WEEK 8 (A) - CC1: PESS - NN19

I spent hours researching, downloading and experimenting with software to see if there was anything appropriate for both this week's exercise and the PC. SoundHack Freesound Bundle (1) didn't fit the bill. FScape loaded but wouldn't open files (2). Then I discovered the amazing, if somewhat temperamental, Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch (PESS) (3).

'This is an experimental program for extreme stretching the audio.' (4)

I tweaked, discovered the file type it liked, (finally) heard a result - and I was sold. It took awhile!

The Parameters window. When a file is loaded, it lets you know in real time how long you've stretched.

Despite the quirks, this software creates some excellent effects and opens the door to many possibilities, as you can see from the options below, and the Hyperstretch option lets you get ridiculous: stretch your sound times a million?

The Process window: Harmonics, Pitch shift, Octave Mixer and more.

You can pull a frequency or an octave at will and in real time. I played endlessly with these controls.

But back to the exercise …

Prior to commencing, I'd decided on a more open feel than last week. Initial audio results had me thinking 'desert, wind in open spaces, night time, somehow lost.' Bearing these things in mind, I loaded a sample from last weeks exercise (5) into Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch and experimented until I'd exhausted possibilities (in this instance). Paul allows rendering to oggvorbis or wav so I renderered, then opened a new sample. Some samples I rejected, but found I was discovering so much with PESS I was creating plenty from one good source sample.

After creating a folder of 'Pauled' samples, I trimmed and checked gain in Audacity (6) then initialised the NN19 sampler, opened the samples, assigned keyzones and began composing.

Reason Song with sampler loaded.

Kismet.mp3

The end result is maybe a little like an encroaching delirium at nightfall whilst getting lost in the desert! Maybe busier than my original hazy ideas but it grew organically from there as the source material was developed.

References:

Haines, Christian. Creative Computing, Week 8 Tutorial - Processing (2). EMU, University of Adelaide, South Australia, May 3, 2007.

1/ "SoundHack Freeware." SoundHack. http://www.soundhack.com/freeware.php (accessed May 6, 2007).

2/ "FScape." sourceforge.net. http://sourceforge.net/projects/fscape/ (accessed May 6, 2007).

3/ PAUL, Nasca Octavian. "Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch." Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch. http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ (accessed May 6, 2007).

4/ Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch readme.txt. Nasca Octavian Paul, 2006.

5/ Slynn, Darren. "Week7 - CC1: NN19 Sampler ." Cagerattling. 4/27/2007 05:57:00 PM. http://cagerattling.blogspot.com/2007/04/week7-cc1-nn19-sampler.html (accessed May 6, 2007).

6/ "Audacity: The Free, Cross Platform Sound Editor." Audacity: Free Audio Editor & Recorder. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (accessed May 6, 2007).

* Unofficial (and uncalled for!) Over Time Sample: Sahara.mp3 (about 55 seconds)*

*Please refer to Extra Curricular Blogs for Week 8 - SoundHack*