Spear

I'm tired of Max/MSP and PD. Graphical programming just isn't as powerful as programming, and at the moment it isn't that intuitive either. So I've been looking for other software to use, and one of them I've found is called spear.

Spear uses fft analysis on any wav file of your choice to graphically display all the frequencies that make up a complex sound. Sort of like ms paint for sound, you can then manipulate the waves any way you desire.

On the y axis is the frequency of the sound, and the x axis is time. The darker the line, the louder that frequency is. Of course, the analysis itself isn't perfect, but it's more than enough to be able to mess around with the sound. You can select harmonics, scrub, pitch shift, and time stretch (among other things).

I mention spear because I was originally going to use it in conjunction with cubase to write this song that I'm working on. It turns out that my samples (namely the human voice) are really hard to transform with fft analysis. Even though they may not make it into the final cut, here is a voice sample and its manipulation in spear.

Post Semester Wrap-up, Pre Summer Ramp-up

Played for Cornell's Graduation, flew to New Mexico to pick up my car, and drove to Mountain View, CA. Started work this week at Palm, working on devices I'm not allowed to blog about because of three separate confidentiality agreements. That's a shame.

Instead I've finally uploaded some of the CU Wind Ensemble concert from spring semester. Overture to Candide was conducted by a guest conductor (and as a result was really slow imo). The piano concerto was composed by Norbert Palej, and this was it's premiere performance. Fog tropes is actually an electric piece with a brass sextet (2 trumpets, 2 french horns, a trombone and a tuba). The result is pretty cool... it's hard to tell what is in the recording and what was actually performed live onstage.

Just ordered my midi controller, so I expect it should be here by the next post. I'm so excited :)