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SOUNDSHAPER: CDP REFERENCE

ONE-FORMANT - extract, impose, combine single formant


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SPECTRAL > MORPH/FPORMANTS > ONE-FORMANT >

SUMMARY
These are versions of Get, Put and Make for single-moment formant files, which capture a spectral envelope at one point in time.


1FMTGET
1FMTGET extracts a single spectral envelope at a specific time in a formant file. The input file, natively, is a time-varying formant file (.for), but Soundshaper can auto-convert from a sound (.wav) or spectral file (.ana) input.

PARAMETER
  time in the sound to extract single set of formants
    Range: 0 to file-length secs.

NOTES
The single spectral envelope captures the energy in each frequency band at a specific moment, like a single graphic-EQ filter setting, which can be imposed on another sound (1FMPUT). It is recommended to choose a time when the desired frequencies have a suitable level (otherwise there is little that can be done with the formant file). 

1FMTPUT
1FMTPUT imposes single-moment-formants (Infile 2, extracted using 1FMGET) on a spectral analysis file (.ana). The single spectral envelope can be imposed on (top of) the analysis file's spectral envelope (Mode 1), or can replace the latter (Mode 2).  The spectral contour is applied to the whole sound, like a static graphic-equalizer.

The parameters optionally set a lower and upper frequency range to retain (frequencies outside the band being zeroed), and an output level control.

MODES
  1. Impose formants: impose single-moment-formants on the analysis file (retaining the existing spectral envelope too).
  2. Replace formants: replace existing formants with single-moment-formants

PARAMETERS
  [lowlim]: Bottom frequency of range to retain
    Range: 20-20k (Hz)
  [hilim]: Top frequency of range to retain
    Range: 20-20k (Hz) and >LOWLIM
  [gain]: Overall gain on output.
    Range: 0-1


NOTES
In Mode 2, as the formants are static (as opposed to a dynamically changing spectral envelope), the result is a static sound with frozen amplitudes, but a changing spectrum/pitch. 

Make sure that the formant-file's frequency bands have a suitable level to impose, and that the target sound does have energy in these bands (e.g. you can't impose something on nothing). This might be achieved by mixing (spectral) transpositions of the original, before imposing the single-formants.

1FMTCOMBINE
1FMCOMBINE combines pitch (Input1: .frq) and single-moment-formants data (Input2: .for) to make a new spectral analysis file.
 
N.B. In Soundshaper the main input can be a sound (.wav) or a spectral file (.ana) ― the pitch file will be converted automatically from either of these. But the secondary input (.for) must already have been be extracted (using 1FMTGET), as the automatic conversion to formants produces a time-varying formant file, not a single-moment one. (This is because .for is shared by both single and T-V types.)

PARAMETERS: none

NOTES
As the formants are static (as opposed to a dynamically changing spectral envelope), the result is a static sound with changing pitch.

© Ensemble Software and Composers Desktop Project 2014