tools

General

A tool is an individual building block that is part of the creation of a setup that aims to expand the acoustic instrument. They are optional ways to widen our conventional instrument playing practice.

This section gives a general overview of what tools we use for live manipulation of audio. Some of their concepts will be clarified briefly. The tools we investigated can be divided into 3 categories:

  • timbre-related tools
  • time-related tools
  • space-related tools

Timbre-related tools

This includes the use of compressors, overdrives, distortions but also equalizers, pitch-shifters, ring modulators etc. Generally these tools boost or shape the harmonics, changing or adding frequencies, resulting in alterations of timbre.

Hardware pedals that were extensively used during this research are: overdrive & distortion pedals (boosting harmonics) and  pitch shifters (changing or adding an incoming audio frequency).

Time-related tools

These have everything to do with interventions over a timeline. It includes the use of  reverb and delay (adding artificial acoustics), samplers and loopers. In the course of this research we focussed most on this kind of tools. It enables us to create multiple layers of sound derived from material that has been played before, in the form of accompanying layers, textures or recurring events.

Delay

There is a whole range of terms for a sound that is essentially reproduced over time. Mainly depending on the time between the original sound and the reproduction we speak about flanging, chorus, doubling and delay.

afbeelding delay doubler goed.jpg
Chart of delay-based effects dependent on delay times

The buffer time and feedback loop determine how a delay responds. The repeats can be accurate copies or they can have unstable/degraded characteristics (mostly emulating old tape delays). Countless sorts of delays (hardware and software) are to be found, each with specific behavior and control.

afbeelding delay goed.png
The determining parts of a delay-effect

From freezer to looper

A loop is a delay with exact reproductions of the recorded buffer. In fact a freeze is the same thing but with a very small buffer, stretching out an instant in time forever.

afbeelding freeze vs loop.png
Freeze is essentially a very short loop with blurred edges

The thin line between of freeze, stutter and loop effects can be clarified on a continuum as shown below. A stutter can be understood as a repetition of small bits of audio, too big for a seamless freeze but too small to think of it as a loop.

afbeelding delay freeze to loop goed.png
Chart of copying sound effects dependent on buffer time

Space-related tools

These give control over the output of the music in the physical space. It includes the use of different output sources and panning between them. This matter will be discussed in the tab output / amplification.

Sometimes a sound source can be close to the listener’s ear and still sound far away. Applying different kinds of reverb can mislead the listener like so, resulting in a hierarchy of nearness. Thus, there is an overlap between time-related and space-related tools.

High-pitched sounds will literally sound as if the sound source is situated higher in space, while low sounds will fill more lower regions in space. So we could also see a correlation between timbre-related and space-related aspects.