What happened so far?
A recent priority was the comparison of different phase vocoders that are available in Max. With the help of the Cycling74 resources, I tested whether the difference between the modules using polar vs. cartesian coordinates affected my sound sources in a (noticeable) way that would make me choose one over the other – ultimately cartesian coordinates seemed like the better option for my project, also in terms of CPU usage. For windowing, the Hanning window is currently in use.
Furthermore, to better understand the processes the signal goes through within the plug-in, I asked my supervisor about the meaning of phase coherence in this context, and was able to bit by bit (little terminology reference here) connect the theory and the practical application, which will help me a lot going forward.
Ongoing
The evaluation and development of EQ, pitch shifting and reverb modules for my project is ongoing. Fortunately, there are a lot of libraries and resources especially for filtering and spatial effects, so the main challenge here is to find what works best to achieve the sound results I am aiming for, while also being functional and relatively simple to integrate. By studying existing Max patches, even though they might not be 100% what I am looking for, I am learning more not just about the Max environment, but also about best practices and how I could translate certain organisational aspects (comments are so helpful for external people looking at a patch to know what is going on!) and connections into my own project patch. My main resources for this are free patches that I download from the Max for Live library patch page and explore.
Results and Reflection
While it is good to know that there is a phase vocoder that can help me to realise my vision for this project, now it is time to start thinking about how to best integrate it, and define which modifications need to be made in order to make it sound the way I want it to in the context of my project. To do so, I will draw comparisons between PaulXStretch and the Max phase vocoders, to determine limitations, potential areas of improvement and differences in sound quality at different stretch factors.
Objectives for Next Time
- Prepare and document sound examples to compare between the phase vocoder and PaulxStretch
- Continue development of other modules
