Anti-Vuvuzela Software Appears

If you've seen one minute of the World Cup matches, you know what a vuvuzela is. If you're watching without sound, the video below is a primer on what they are and why they'll eventually annoy you:

Since vuvuzelas are loud enough to be heard during the broadcasts, a market has popped up to counter or remove the sound of vuvuzelas from the audio mix. There's even a website  - vuvuzelafiltering.com - dedicated to eradicating this buzzing from our ears.

There are essentially two methods being pitched for vuvuzela removal:

• The first method involves removing or lowering the actual frequency of the instrument using everything from your TV's built-in equalizer to running your sound through an audio filter. The audio filter technique is used by audio and video editors to remove hums and buzzes from soundtracks. It works by identifying an exact frequency and removing it. Most vuvuzelas apparently buzz away in the key of B Flat. Bach composed his Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. in the key of B flat and it sounded nice. When soccer fans make B flats it sounds like angry bees.

• The second method *apparently* involves noise cancellation. Found at antivuvuzelafilter.com, the idea is that you download an mp3 that directly counters the frequencies produced by the sound of the vuvuzela. You play it alongside the TV and the vuvuzela sound disappears. The makers explain it this way:

Our specially designed Vuvuzela noise-cancellation sound is a wave with the same amplitude but with an inverted phase to the original sound.

The waves combines to form a new wave, in a process called interference, which effectively cancel each other out - an effect which is called phase cancellation.

Depending on the circumstances the resulting soundwave may be so faint as to be inaudible to human ears.

How great would that be if it worked????  I excitedly downloaded the mp3 file, played it alongside Brazil v. North Korea on my computer and...

It only made the vuvuzela sound louder. Much louder. I tried emailing the creators for advice. The email bounced back: "Host or domain name not found."

So it appears you have three choices when it comes to the vuvuzela: Love it, lose it or mute it.