Wellspring Music in association with CDP

ProcessPack:  Composer Modules

Launch Composer Modules and Audition Soundfiles

The Composer Modules

ProcessPack is the overall environment from which the Composer Modules developed by Wellspring Music are launched. In Version 1.5 there were 16 Modules including INTERMODULATE, MIDIFILE READER, SCRAMBLE, SHIMMER and SONIFY. The major new module in Version 1.6 is DRAWCREEN.

• AUDITION, to play back soundfiles. Select a soundfile and then click on 'Audition' in the list of Available Processes (or press 'p' to use the keyboard shortcut). Listen through to the end of the soundfile, or stop playback at any time with the <Escape> key. NB: If you select more than one soundfile at the same time by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the cursor over several soundfiles, AUDITION will play them back one after the other, in the order in which they are listed.



• DISPERSAL, a high-level tool for segmenting a soundfile and distributing the segments in time and space in defined shapes. DISPERSAL has its own Reference Manual as well as a comprehensive set of Examples to help composers define their own objectives amidst its myriad possibilities.



• DRAWSCREEN provides an easy way to create time-varying frequency traces by drawing them on-screen. The traces can be freely drawn or the points placed on the screen connected (glissandos) or stepped (discrete pitches). More than one trace of more than one type can be drawn on the same screen, auditioned, saved,reloaded and used in a variety of other Modules. To begin, just click on 'DrawScreen' in the right pane, i.e., without first selecting a soundfile.



• ECHO primarily creates sonic reflections, with number of reflections and the time between reflections being the primary parameters. There are also settings for gain and rolloff. The settings enable you to make highly reverberated effects as well as separate echoes.



• FILTERBANK uses filters of sufficient power to enable you to harmonise a sound. You can set which pitches are to form this harmony and adjust the clarity with which they emerge from the original sound. You can edit the filter pitches manually as frequencies in Hz or as MIDI Pitch Values or select a variety of preset filter arrangements, as well as adjust them in a graphic window similar to a graphic equalizer.



• HOVER, which plays with reading portions of a soundfile at different frequencies – with extraordinary results.



• INTERMODULATE (new) provides several way to put together features from two different soundfiles. It has three sub-modules.
  • Convolve is the 'convolution' process in which the 1^st soundfile is multiplied by the 2^nd sample by sample.
  • Ring Modulation (actually implemented as a cross-modulation) creates sidebands above and below the original signal, using either a waveform or another soundfile.
  • Envelope Transfer takes the amplitude envelope from the 2^nd soundfile and imposes it on the 1^st.
  
  
• MIDIFILE READER (new) enables the user to load a Standard MIDI File ('SMF') and apply its data to an input soundfile. It is therefore a form of shape transfer. Using the input soundfile, it creates a temporary soundfile for each note event in the SMF and then mixes them into a single output soundfile, thus recreating its pitch and amplitude contours with the sound of the input soundfile. This opens out the use of ProcessPack to include interaction with Standard MIDI Files from any source.



• PAN & SPIN is a powerful module that handles standard PAN functions in a stereo field. You can adjust the width of the field, the number of repetitions of the pan movement, and explore randomised pan effects. The SPIN part of this module creates the aural illusion of the sound moving around the listener.



• PLAYMIX, which enables you as a 'live performer' to play and mix soundfiles in real time.



• PYRAMID is a way of stacking transpositions of a soundfile, with a number of pre-set shapes and control over the interval spacing of the transpositions. Operating in the Time-Domain, this creates new (and somewhat unpredictable) sounds.



• REMIX gives you a chance either to re-run an existing mixfile or to edit its contents, changing for example the soundfiles, the amplitude levels or the pan settings.



• REVERSE, to create a new soundfile that is the backwards version of the original – no manual required! Just select a source soundfile and click on 'Reverse' in the list of Available Processes.



• SCRAMBLE (new) mixes up the internal flow of a sound by playing with Grainsize and Range parameters. The former concerns the soundfile fragment-duration to move, and the later concerns from which portion of the soundfile to take a grain. The values of these two parameters constantly change within limits set by the user.



• SHIMMER (new) is a reduction process that transform a sound into a prolonged shimmering aura. There are several sub-functions that create different types of pattern within the aura.



• SONIFY (new) provides facilities that relate to the wider field of 'sonification', i.e., converting numerical data acquired from whatever source into an audio signal.

  Due to scientific research into many different aspects of the world around us, a great deal of numerical data has been acquired, and it has generally been found that there is some form of pattern to be found in the data. Many have been exploring ways to turn this data into sound in order to use the immediacy and high resolution of our listening mechanism to help to reveal significant features. Thus there is a scientific purpose to sonification. On the other hand, the aural patterns create new and hitherto unheard sounds that provide raw material for a composer working with sound.

  SONIFY has 6 sub-modules:
  • Gliss Melody creates a linear sequence in which each data item setes a pitch (rounded to semitones) or frequency (microtonal) level, and glissandos fill the gaps between these levels.
  • Stepped Melody does the same, but without the glissandos, thus making a clearer melody. These forms of linear sequence reveal the melodic 'signature' of the data.
  • Harmony creates a simultaneity from the data, removing duplicates after conversion to musical values.
  • Play on a Harmony treats the above harmony as a harmonic field and plays/overlaps pitches drawn from the field, with output duration, pitch range and timing specified by the user.
  • Rhythm converts the data into times and plays the resulting rhythmic sequence. Selection of columns and sounds for three different tracks provides possibilities for building sonorities and creating rhythmic counterpoints.
  • Random allows you to create up to 8 columns of data generated by a random function. The file produced can then be used by any of the other SONIFY functions. The main purpose of this is to enable comparison with data drawn from the real world, but there are also composition possibilities for the random complexes.
  
  
• WRAITH creates ghost-like images of a sound by reducing the number of analysis channels in the output. It does this by keeping only a user-defined number of the loudest channels.

Archer Endrich & Richard Orton
Last updated: 5 October 2012