I finished about half the lyrics today. I made some progress on the overall melody line too.
The song starts with sequenced guitar feedback, which got me thinking about constructing a VST based on guitar feedback again.
I think a guitar (22 frets) can produce 46 discrete notes. I’m note sure if I need to capture feed back representing all the possible fretted notes of a guitar … it might be too much. It might now even be possible to create feedback of all the pitches. Maybe three octaves (36 notes) would do.
That will take some time.
I’m thinking it will have ADSR amplitude controls, vibrato, reverb, and maybe a distortion(?) … not sure what other controls it should have.
Posted on June 11, 2008 by arman. Categories: vst.
I finished the prototype of the Hydrogen spectra VST.
It is not ready for a public Beta test yet. I think my calculations for the frequencies are a bit “bunched” together. I am going to spend some time working on the interpretation of the spacing of the intervals.
I ended up using the linear pitch space equation and modifying it to fit the range of the frequencies of light emitted from the Hydrogen atom. I changed the base frequency from 440 Hz to 300000000000000 Hz in an effort to transpose the frequencies into the range of a piano keyboard.
Here is the initial version of SK-crooner. It is a vocal synth based on the 8-bit “human voice” patch from the Casio SK-1. I loved this sound when I was growing up … very spooky and unnatural.
Features include:
Two separate modes:
Original (modeled after the Casio SK-1) and Tone held (for long notes)
ADSR Amplitude Envelope
Vibrato with Rate and Depth
Filter control with Frequency and Resonance
Sample Rate and Bit Depth Crush
Variable Portamento
Master Volume Level
Reverb with Size, Depth and Width Control
My VST instrument SK-crooner is almost done. It is based on the 8 bit human vocaloid samples from the Casio SK-1 keyboard. Basic Moog style filtering … bit depth and sample crushing … vibrato rate and depth control with an on/off switch … portamento … ADSR controls.
Here is a mock up of the panel (TO BE CHANGED):
The “human voice” patch on the Casio SK-1 was one of my favorite sounds as a kid. It sounded funny and kind of intriguing at the same time.
SK-crooner belts out the notes in “original” mode pretty much exactly like the original keyboard did back in the 1980’s.
In “tone held” mode, a continuous portion of the waveform is looped so you can play sustained notes. No more “HOO … HOo … Hoo … hoo”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, try it in original mode and you will get a chuckle.
If you are interested in Beta testing SK-crooner, drop me a line via the contact page. I’ll send you a .dll [sorry, windows only]
You can hear examples of SK-crooner in the following posts…
A few weeks ago I scored a Robotix kit online. I had no idea they had gone wireless at some point during the 90’s. Actually … I had no clue they were even still making them in the 90’s.
I used some Robotix in 1998 to create a robotic prosthetic arm/fishing pole in my early film Humanidad Aterrorizado.
After I got them in the mail, I combined them with the set I had when I grew up. Here is the remote control dolly I constructed out of them:
I modified one of the small Robotix pieces to hold the camera thread. It can go forward, backward, left and right. I can put the camera on a crane and have it rotate on a variety of axis.
I will be using it in some capacity while shooting the video for “Combat”.
Here are some tests shots done in single frame animation (shot with a Canon A640 is continuous burst shooting mode). This is the slowest I can get my footage to look given the shooting rate of the camera. I need to work on stabilizing the camera and getting some motion timing issues figured out.
The soundtrack for the video experiment was all done with a beta version of my new VSTi - SK-crooner. It is a human vocal synth based on samples from the 1980’s 8 bit sampling keyboard, the Casio SK-1. I worked on it for a while today and it’s starting to come together.
~ 2mb
(This is not live action video - it’s time lapse. I’ll try some robo-dolly video soon).
I have been working on computational physics all day. I am using a language called python. It is melting my mind. Graphing orbits … electric fields … and finding something called the Lyapunov exponent. Hacking away at code. Piecing found scraps of scripts together with broken loops … sewing it all together like Dr. Frankenstein.
… help … left … brain … over … load …
How can I give my computer a little pay back … ? How … HOW!
I am formulating a plan to exact some revenge on my computer …
I think a fitting revenge will involve making a new virtual instrument. This time, I will give my computer a voice … a simulated human voice. The opposite of Harlan Ellison’s disturbing tale “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” in which a demented computer rules the world and turns the last human into a puddle of flesh with no mouth (hence the “I can’t scream”).
A tortured computer vocal simulation … my computer sings with an aliased … bit crunched … “I’ve got digital strep throat” voice.
