Day 065 / Spear Demonstration

The deadline for final tracks on the latest Monome Community Remix Project has passed and I unfortunately don’t have a track to turn in.  Work has been so busy for me over the last two weeks that I haven’t been able to devote enough time to it.  So, tonight I decided to spend some time on that track.  I can’t post everything that I did because I don’t want to ruin the surprise of unveiling a final track but I will post a short bit from my session.  It’s using a software called Spear.
 
Spear is very cool.  It’s totally free and very interesting in concept and design.  What it does is analyzes an audio file and then interprets that file into a re-synthesized impression of the original sound.  When the sound opens up in the program all of the various partials are represented by squiggly lines.  Then you’re able to select the partials by various criteria like volume level or duration and then play back those selected partials and see what you get.  
 
If what you just read doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry.  You still may find the video below interesting.
 
In the video you will see me alter one of the samples from the latest Monome Community Remix Project.  I start by demonstrating the basic pitch and speed functions.  Then I show how the sample can sound dramatically different by playing back only selected partials.  At the end I play a version of the sample with only hand picked partials, pitched and slowed down to create a very different and beautiful sound.
 
Check it out!