Audio morphing article

[flatmax <flatmax@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For those interested in audio morphing, A street magazine approached me
asking for an interview on the topic of audio morphing.
Here's the results (attatched)

Matt
What is audio morphing and what are you doing about it?
Audio morphing is most generally described as non-linear mixing. It is not robustly in existance yet, but getting close ....
Consider that audio manipulation these days is broken into techniques of:
Synthesis - generation of audio from nothing,
Passive overlaying - generation of audio by overlaying samples, and
Active overlaying - generation of audio by overlaying effected samples.

DJ's are expert artists of Active and Passive overlaying ... The passive overlaying tool is the mixer. DJ's who scratch either should shower more, or if they're scratching vinal (even digital these days), then they enter deeper and deeper into the relm of active overlaying.
MIDI composers are essentially playing with a combination of Active and passive overlaying systems ... the basis of MIDI is a triggerable and controllable bank of instruments. Individual instruments are made by overlaying effected samples in a memory bank .... instruments can be effected whilst they are playing, effects of pitch shifting, modulation and filtering are common ....

When you think about it the majority of applications and systems for making music are essentially made from sample overlaying systems and these systems are reguarded as linear mixing machines. Systems which start to effect the samples start to move towards non-linear mixing systems.

So what is audio morphing ? Well ... to explain that we should think about biology. Oooh! I hear you say ....

Can u explain briefly your theory of 'audio dna' ?
Audio DNA is a catch phrase I use to describe true audio morphing ... Audio DNA is a concept which best defines the 'auditory essence' of a sample. It is perceptually the most important features of a sample to people. A samples essential character. The DNA analog goes something like this ....
Biological DNA defines how we develop from the first few cells (fertilised egg) into an amazing animal .... by the same analog, Auditory DNA is how an audio sample develops from the first few digital numbers into an amazing audio sample. In or before the '80s I would have said 'Auditory DNA is how audio develops from the first analog voltage OR waveform snippet into an amazing snippet of audio'

So, now .... the musical systems we use today are essentially made of cloned and genetically engineered audio DNA. When we overlay samples, it is the same as copying the original samples (cloning their DNA) and letting them co-exist together in audio space. When we overlay effected samples, it is the same as cloning genetically engineered audio DNAs, letting them co-exist in the audio space.
A morphing system is one in which audio DNAs have babies ... thats right two DNAs merge in some way to make one audio DNA. When you think about it the offspring from two audio DNAs will have portions which are similar to both parent DNAs. Consequently the results are a sample which sounds similar to both original samples, but is quite obviously different, just like you are ovbviously similar to both your parents, but also very different (physically). The result of a morph is a single sample, no co-existance.

What inspired you to research/develop audio morphing?
The possibilites of the quantum world blew and still blow the minds of physicists ... the possibilities of the morphing world blow my mind ... when the first REAL audio morphing machine pops into existance, I believe it will cause an (r)evolution ... the simplest example I can think of ...... take you two favorite tracks, morph them, you should end up with another garanteed favorite track, similar to both of the originals, but a whole new sound ..... whew ?!@!*

Why are u using the linux operating system, and what benefits / problems
does this have for audio?
Linux is not for everyone, this is (ge) rated .... geek rated .... it is expected to change to (g) rated .... general rated .... in the next 5 to 10 years, so get ready to ditch your MS and MacOS operating systems .... Just as a taster, Linux is put together by a world wide conglomerate of coders ('geeks' for short) ... it is free and more stable (no more blue screen of death !) then most commercial operating systems - this is mainly due to freedom of information and information flow in the global Linux communinty. There are many many flavors of Linux, www.debian.org for example.

Describe the audio software you're working on?
The first robust morphing machine.

What software developments currently inspire u?
The realisation that music recently crossed the boundary from being a medium to being a software (quote taken from Simon Rumble). It is a combination of the convergence of the digital takeover from analog and improvment of digital compression / network technologies.

3 of your fave urls? NAH

Syd artists pushing your audio buttons at the moment?
The energy boost MC Wire verbalises into effect, free flow jams presented by the Broadway squaters + their lovers + friends, Contemporary vibe ups of traditional rhythms and song by Capoeira Filhos Da Bahia (Tempe)

The future of music is ...?
You guessed it ... Non-Linear - morphing for example .... Linear music systems have pretty much been stretched to the limit since the (Aussie) invention of the sampler however many decades ago. About the most contemporary development in the last few years which has really changed music was the invention of Net Jamming, the Distributed Audio SEquencer (DASE), catch 'DASE team 5000' for a live demo ...