Spectrum editor and batch processing

Question

One of my favorite uses of fft analysis is to morph between various copies of the same analysis transformed in the spectrum editor. This simplifies many morphing conciderations and allows me to use it succesfully with abstract sound material (no need to set 'recognisable' starting and ending points of the morph, worry about pitch differences, etc). You get less 'impressive' results but imo very useable..

Anyway lets say i have found a specific chain of processes fiting to specific material and i would like to process many analysis files in the same manner. Is there a way to build something in kyma like that with what is available or would that be beyond a user's capability?

 

p.s it would be great if the fft analysis info would include the number of frames an analysis consists of. It would definetely save some time  running for the calculator whenever i need use the spectrum editor processes :)

Answer 1

If you know the analysis frame length (i.e., the number of partials), you could send a message to the file name to get its duration in frames, for example (if the frame length were 512):

'alien threat h.spc' fileDuration s samp / 512

would give you the duration in seconds, converted the duration in samples and then divided by the frame length to get the number of frames.

If you are doing the spectrum modifications live (for example with SpectrumModifier), you could  go to the Action menu and select Batch processing... to perform that chain of processing on a folder-full of spectrum files.  Unfortunately, there's no equivalent for the processing that you perform by hand in the Spectrum editor.  Maybe you can figure out a way to do some of the modifications you like using the SpectrumModifier?

Comments

Hi Greg,

You may be interested to know that we have designed a number of Classes for recording and replaying live spectral transformations in Kyma, as well many time saving Classes for manipulating spectral frame data. For example with our library called NE SPC V2.0 , you could capture the morphing between spectral modifications as spectrum control data, then replay that in different ways to reduce DSP load or make further interesting modifications. Its all part of the SpectralLab which is still open for subscriptions.

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Didn't know about the batch processing with spectrum modifier, very helpful i'll look it up thanks!
I know how to calculate the number of frames (working with fft's in max one has to get dirty :) ) I just find it very useful info to have instantly available....

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Hey Cristian that sounds very interesting, i might actually enrol.
Thanks

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You would be very welcome :)

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Interesting, I've done straight batch processing of files from audio to spectral, but could you give us an example of batch processing while making changes to the spectrum and outputing spectral files?

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The batch processing from the action menu basically renders different analysis to audio files from what i can tell. If this was what you are asking, that is :)

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Jeff, there's no direct way of doing batch modification of spectrum files.  But if you wanted to do some crazy transformations, you could create a signal flow like this:  SamplePlayer-->LiveSpectralAnalysis-->SpectrumModifier-->GeneratorBank (like OscillatorBank).  Then use Action>Batch processing to record a folder-full of samples that are analyzed, spectrally modified, and recorded to a new folder of samples.  Then you could go to the Tools menu and select Batch Harmonic Analysis, to turn that new folder into Psi files and Spectrum files.

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Makes sense.  Thanks!