IRCAM's AudioSculpt

[Breeze]

The mention of Atari ST has me wondering if you were using CDP (Composers' Desktop Project). If so, that's still available for PC/Mac and has gone freeware/open source in the last year or so. Spent around £190 (IIRC) on it circa 2005 and it stands as one of the best investments I've ever made.

Thanks for the link, cron. I was actually referring to the old Steinberg ST sound editor called "Avalon". It offered some pretty sophisticated processing for the time and was much more than a sound editor.

I briefly read up on CDP some time ago and it looked interesting. From what I read it's now open source and you can get a cheap front end for it. Sounds like a no-brainer to satisfy my curiosity about it

I still get blown away at how far we've come in 25 years. But there's always room for improvement...

[XComposer]

Hello, sorry for writing on an old topic, but I have a technical question. I am thinking about buying AudioSculpt.
My question is: when you do a (fixed, constant) time stretching in AudioSculpt, do you have only the possibility to specify the stretching factor (e.g. "1.8 x" or "180 %" of the original) or can you specify the exact length desired for the resulting audio (e.g. "I want the resulting audio to be 32.754 seconds long")?

Thank you for any help.

[Gamma-UT]

The most recent version I have is 3.2.8 (from an Ircam subscription that I've let lapse for a while) but it lets you type the target time into the time-stretch box from which it automatically calculates the stretch factor. I haven't tested it for accuracy.

[XComposer]

So you can do it. Excellent, thank you very much.

[Ah_Dziz]

Soooo, I realize this is a super old topic, but I was wondering what the closest program to audiosculpt is sinc it doesn’t appear to be available anymore.

I am also confused about all of the different IRCAM companies out there that seem to be using the same underlying DSP, but are sold through many somewhat unrelated (but still all with IRCAM in their name) which is confusing to me. I really would just like a working version of audiosculpt for some more intense offline editing. I don’t know if IRCAM TS2 is close enough to replace the features of Audiosculpt.

[Michael L]

You can buy AudioSculpt and all the IRCAM software through the Forum. A Forum membership is $200/$100 student and includes permanent licenses for AudioSculpt + many others. Some need Max, some do not need Catalina.
Your membership gives you discounts to all the other IRCAM software, or you can buy from resellers like Flux and UVI.
Browse the menus here:
https://www.ircam.fr/innovations/
Check out these 2017 AudioSculpt tutorials (CC in English):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... vbixGRqKat

[fmr]

You can buy AudioSculpt and all the IRCAM software through the Forum. A Forum membership is $200/$100 student and includes permanent licenses for AudioSculpt + many others. Some need Max, some do not need Catalina.

You can't "buy" - you subscribe to the forum, and get the software. After the subscription ends, although (AFAIK) the software keeps running, you don't have a license to use it anymore (again, AFAIK) and you cease to receive updates, etc., unless you renew your subscription.

And Audiosculpt only exists for macOS - this is the biggest drawback, IMO.

It's about time IRCAM reaches the 2tst century, and cease to be a "vassal" of Apple.

[Gamma-UT]

It's more like a Bitwig one-year upgrade licence:

"Once the one-year subscription date has passed, the software remains active and usable but users might experience warnings on subscription renewals."

[fmr]

It's more like a Bitwig one-year upgrade licence:

"Once the one-year subscription date has passed, the software remains active and usable but users might experience warnings on subscription renewals."

Don't forget it's for macOS. Users may experience much more than just warnings. They may experience a complete "lockdown" on the software due to the yearly OS "upgrades".

And for a regular user, it costs more than a Bitwig subscription.

[Gamma-UT]

If Ircam made a DAW I suppose that comment might be relevant in some way.

[Michael L]

Some IRCAM programs run in Max, some in Mac, some in Mac+ Windows, some in Mac+ Windows+ Linux, and 22 of the 28 programs are free.

https://www.ircam.fr/innovations/abonne ... logiciels/

RX and Photosounder have some similiarities, but a new plugin that is cool like AudioSculpt is Factorsynth. It is a partner program of the IRCAM Forum, and a Max/M4L device.

https://www.jjburred.com/software/factorsynth/

However, Factorsynth uses a totally different but very cool resynthesis method:
https://www.jjburred.com/research/pdf/b ... c_2016.pdf

[Tj Shredder]

I used an old version of Audioscuplt and later replaced it by Izotope RX elements, now I use Acon Digitals Acoustica not just for spectral editing. The real beast in that area is most likely Steinbergs Spectrasonics, but I don’t know it. Plenty of alternatives...
Factorsynth is a synth and mangle tool there is zero overlap to Audiosculpt...

[Michael L]

Good point, Steinberg's SpectraLayers is probably the closest, and recently updated too.

Factorsynth uses a totally different method but you can achieve some similar goals:
- Extract elements in sounds
- Remove notes from clips
- Change the rhythm of a loop by moving its components
- Randomize the timbre and tempo of sounds
- Create rhythm and timbre variations of loops
- Create textures out of a melody
- Morph one sound to have the timbre and rhythm of another
- Apply effects to certain elements in a sound
- Separately process the consonants in a voice
- Cause the elements in one sound to change the elements in another
I also mention Factorsynth because it's the newest time/pitch tool from IRCAM and is totally out-there