Products of Interest

CREATE PulsarGenerator Interactive Sound Synthesis Software

The Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) at the University of Californa, Santa Barbara, has released Pulsar Generator by Alberto de Campo and Curtis Roads. PulsarGenerator is a Macintosh-based interactive application for pulsar synthesis (PS). PS is based on the generation of trains of sonic particles, and belongs to the same family as granular synthesis. These particles can produce either rhythms or tones depending on the temporal resolutions involved.

The PulsarGenerator features include: precise rhythm or tone generators; three formants per pulsar train, with independent frequency and spatial panning; real-time synthesis and editing; real-time waveform display; the ability to import any sample file as a waveform or envelope; direct-to-disk recording; graphical control of synthesis (wavetables and envelopes control almost all synthesis parameters); forward, backward, freeze, or scrub playback; real-time crossfading between different sets of wavetables; burst masking control for subharmonics and syncopated rhythms; real-time editing tools with keystroke commands; savable Wavetables, TableSets, and Banks; cross-fading between multiple sets of tables; mixing or muting of individual pulsar trains; ring modulation with any soundfile as second source.

PulsarGenerator runs under Macintosh OS versions 8.5.1, 8.6, and 9.1, and is best suited for Power Macintosh 8600/9600, G3, and G4 computers. The CPU limits can be adjusted for live performance. The software will work with any ASIO-compatible sound card. Documentation is available online at the CREATE Web site.

A demo version of Pulsar Generator can be downloaded; it is limited in the length of time it will run. The full version of the software can be purchased for US$ 49.00 from "UC Regents, CREATE account." Contact: PulsarGenerator Sales, CREATE, Department of Music, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA; telephone (1) 805-893-4586; fax (1) 805-893-7194; electronic mail info@create.ucsb.edu; World Wide Web www.create.ucsb.edu/.

Forwardinoutback Didgeridoo Sample CD

Ralph "Stick" Hermann, a didgeridoo aficionado, has released a sample CD of a collection of sounds from this evocative instrument. The CD includes 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo or mono WAV files of bamboo, wood, and metal didgeridoos. The sounds are edited to various lengths and designed to fit loops over a range of tempos and meters. The bamboo and wood samples are tuned to three neighboring pitches; the metal samples are all at one pitch.

The CD is presented in "Web site" fashion, using HTML "pages" to guide the user through the information and directories. Clicking on the link to a sample will open the Windows Media player. Naturally, the WAV files can be opened into audio editor programs by accessing the soundfiles directly. Forwardinoutback runs under Windows only (though the WAV files can be uploaded to any computer with a CD-ROM drive).

The Didgeridoo Sample CD is available for DM 99, or US$ 49.00. Contact: Forwardinoutback, c/o Ralph Hermann, Malplaquetstrasse 16a, 13347 Berlin, Germany; telephone (49) 30-455-84-32; fax (49) 180-505-254-125-172; electronic mail info@didgeridoo-samples. de; World Wide Web www.didgeridoo-samples.de/.

Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 5.0 Audio Editing Software for Windows

For Windows users, Sonic Foundry has developed a suite of audio programs that has gained an important reputation within this community. Its utilities include Acid Pro, a loop-based multi-track editing program, Vegas Video, for multitrack video editing, and Noise Reduction and XFX, signal processors for restoration and signal treatment. Sound Forge is Sonic Foundry's stereo audio editor for mastering, video scoring, and so forth (see Figure 1).

The new 5.0 version of Sound Forge updates the processing resolution, as have many of the other editors on the market. The program can now work with 24-bit files at up to 192 kHz sampling rate. The internal computations are run at 32-bit floating point rate. Additional new features include a set of 18 DirectX plug-ins, including the Acoustic Mirror, for simulating acoustical environments and microphone characteristics, and Wave Hammer, a compressor for maximizing volume without clipping. Sound Forge also provides tools from within the program for extracting audio from...