Caracterización de polvos iniciales y molidos

Let’s take our example one step further and construct the equivalent of Cameleon 5000’s

‘Morph Timeline’, which is a powerful tool for creating complex, rhythmic morphs. You can use the results of either of the preceding examples— ‘basic additive and spectral morphing’

or ‘morphing different aspects’ — as a starting point for the steps below.

 Undo any Performance control assignments: right-click (control-click) all the active Performance knobs and use the ‘Delete Modulation’ options to find and delete knob modulations; or right-click (control-click) the active XY Pad and use the ‘Delete Modulation X’ and ‘Delete Modulation Y’ options to find and delete pad modulations.

 If necessary, restore the morph mode to ‘morph xy’. Right-click (control-click) the Morph X knob and choose ‘Add Modulation’ > ‘MSEG’ > ‘MSEG 1’; then right-click the Morph Y knob and choose ‘Add Modulation’ > ‘MSEG’ > ‘MSEG 2’.

 Click the XY MSEG button at the top right of the Modulation section to bring the XY MSEG controls into view. Note that MSEG 1 and MSEG 2, which we have already assigned to modulate the morph knobs, both participate in the default XY MSEG configuration. (There is a dedicated page describing how to work with the XY MSEG controls; for this example, we’ll simply load a preset into the default configuration.)

 Load an XY MSEG preset: click the FILE button, and choose ‘Load’ from the pop-up menu. From the factory ‘MSEG’ folder, choose ‘Rhythmic-Simple’ > ‘RSquare

1_4X.mse’. The chosen file is loaded into MSEG 1, and the associated file ‘RSquare 1_4Y.mse’ is automatically loaded into MSEG 2 as well.

 Play a few held notes to confirm that the sound now morphs rhythmically between the settings of Sources A–D.

 You may find that Alchemy’s faster envelope response leads to unwanted ‘clicks’ each time the morph position jumps to a different corner of the square. Let’s make one refinement to eliminate any artifacts of this type. Click the Morph X knob to bring the MorAllX parameter’s mod rack into view. (You’ll see MSEG 1 is already assigned as a modulator.) Find the Smooth knob above the mod rack and raise it slightly, to about

1.0%. Likewise, click the Morph Y knob to bring the MorAllY parameter’s mod rack into view, and again raise the Smooth knob to about 1.0%.

Import

Choosing ‘Import’ from the pop-up menu in a Source content field opens the Import window.

The central portion of the window provides a simple file browser in which you can select WAV, AIFF and SFZ format sound files for importing. The AUTOPREV button toggles automatic previewing on and off. With AUTOPREV activated, you can hear a preview of a sound file simply by clicking its name. Sound files can be mono or stereo, 8-, 16- or 32-bit, at any sample rate (although rates higher than 44.1 KHz are not recommended, since they don’t yield any significant improvements in quality).

You can import sound files to any of Alchemy’s various elements: to granular, additive, or spectral, or to a combination of additive and spectral. To choose one of these import modes, use the GRANULAR, ADDITIVE, ADD+SPEC, and SPECTRAL buttons across the top of the Import window. Importing to the additive and/or spectral elements requires Alchemy to perform a special analysis of the file, which may take a moment.

A description of each import mode follows, with comments on the relevant options.

Granular

Importing to the granular element is good for drums loops, percussive sounds, and any sound to which you want to apply special granular effects. You can also use granular import and then switch the Granular element to its ordinary ‘Sampler’ mode, which is the best choice when you want to play a sound file efficiently in its original form, transposed across the keyboard.

 RootNote determines which MIDI note will play the sound file at its original

transposition. If the filename has a pitch appended to it (‘MyFile C2’, ‘YourFile-E3’,

‘OurFile_F#4’), Alchemy will automatically set the RootNote parameter to match.

 The Range and TimeFreqAcc parameters do not apply to Granular import.

Note: If the sound quality is not what you expected, check to make sure the Granular element is switched to ‘Sampler’ mode, unless you intend to perform granular-specific manipulations such as time

stretching/shuffling.

Additive

Importing to the Additive element allows for the most detailed manipulation of sounds, and is especially good for sound files that represent single notes (rather than chords or more complex sounds and textures).

 Good results with additive importing depend on an appropriate choice of RootNote. If the filename has a pitch appended to it, Alchemy will automatically set the RootNote parameter to match; otherwise, it will attempt to determine a suitable RootNote based on a preliminary analysis of the waveform.

Note: If a sound fails to import as well as you think it ought to, you may be able to get improved results by shifting the RootNote setting up or down an octave.

 The Range setting is also significant. For sound files that represent single notes (rather than melodies, chords, or more complex sounds and textures), choose ‘SingleNote’. For most other sounds, choose ‘OneOctave’. Again, Alchemy will attempt to determine an appropriate setting based on a preliminary analysis of the waveform.

 TimeFreqAcc determines whether ‘time accuracy’ or ‘frequency accuracy’ is prioritised during the import process. In most cases you can leave this at the default (‘GoodTime’), but for some material different settings may produce better results. (For example, to analyse speech, you should probably choose ‘BestFreq’.)