Skytopia has released SonicPhoto, an audio program to convert from pictures to sound.
Use your existing photo collection or draw your own in Photoshop (or any other paint editor) and with a click of a button, watch SonicPhoto create the sound before your eyes.
Inspired by the existing PhotoSounder program from Michel Rouzic, SonicPhoto loses the internal paint editor and sound importer, but gains automatic and convincing stereo, and a unique harmony filter to help create distinct and professional effects ranging from sparkling synths and rippling arpeggios, to roaring bass and metallic drones.
SonicPhoto features
Create an infinite variety of sounds ranging based on the patterns found in any picture.
Instrument and harmony quantization so you can create tonal sounds.
Dozens of in-built presets, so you can immediately try sounds out and experiment.
Convincing stereo is automatically added to all sounds.
Very easy to use GUI with everything you need at a click of a button.
Well thought out system for loading and save custom projects.
Instantly adjust the quality to suit your needs (low for preview, high for final result).
Unlimited upgrades to future versions, and hassle-free installation, without messing about with keys/passwords .
SonicPhoto for Windows is available to purchase starting at $39 USD. A free demo version is also available.
FlexibeatzII has released Paint2Sound, an application for Windows that turns images into sounds.
Paint2Sound generates soundscapes from images
Paint2Sound is a neat little self-contained application for converting any existing .jpg or .bmp image, or any picture you care to draw/paint with it, into a soundscape. This application can bring a new dimension to your music making, or at the very least give you a unique way of coming up with interesting sounding samples.
The way it works is: Each pixel row of the image represents a frequency band. The application synthesizes sine waves from each pixel row with an instantaneous amplitude determined by the brightness of each pixel in the pixel row, and then sums together all the sine waves. User control is provided over various parameters like sample rate, sound duration, the distribution of frequencies across the pixel rows and the overall level in the mix of each sine wave.
New Atlantis Audio has released Project Echo: Snapshots from Space, a new sample library.
Inspired by an early NASA communications project, and spawned from beautiful celestial satellite imagery, Project Echo is the latest addition to New Atlantis Audio’s growing library of atmospheric and unusual sound tools for musicians.
The foundation sounds were created by processing high resolution deep space satellite photographs with spectral analysis, granular echo effects and various resynthesis techniques, and the results are stellar. Pun intended.
Project Echo provides a ton of exploration and sonic potential to the creative musician working in any genre or style who could use a healthy dose of the atmospheric and exotic. There’s loads of variety inside – from evolving, long-play ambient soundscapes, to complex rhythmic textures, to huge granular effects, atmospheric drums, and even a nice set of vintage film dialog – all designed to inspire and be explored.
Michel Rouzic has announced version 1.8 of Photosounder, a tool for graphical sound design by spectral editing.
Photosounder allows you to graphically manipulate sound files to directly adjust, create and shape sounds with surgical precision.
Changes in Photosounder v1.8
Stereo support to edit and create stereo sounds less painfully.
Layer support for more powerful editing.
New options and modifications to improve your workflow and results.
VSTi integration and multi-platform support are planned for future updates.
Photosounder is available to purchase priced at $32 USD / €25 EUR for a non-commercial license and $127 USD / €99 EUR for a commercial license, with a free upgrade to version 1.8 (available on June 1, 2010). After the release of v1.8 Photosounder’s price will increase to $59 USD / €46 EUR for a non-commercial license and $175 USD / €138 EUR for a commercial license.
Marv can play music of high complexity, far more complex than a human player could ever achieve, as Marv is capable of striking any and all keys simultaneously, as well as damping each key individually. Marv can play much faster than a human vibraphonist, repeating single notes as quickly as 25ms apart. Marv can play with sensitivity and feeling limited only by MIDI programming effort. Marv is a platform for further research on musical automation and real-time musical interaction.
Noteput by Jonas Friedemann Heuer is an interactive music table with tangible notes, that helps students to learn the notation of music.
“Notput” is an interactive music table with tangible notes, that combines all three senses of hearing, sight and touch to make learning the classical notation of music for children and pupils more easy and interesting.
All basic clefs, note values and accidentals exist as single wood elements. Whole, half, quarter and eighth notes differ not only in their form, but also in their weight: Long note values are heavier than short ones.
Chris Supranowitz is a researcher at The Insitute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Along with a number of other spectacular studies (such as quantum optics, trapping of atoms, dark states and entanglement), Chris has decided to look at the relatively boring grooves of a vinyl record using the institute’s electron microscope. Well, not boring for me.
A single record groove, magnified 1000 times
Awesome images! Lots more on Chris’ website (note to those who are entomophobic; includes ladybug and fly images).
Techné Media has released version 2.04 of Pixound Jam Studio, a creative Mac software that translates colors and images into music.
The software allows users of all levels, to translate colors and images into music and allows the user to “play” pictures with a mouse or graphic tablet.
The Pixound Jam Studio has an endless number of uses from education, toys and games, professional musical and dance performances, and aids for the visually impaired. Inventor, Peter McClard says of his creation, “The most important use for Pixound is to have fun. Fortunately, that’s a given if you like music, like pictures and enjoy new experiences because Pixound immediately delivers on all of these.”
Changes in Pixound Jam Studio v2.04
Six new drum patterns and three new bass patterns, which accompany the user while playing their pictures.
New capabilities to control how the red, green and blue components of the images are turned into music. This allows the tempo, volume and octave of red, green and blue voices to be set independently.
New features for MIDI synthesizer users to get more out of the program.
A number of bugs were fixed, making the overall user experience less frustrating and more fun.
Improved Groovology Desktop™ function, creating new musical mixes as the user navigates to different windows on their Mac. All performances can be recorded and imported into iTunes.
Pixound Jam Studio is available for purchase for $99 USD. A demo is available for download from the website.
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