Freesound Forums

Hi,

Some time ago I thought that there is some kind of software, to generate/place sounds in some virtual places, and then "render" them to the surround mix. I've never found this kind of app, I'm wondering why.

Look, for graphic we have some apps like 3D Studio Max, or Maya. We take some geometric shapes, apply some modifications, and we can create beautiful, fotorealistic photos and animations...

I don't mean to create sounds that way - but to place recorded ones to some kind of virtual space, with other objects that can reflect them and create effects such reverbs, move them to create doppler effect, place them behind the wall to apply some EQ. We can do this things "manually" now, but wouldn't be cool if there were such Application? Don't you ever think about it? Do you think there would be demand for it???

Maybe we could start such a project :wink:

You know, VST effects can be used in powerful audio programs like Cubase or ProTools, or any other program that uses automation to do the things you described. Lots of VSTs even have presets to create things like a Doppler effect, or the eq from behind a wall, etc. Not to mention that if you do use these presets, you still often need to be creative, you still need to tweak settings and such, to fit what you envision. I think if you rely too much on trying to get a quick answer to your needs, you will end up with run-of-the-mill sounding work. That being said, yes I do think people would use it, because there are a lot of people who like to use programs that will do everything for them.

So, while I don't think I'd say it was "cool", I do think there would be a demand for it.

Sounds like it would be fun to play with. Probably some proprietary sound engines in modern video games do this to some degree, and certainly virtualized "3d sound" has been around for a while.

tweeterdj
You know, VST effects can be used in powerful audio programs like Cubase or ProTools, or any other program that uses automation to do the things you described. Lots of VSTs even have presets to create things like a Doppler effect, or the eq from behind a wall, etc. Not to mention that if you do use these presets, you still often need to be creative, you still need to tweak settings and such, to fit what you envision. I think if you rely too much on trying to get a quick answer to your needs, you will end up with run-of-the-mill sounding work. That being said, yes I do think people would use it, because there are a lot of people who like to use programs that will do everything for them.

Yeah, you're right, but I don't said that this would do all the work for the engineer. I just thought it would be helpful tool - the one could tweak all things just like in the other apps, but use the power of todays computers to calculate many aspect for him.

I was just curious - some time ago, the "hand drawn" animation was far better than generated by the computer graphics...today, the computer graphics can mimic all those olders techniques... and why this analogy doesn't apply to the world of sounds?

http://www.voxengo.com/product/imodeler/

'nuf said

- bram

Bram
http://www.voxengo.com/product/imodeler/

'nuf said

- bram

Whoa...is this a stand alone program?

EDIT: Nevermind. This is pretty awesome Bram. Good find.

http://www.tascam.com/Press/Releases/Reduced_Prices_on_SX-1_LE_Effects_Upgrades.html

http://www.tascam.com/Products/GigaPulse.html

I found these a while ago and I just remembered that they do exactly what you described :wink:
Kinda like what Bram posted but in a more user-friendly format.

Cool!

This is almost it...but almost

To put all this things in time, and other sounds into environment...that would be cool

I guess we have so many tools that no one ever needed All-in-one app for such tasks :wink:

Halleck
Probably some proprietary sound engines in modern video games do this to some degree, and certainly virtualized "3d sound" has been around for a while.

Soundblaster soundcards offer lots of hardware acceleration for this type of thing, but not many 'serious musician' oriented sound cards do any interesting DSP at all, unfortunately.
Of course, Creative have a very bad reputation for their drivers, especially for music production. Also, they have a nasty history of muscling their way to a monopoly of game and consumer-type audio. I know Emu hardware is basically similar, but they seem to use their DSP for more boring (to me) 'audio production' type stuff, and are, I believe, less programmable than the creative ones - I don't know.

Anyway, I'm sure this stuff can be done without any special hardware... it looks like the link Bram gave is more for rendering high quality impulse responses that can then be used with convolution plugins. Maybe there is something else around for doing similar (maybe less hifi) stuff in realtime, or maybe something will emerge in the nearish future...

scypior

I guess we have so many tools that no one ever needed All-in-one app for such tasks :wink:

I think the CPU usage would probably skyrocket if you had all that software in one app...

DJ Chronos

scypior

I guess we have so many tools that no one ever needed All-in-one app for such tasks :wink:

I think the CPU usage would probably skyrocket if you had all that software in one app...

Actually, I cannot remember the name of it at this time, but about 5-6 years ago I recall a computer program which would allow a sample and/or mathematical formula to be used to 'render' an acoustic image. It may not have included all the aspects talked about here, but it was similar. The only problem at the time was the entire interface was command-line and no graphical GUI whatsoever. I do remember it having specific parameters for the environment in which the sound takes place, and the planar surfaces which are present in the space, including the materials which the surfaces were comprised of.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution

I'll let you know if I remember or run across that again. I do agree that something you are describing, with the additon of a modern GUI frontend would be pretty useful. I've often thought that any surround mixed I have seen to date seems needlessy complicated when all you want to do is place a handful of tracks in 3-dimensional space.
.
There is also a Convolution Effect where someone has captured the reverberance characteristics of a given physical environment and created a filter which any sound can be passed through to make something sound like it's in that captured space. Programs like Sonic Foundry (now Sony) Acoustic Mirror is an example of such a thing. I much prefer using such reverberance patterns to using normal artificial reverb in music production anyway.

What would be great is something with a nice friendly GUI and so, that would play possibly somewhat mediocre sound as a realtime preview, then render it very properly with convolution in non-realtime...

[edit] duuuh, come to think of it, I started reading a paper on related topics the other day... Real-time acoustics Simulation using Mesh-Tracing... that seems to allow for moving sound sources / listener, but I'm not sure how well it would work with lots of sound sources in real-time (lots of separate convolution operations sounds like a no-no)... personally, I'd like to be able to change the model itself in realtime as well, but maybe I ask too much...

I don't know if this currently exists in an accessible (usable GUI etc) form anywhere...

xinaesthete
What would be great is something with a nice friendly GUI and so, that would play possibly somewhat mediocre sound as a realtime preview, then render it very properly with convolution in non-realtime...

[edit] duuuh, come to think of it, I started reading a paper on related topics the other day... Real-time acoustics Simulation using Mesh-Tracing... that seems to allow for moving sound sources / listener, but I'm not sure how well it would work with lots of sound sources in real-time (lots of separate convolution operations sounds like a no-no)... personally, I'd like to be able to change the model itself in realtime as well, but maybe I ask too much...

I don't know if this currently exists in an accessible (usable GUI etc) form anywhere...

Hmmm.... I've been thinking about it and come to some idea: a nice VST plugin for doing such a things...

In general, it could look like that:

input sound->reverb (impulse computed according to the environment)->eq (computed according to the obstacles)->output (positioned according to the position of object in space)

The input sounds could be on the tracks, and in the GUI we could assign these tracks to the objects, so the plugin would know what parameters to pass to reverb, eq and how to mix (position) this sound to the output tracks...

Well, I don't think it is the one I mentioned initially, and it is still without GUI, but in all other respects this project looks very similar to whats being discussed here:

http://www.muse.demon.co.uk/vspace/vspace.html

* Cardioid, Cardioid pairs, Figure-of-eight, Omnidirectional and Ambisonic microphones (first and second order).
* Early Reflections off walls (to a depth chosen by the user).
* Sound sources that may move in linear and circular motion. Sound sources may be directional.
* Inter-aural difference (when microphones are placed close to one another).
* Doppler shift induced using accurate model (moving write head delay lines and careful volume shading).
* Inverse square law plus special behaviour for use within the core sphere in synthesised Ambisonic sound fields producing a better image than is possible with real Ambisonic microphones.
* Distance filtering.
* Reverb.

There are at least some sample scripts and whatnot to demonstrate the principle.

http://www.muse.demon.co.uk/3daudio.html

http://www.ambisonicbootlegs.net/Members/etienne/ambisonic-software/