IRCAM has introduced a new collection of audio plugins designed to allow users to play with sound representation and synthesis parameters in order to generate new sounds.
The plug-ins can also be used in order to correct the defaults of the sound and to improve audio rendering. Thanks to the ARA2 integration, the spectral transformations are integrated into your editing workflow. The plugins are based on the SuperVP audio engine developed by the Ircam analysis-synthesis team.
Building on some of the features of AudioSculpt, ASAP comprises a total of 6 plugins, 2 of which are free:
- Spectral Remix (Free): Control the balance of the harmonic, noise, and attack components of the sound. Beyond many original approaches, the plugin can be used to highlight or hide certain audio elements and characteristics such as background noise, vocals, percussive sounds, and so on.
- Spectral Crossing (Premium): Cross the amplitudes and frequencies of a source sound and of a side-chain sound to generate a hybrid sound. The plugin can be used to creatively interpolate and transform one sound into another by gradually mixing the phase and amplitude components of the two audio signals.
- Spectral Morphing (Premium): Apply the spectral characteristics of a side-chain sound to a source sound in order to transform its timbre. By using a voice sound as the side-chain on an instrument sound as the source, spectral morphing can be used to make the instrument speak.
- Spectral Clipping (Free): Expand and compress the energy of spectral components within a range of thresholds. It can be used to silent low-level sounds such as background noise or to limit high energy peaks such as high-pitched bird calls.
- Formant Shaping (Premium): Modify the vowels and play with the formant resonances of the sound. It can be used to change spoken vowels of a voice or to vocalize instruments such as a drum set.
- Spectral Surface (Premium): Draw shape filters on the sound spectrogram and to control their gain and the fades. The sound representation and the effect interface, made possible thanks to the ARA 2 plugin extension, allow the creation of very complex and precise surface filters to reduce or increase specific parts of the spectral components of the sound. The plugin can be used to compensate for annoying artifacts in the sound as well as to transform the sound creatively.
ASAP is available for Windows, macOS and Linux in VST/VST3, AU and AAX plugin formats.
More information: IRCAM
