tell me that it can only be done on a Mac.  I will have to
shoot myself and what a mess that would make.

I promise that I will loop the results so that this post will remain on
topic ;-)

Rick "I back up everything now" Walker

PS  Speaking of that devil:   How's about a little fascinating thread on 
how
to use randomization (or deliberately misusing a program)
to create interesting sounds (or artifacts, as I like to call
them...............I think of these discoveries as sound bites from long
lost
civilizations in the future).

     If anyone is game,    I'll go first:

  In the PC program Sound Forge ( a digital editor) there is a bar above 
the
visible
screen that shows you where you are in the sound file (this is in case you
are looking at a very blown up portion of a sound file but you want to keep
track of where you are in the entire file).    It is immediately above the
numbers that tell you exactly where you are in the sound file
and immediately below the name of your file at the top of the document.
It in effect is a scrub bar and is represented by a simple line
that moves and shows you where you are as the file plays.
    If, while the file is playing, you go up and grab that bar with your
cursor, you can interrupt the flow of the playback, by alternately dragging
back and letting it go. You can create really interesting stuttering noises
which each create a transient ( that can be reedited in a beat splicing
program like ReCycle or the brilliant new program REASON from the
Propellerheads people).     What I do is open up my
Sound Forge file and scrub it, improvisationally while simultaneously
rerecording the file into Wave Lab or Cool Edit Pro (because, 
unfortunately,
Sound Forge will not let you open and play a document while you record it
into another one, or at least I haven't discovered how to do it..
    For Looping, a trick I use is to 'jam' with this effect for as long as
it is fun to do so.   Then go back and listen with my eyes closed and my
finger on the marking button (control M on the PC).   Anytime anything
really cool happens I put a marker down.    Once I'm finished
I'll go back to my marked spots and determine if there is anything there
that would qualify as an interesting loop and pick the most interesting one
(survival of the fittest?).    I've gotten a lot of good results with this
method and frequently have people ask me, "how did you design that sound"
which is, perhaps the coolest thing that a sound designer could ever hear.
    Any other cool methods?