Many technologies exist to manipulate audio waveforms. With virtually any audio software, a sound can be increased in pitch, stretched in duration, or filtered to change the timbre altogether. However, audio software has always been subject to certain technological limitations. For example, all the previously mentioned techniques can only be applied to a sound as a whole. If you played a piano chord, a manipulation would affect the entire chord, rather than a specific note. However, to address this exact problem, a German software company called Celemony has developed DNA - Digital Note Access
With Digital Note Access, an audio waveform can be broken down into components, each of which can be adjusted individually. As a result, a producer can change one note in a chord, or even one instrument in a recording. Moreover, the visual interface provides a simple, intuitive functionality to the entire system.
Comments (1)
Celemony has a long history of developing software that's 'harmonics' aware. DNA is their latest foray into the 'make-the-donkey-sing-like-a-nightingale' market. This is not a diss actually but a sad fact of the music industry :)
Anyway, the engine that's driving this seems to employ some sort of Granular/Resynthesis to scan through the waveform with high precision and actually recreate it. This is how their able to shift pitch with almost zero aliasing.
What DNA is not capable of so far is separate instruments in a mix, which is a near impossibility. Still an impressive feat especially with polyphonic audio!
Thanks for the find.
Posted by Ala' Diab | September 18, 2008 6:09 PM
Posted on September 18, 2008 18:09