HITHER GATE MUSIC

Introduction to the Sound Builder Templates

There are three versions of each template.

1. The ones with 'mp3' in the name is for download and demonstration purposes: the mp3 versions of the soundfiles save space, and you can play the examples right away from the HTML document.
2. The ones with 'wav' in the name are for your use after running the batch files: wav files are produced and you can play back your results from the HTML document. The files with 'del' in the name enable to delete the files made in a given example (but not the sources), so that you can easily run it again.
3. The ones with 'mac' in the name are for your use after running the batch files when you are using the .aiff sources and the MAC batch files. (If you are on MAC and using the .wav sources, you should use the files with 'wav' in the name.)

One of the keys to success with the CDP sound transformation software is creating processing 'chains': i.e., where the output of one process becomes the input of another. This is how a sound or sonic texture is gradually sculpted into something that is original and vivid.

The Sound-Builder Templates illustrate a handful of possibilities that can easily be explored by running the supplied batch files (PC and MAC versions). Simply by editing the batch file so that a different sound becomes the source, the whole process is then automatically run, producing a result that is similar, but not the same: because the source is different.

The source files supplied with this processing-sequence demo are in .wav format, but the intermediate and final result soundfiles are supplied in .mp3 format in order to save space. Intermediate analysis files have been converted to the Time Domain and to .mp3 for playback of the examples as supplied.

Should you run the batch files, either with the same source or with a different soundfile as source, .wav soundfiles and .ana analysis files will be produced. Batchfiles with 'del' in the name are supplied so that you can quickly clear away the files produced by running one of the processing-sequence batch files. For example, the deletions file for RE-ENTRY is reentdel.bat.

Please note that this use of batch files from the command line interpreter (MSDOS on PC, the Terminal on MAC) is a direct but low-level way to run processing sequences. Higher level methods are available in Soundshaper (sequences are built up automatically on its patch grid) and in Sound Loom (the sequences are called 'Instruments'). These all form ways of creating 'libraries' of your favourite and most effective processes.

List of Sound-Builder Templates

Processing Sequence 1: RE-ENTRY

Goal: the long, slow descent of a full-bodied, slowly modulating sound

Processing Sequence 2: CHURBLES

Goal: lightly churning burbles

Processing Sequence 3: GRAINFLOW

Goal: an ever-changing flow of sonic grains

Processing Sequence 4: GLISS-SWEEP

Goal: repetitive filter sweeps through a complex glissing sound

Processing Sequence 5: RING-MOD-REPEAT

Goal: deep churning sound with a nasal edge

Processing Sequence 6: WIDEN

Goal: widen a sound with adjacent spectral domain transpositions

---

APPENDIX: SCREENSHOT UPDATES

The Soundshaper screenshots used in the tutorials are unfortunately out of date. This is not a great problem, as the only ones that are affected are:

• Screenshots of Parameter Pages showing boxes to name output files, for example:
  
  
  
  
  Output files are no longer named on Parameter Pages: instead, the output is saved to a temporary file and appears on the Main Page patchgrid in a new cell named after the process (see, for example, "REVERSE" in the next screenshot).
  
  If you want to save the output permanently, highlight the cell (if necessary) and click File/Save or CTRL+S to obtain a standard SAVE dialog:
  
  
  
  
  There is normally no need to do this until the end of the sequence.


• FFT conversion (PVOC Analysis / Resynthesis) page, for example:
  
  
  
  
  Soundshaper now uses current settings and the FFT page is only used to set these, not to perform a conversion, as shown. As the tutorial examples use default values, there is nothing to set! Furthermore, Soundshaper does these conversions in the background, so you do not even have to select ANALYSE or SYNTH – just select the next process.

Each tutorial has an updated list of steps at the end, for running the CDP sequence in the current version of Soundshaper.

(Robert Fraser, March 2016)