looking for right software for this idea

a friend of mine makes music, not really electronic at all, but he was explaining an idea he had, to me today: he wants to record like a field sample, and take it apart to see how it works, all using a computer. i told him it sounded like he wanted a time stretch vst, but he said that's not exactly what he had in mind.

 

i realize this is a really sketchy relation of his idea, but does anyone here have knowledge of what he may be on about, and how to achieve it with software?

'Take it apart' isn't really that clear, as in chop it up ? If so something like reaper can easily do that

 

Or maybe be means extract various frequencies from it, see the various sounds that make up the whole recording. In which case some kind of spectral analysis and manipulation might be what's needed

Sounds like a basic waveform editor in any DAW will do the trick... that way, he could splice it apart- analyze the waveform, etc.

 

cubase is really good for surgical editing.. hope that helps...

 

if thats not what he's looking for, then i think the last resort if to use either a metal detector, stethoscope or magnifying glass

  On 5/25/2013 at 1:18 AM, mcbpete said:

'Take it apart' isn't really that clear, as in chop it up ? If so something like reaper can easily do that

 

Or maybe be means extract various frequencies from it, see the various sounds that make up the whole recording. In which case some kinnd of spectral analysis and manipulation might be what's needed

 

that is pretty much what i think he wants to do, he's a really weird guy

  On 5/25/2013 at 1:21 AM, tht tne said:

 

  On 5/25/2013 at 1:18 AM, mcbpete said:

'Take it apart' isn't really that clear, as in chop it up ? If so something like reaper can easily do that

 

Or maybe be means extract various frequencies from it, see the various sounds that make up the whole recording. In which case some kinnd of spectral analysis and manipulation might be what's needed

that is pretty much what i think he wants to do, he's a really weird guy

 

Which one is it he want to do - the chopping up or the extracting ? If it's the latter there's a great plugin (that I've just tried to look for though with little luck) that someone on here posted what did incredible manipulation to remove noises from field recordings.

Yeah that's the one !

Iris - Izotope

Spear (free!)

http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/

 

Celemony Melodyne DNA

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=dna

That Sony thing looks cool too, I like the photoshop kind of approach to the "layers".

 

But the guy demoing it seems kind of evasive. There's some obvious ideas he avoided (the notch-filtering/phasing of the vocals in the siren sample, the visible harmonics within the "noise" on the extracted siren, PC availability, exportation to WAV, and the silly stompbox red herring)

I guess that's just how it goes with software that's still under development (I assume)

  On 5/25/2013 at 2:48 AM, sweepstakes said:

That Sony thing looks cool too, I like the photoshop kind of approach to the "layers".

 

But the guy demoing it seems kind of evasive. There's some obvious ideas he avoided (the notch-filtering/phasing of the vocals in the siren sample, the visible harmonics within the "noise" on the extracted siren, PC availability, exportation to WAV, and the silly stompbox red herring)

 

I guess that's just how it goes with software that's still under development (I assume)

 

its been out for awhile and is available on PC/Mac and has WAV export

you can try the demo http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/spectralayerspro

 

this kind of technology may never be perfect in our lifetime but this is definitely some of the best spectral repair available at consumer friendly prices right now

 

izotope RX is pretty good too

Edited May 25, 2013 by RadarJammer

and there is also Raven

 

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/raven/RavenOverview.html

 

which was especially developed for this sort of analysis.