[sdiy] Additive Synthesis Doesn't Work?

[Glen]

At 10:43 PM 3/21/2005 , Aaron Lanterman wrote:

>Cool... so Cameleon publishes their voice file format, so you can go in 
>and play like that with your own custom code? Or do you have insider info 
>on their format? ;)

I have insider info on the file formats. I was lucky enough to be part of
the original Cameleon beta testing team, and I also wrote some of the
factory presets. Then, I got special permission to create utilities that
work with the Cameleon file formats. Any registered Cameleon user can
download MorphMaker, my first utility, for free. It's a program that helps
write morph transitions. The Cameleon additive engine lets you morph
between 4 different harmonic profiles, and my utility allows you to easily
design simple to very complicated transitions between those 4 profiles. The
morph pattern is stored in a file of its own, and my utility creates these
for you. Later, I plan to write software to help with creating the harmonic
profiles themselves, which are stored in their own file format. Actually,
there are 7 different formats this synth stores various bits of information
in--not including BMP image files, which this synth can also read and write
(it actually converts BMP images into harmonic profiles)--or WAV files,
which this synth can analyze and derive harmonic profiles from.

A lot of people talk about additive synthesis being too hard to work with.
I've even seen people say it was harder to work with than Yamaha's FM
synthesis. I just don't see it that way. There's a lot of fun to be had
here. Thanks to soft synths, it's also gotten affordable. I'm trying to do
my part to help, by writing some simple utilities which make the job of
patch creation easier.


take care,
Glen