? diff morph/fade

[Sean Costello]

jh wrote:


> Think about this example: Multimode filter of the Oberheim SEM.
> Apart from the click stop BP position, there is a pot that creates
> a variable mix of LP and HP output of the same filter. This is
> Crossfading between HP and LP. Is it also a Morphing between
> HP and LP ? I would say no, because halfway in between there
> is the Notch filter response.

I would argue that, although the mixture between HP and LP may not be considered
"morphing," it is certainly more interesting than the term "crossfading" would
indicate. At any point of mixture between the two, the result will be a sound
that is more interesting than, say, crossfading organ waveforms, due to the
complex phase cancellations that occur.  The in-between points don't
particularly sound like either lowpass or highpass, but rather something new and
interesting.

Good "morphing" is hard to come by. In the world of images, you have a few
examples of high-quality "morphing" that turned people on to the whole idea -
Terminator 2 is the strongest example that comes to mind. This was followed by a
flood of horrible morphing in commercials, low budget movies, videos, etc.,
where the transition between the two states was just a blob that bore no real
resemblance to either of the two states, or to anything in particular. I have
heard similar results with phase vocoding, where a "morph" between two sounds
just sounds like undifferentiated mush. Nothing against undifferentiated mush,
but there are easier ways to get it that take up far less computation time.

What's my point? I'm not sure - I stayed up too late on another computer music
project, so I'm just rambling at this stage. I guess my point is that the
quality of morphing should be determined not just by the "in-between-ness" of
the two states, but whether or not the transition is artistically useful. In the
video world, good morphing isn't simply an automatic process, but a multi-stage
process that is really closer to traditional animation. I would argue that equal
care needs to be given to transitions between audio states, in order to produce
artistic results.

Beep!

Sean Costello