Re: soundmorphing software for pc

[Kim Flint <kflint@annihilist.com>]

At 11:36 PM -0700 7/12/00, Stephen P. Goodman wrote:
>Define "sound morphing" as such...?  There can be so many ways in which a
>functional fade can be done with synths as far as I know... but then I'm 
>not
>up on the nomenclatura...
>

"morphing" is not really the same as a fade. When you crossfade from one
sound to another, you never really get the sensation of one sound. You
still hear two different sounds overlaying each other. (unless they were
really similar in the first place and blend very well.) With morphing you
hear one unique sound all the way, gradually altering until the first sound
has become the second. If you imagine the difference between a fade and a
morph in video, it's pretty much the same idea for audio.

I suppose there are a few ways to do audio morphing, but one way is usually
done by starting with a spectral analysis of each sound to determine the
amplitude and frequency of each component it contains. The morphing
algorithm then takes each frequency component of one sound and gradually
steps it to match up with a frequency component of the other. If the
frequencies match in the first place, this just means changing the
amplitude of that component from one sound to the other. If not, the
frequency has to slide, probably as the amplitude changes as well.

As the components are being gradually changed, the spectral representation
is resynthesized back into the time domain to be a sound. This way, if you
stop in the middle of the morph, you really get a unique sound that is "in
between" the two sounds you are morphing. It will sound kind of like both,
but not really like either.  There's a lot of fun things you can do with
that.

kim

______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                   | Looper's Delight
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