ASAP: The Next Generation of Creative Audio Processing at IRCAM
ASAP– AudioSculpt As Plugins was launched in December 2022 with a preliminary set of treatments, which are gradually being extended with new features such as Pitches Brew, scheduled for release at theAteliers Forumfrom March 29— 31, 2023 with a presentation on the morning of March 30.
ASAP is the result of a development process spanning several years aimed at updating and extending IRCAM's flagship software program: AudioSculpt. ASAP integrates various audio processing engines produced through research carried out by IRCAM's Analysis-Synthesis team, notably SuperVP, the quality of which is unrivalled.
This approach is based on the modularization of functions and their availability on multiple platforms (macOS, Windows and Linux) with :
The Partiels application for the analysis and visualization of sound files, enabling the combination of multiple graphic representations of sounds—envelope, sonogram, sine partials, temporal markers, sound, musical and phonetic descriptors, and more—through the use of inserts in VAMP format.
- ASAP audio processing plug-ins are available in VST3, Audio Unit, and AAX formats for real-time sound transformation. Plug-ins that require time-based editing functions rely on the ARA2 extension to synchronize editing of multiple regions to those of the host workstation.
The entire set of ASAP plug-ins is available as part of the IRCAM Forum's paid Premium package; free Forum members have a number of plug-ins available to them as well. Demo versions can be downloaded. Documentation and video tutorials are available online.
Plug-ins :
Spectral Remix [Free] : The plug-in allows you to control the balance of the harmonic, noise, and attack components of the sound. Beyond many original approaches, the plug-in 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] : The plug-in allows you to cross the amplitudes and the frequencies of a source sound and of a side-chain sound to generate a hybrid sound. The plug-in 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] : The plug-in allows you to 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] : The plug-in allows you to 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] : The plug-in allows you to modify the vowels and play with the formant resonances of the sound. It can be used to change the spoken vowels of a voice or to vocalize instruments such as a drum set.
Spectral Surface [Premium] : The plug-in allows you to 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 plug-in 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 plug-in can be used to compensate for annoying artifacts in the sound as well as to transform the sound creatively. The plug-in set supports multichannel processing at any common sample rate. The interface offers graphical themes to adapt to the graphical appearance of your digital audio workstations and your operating system.
Pitches Brew [Premium] : permet de redessiner et de modifier les hauteurs et les formants du son. Basé sur l'extension ARA2, le plug-in offre une représentation visuelle des fréquences fondamentales d'origine, des hauteurs attendues et des formants avec des courbes permettant de nombreuses éditions originales telles que redessiner, transposer, étirer, copier, modifier le vibrato, etc.
