KVR Audio

jobromedia · Post by **jobromedia** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:48 am

It started back in 2002 with me grabing SynthEdit. No big issues with it. Just experimented and tried to create an intresting effect that read the volume and output it as pitch so blind and sight impaired could read out the volume much easier. But it got stuck on my harddisk for 5 years. Then late in August 2007 I got my DC entry corrupted and I had not a chance recreating it in time. So I had the choices: Either step out of the competition, or come up with something easier. So I browsed through my sources from 2002 and foraward. Then I discovered the original BlindVU sources. I tested it and found that this might be something intresting for the competition. By reading the volume and representing it as pitch in two oscilators one per chanel it would give blind people the chance to read how the volume meter goes.

Here are 2 example sounds with 2 variations, one with and one without BlindVU showing how it reads the volume.

Acoustic drumloop
without BlindVU
with BlindVU

Anthematic arpeggio
without BlindVU
with BlindVU

hoffy · Post by **hoffy** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:12 am

Thanks.

I thought it was a joke.

Either way, it's been deleted off my hard disk. I'm not blind, but out of curiosity, how would a blind person load the plug-in to begin with, What use would the parameters on the GUI be if they couldn't read them anyway and why bother representing the volume with pitch? Surely they could hear how loud it is themselves...?

Ok.

jobromedia · Post by **jobromedia** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:54 am

Nah man it ain't ment as a joke. There are stuff like Receptor that you can load such plugins into. Also there is braille readers that can read Windows operative systems and even read menus and dialogs to being able to load the plugin. All the parameters are controllable with CC #52 - 61.

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:36 pm

i never got a clip warning sound when i tested it

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:46 pm

While discussing SightedVU, an imaginary plug-in which simulates an old-school electromechanical VU meter, a hypothetical person wrote:What use would the needle on the meter be if they couldn't sense the loudness anyway and why bother representing the volume with a moving needle? Surely they could hear how loud it is themselves...?

BTW, if you've never seen a skilled blind computer user at work, you might have a surprise in store. :-} Accessibility is a big topic these days, and there's a lot being done to help make computers usable for the sizable portion of the population who have impaired sight and hearing. BlindVU fits into this quite well.

As for why pitch -- in my experience, most people are able to distinguish between pitch levels a lot more accurately, and reproducibly, than volume levels. Perception of pitch typically doesn't change over a session, while perception of volume gradually changes relative to ambient and local sound levels: automatic level control in the ear/brain system. I'm guessing that's the rationale behind BlindVU.

duncanparsons · Post by **duncanparsons** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:16 pm

That's be great if pitch perception was affected by fatigue! you start to hear everything lower or higher as the session wears on!

Imagine after 2 days without sleep, you may be able to hear dog whistles because to you their pitch has dropped my several octaves!

I give BlindVU a thumbs up, myself - quite innovative thinking, and totally unexpected!

DSP

jobromedia · Post by **jobromedia** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:38 pm

Thanks DSP! You can get Blind VU to only represent with volume if you lower the P.Th. knob to zero. I'm working on embedding another checker that will change the wave from sine to triangle if above a specified level so that you can get even more precise readout. And about getting it to signal: Put it at the end of the effect chain after the compressor / limiter.

The story behind BlindVU