Processing Sound Using Photoshop
January 23, 2009 – 5:59 pm by John Keston
Sound designers, musicians, producers and engineers are all familiar with manipulating sound through the use of audio processing. Most examples of processing, like filters, reverbs, and delays produce a relatively predictable result. I’m interested in processing that has an unpredictable result. For example, the octave pedal that purrs like a robotic kitten when you feed it harmonic input, that I wrote about in Octave Pedal Rhodes. I have a similar interest in producing sound directly from visual media with tools like Michel Rouzic’s Photosounder, which I used for Conversion of Graffiti into Sound.
One of the first things I tried to do with Photosounder was to capture the image it creates from imported audio in order to use an image editing application as an audio processor. This didn’t work very well because much of the resolution was lost with the screen grab. Since then, Michel has added a feature to export full resolution spectral images of sound. This makes the concept of using a Photoshop filter as an audio processor possible.
To test this concept I created a simple pattern with an electric piano patch and opened it in Photosounder. Without changing any settings I immediately saved the sound as a bitmap image. Next I opened the image in Photoshop and started experimenting with filters. Once I had some filtered images I loaded them back into Photosounder to see how they sounded. Gaussian blur and Liquefy created some unique effects, but my favorite of the bunch was Glowing Edges. This filter seems to transform the electric piano into a haunting choral passage.
Original Electric Piano Pattern
Glowing Edges Electric Piano Pattern
34 Responses to “Processing Sound Using Photoshop”
Very cool!
By TheAudioPod on Jan 23, 2009
that is fucking awesome.
my brain has been heading in the same direction — audio is data and we can visualize and modify data in ten billion ways, using methods from e.g. astronomy, medicine, engineering. further, it’s not just sound design, it’s art, if you let it be. For example, I had a function to translate numeric frequencies (i.e. a4=440) into whatever weird values I need in the Arduino to produce the correct note. I screwed up that function so as you play notes above or below the calibrated octave, the results are very weird. So you play a normal song with your fingers and a different song comes out the speakers.
Fun stuff!
By Michael Koppelman on Jan 24, 2009
Hi,
Perhaps it’s faint praise, but that’s my new ring tone … (and yes, I think the idea of using the vast amount of image processing apps on audio has some amazing possibilities).
By Aaron Brady on Jan 24, 2009
It sounds pretty sweet I must say! I wonder how such effects would sound on different instruments.
By Michel Rouzic on Jan 24, 2009
Nice one, Michael. Let’s hear some more examples of that Arduino weirdness!
By John Keston on Jan 25, 2009
Please check out White Noise Additive Synth. (Or, really, any of the more capable additive synths out there… Chameleon Audio has one.)
…Very similar results, much less work. ;)
By JRice on Jan 27, 2009
You might also want to check out U&I software’s Metasynth.
http://uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/
By urmg17 on Jan 28, 2009
JRice – Convenience is clearly not the goal here. The spirit of this blog is kind of antithetical to the “just use a softsynth and get it over with” approach.
By Chad on Jan 29, 2009
you might also check out Bitmaps And Waves, a great imagesound freeware from a few years ago: http://www.elisanet.fi/victorx/BitmapPlayer.htm
written by Victor Khashchanskiy; he’s got some other neat sound-warping software linked from that page as well.
By housepig on Jan 29, 2009
this is the dopest shit i have ever seen.
By andyd on Jan 31, 2009
That is a brilliant idea, and this sample sounds great! I can’t wait to hear more!
It’s kind of a 21st-century version of the things Tangerine Dream was doing back in the early 70s before they discovered (and became addicted to) sequencers.
By The Moody Minstrel on Jan 31, 2009
Processing sound using Photowhat?
That’s a supercool idea! Very inspiring..
By Harry on Feb 3, 2009
We put Spectral Bitmap import/export into Adobe Audition 3.0, and I did a lot of similar testing with Photoshop effects. The Glass/Ripple filters were very interesting, as well as pitch shifting using copy/paste in different vertical areas. Photoshop also offers so many ways to make selections, that it can really be useful for very surgical noise removal.
We sidecar the Phase as a separate bitmap as well, so you can leave the audio as-is, but really go to town on the stereo phasing to get some wild effects. Definitely worth more exploration!
Durin
By Durin on Feb 9, 2009
Nice info. I’m feelin the sound
By DaProduce on Feb 9, 2009
This seems similar to what Melodyne DNA started out as, just without the Melodyne interface and a whole bunch of AI.
By danmelks on Mar 11, 2009
“Bitmaps And Waves” is a bit heavy tool. I recommend another which is easier (I think) to use:
http://victorx.eu/SndWarp.htm
By Victor on Mar 30, 2009
This is really interesting, I had no idea that you could even create sounds from images.
By Adelore Lessard on Jun 22, 2009
This an amazing technique! Very interesting indeed.
By Photoshop class on Jul 1, 2009
This is a fascinating area. I would love to see a Photoshop plugin to VST converter/wrapper – imagine the possibilities!
By vout on Jul 30, 2009
On behalf of all synesthesia sufferers everywhere, I thank you.
By Lawrence Standifer Stevens on May 21, 2010