XComposer wrote:The formant – harmonics separation is a quite unique feature… I don't know any other software that does that so well (do you know of any?).
I have no idea, I heard that some do it for pitch shifting purposes, but usually it's just like one knob, so I don't really know what they do.
Which reminds me of one thing. So right now for a feature like this at best you have a script I made that you can load, but most of the time you're on your own, having to do the individual operations yourself. In Photosounder 2 since it'll be easier for me to add sort of dialogs and controls, I think I'll make proper dialogs for a lot of advanced effects like this, so that on your end it's just a couple of knobs, which is what you want really. Then maybe I'll start making sort of spin-off plugins out of some popular unique effects. I actually wanted to do that before I created SplineEQ, I experimented with an effect in Photosounder that I found interesting, it was something that would boost only the overall gain (of the envelope) based on an EQ curve (so you could boost the volume for when let's say the kick drum would kick in in a drum loop, without actually doing any EQing) but after I did the EQ part of it I thought screw it I'm just gonna do an EQ plugin, and then I got really deep into it.
XComposer wrote:Yes, a better interaction with the DAW would be important. I am not a programming expert at all so I don't know if it is possible, but perhaps a good idea would be to make also a Photosounder virtual instrument (beside the standalone application program), like a VSTi.
In my case, I work on a Mac and my DAW is Logic Pro X, so I would use only AU plug-ins (Logic does not accept the VST format) and I would need an AU virtual instrument (like a VSTi, but in AU format).
A virtual instrument could load an audio sample (or an image), let you work on it as usual as you do in the Photosounder standalone program, then it could save the reworked sample and play it back in the DAW (like a sampler). But, again, I don't know if this would be possible.
I think the fundamental problem about making a VSTi is how can you automate anything? Everything that isn't a slider will be lost when you reload your project, that's why plugins are all about either MIDI input or knobs/sliders. I guess it could work by saving a project file and reloading it (I could automate the path of the project), but I'm not sure how that would work out.
XComposer wrote:Changing subject: I can speak only for myself, but I would be interested also in another synthesis method. I mean: if you have a line of pixels, I imagine that you can play it as a sound by matching it with a sinusoid at the corresponding frequency, or by making a narrow bandpass filter at that frequency that filters a white noise (I tend to simplify). Now, I would also be interested in the (optional) possibility of playing it back with an arbitrary audio sample, loaded by the user. If I remember correctly, Metasynth used to have this capability. It would be a very interesting option when working on the construction of sound hybrids (think of a bell spectrum played back with a trumpet note sample as the basic "oscillator").
Concerning the lines I think what you're thinking of would make my aforementioned idea of using thin vector lines for FM synthesis. Is this correct? I want to do this eventually but maybe not for the initial release. And eventually even later I'd love to vectorise the lines of an input sound's pure tones, separating sines from filtered noises, essentially, it would give a much better resynthesis.