I’ve got a project that definitely needs some bird sounds, and I’m hoping to use this as an opportunity to think about some new sonic approaches. Anyone with some experience in this regard have some ideas they are open to sharing? I’ve got my modular, Prophet, and Sub 37 ready to go, and I’m getting to work as soon as I finish typing this to try some ideas, but I’m hoping to try as many approaches as I can over the next week. Open to any and all synthesis techniques.
1 Like
There was some modeling of birds in Designing Sound:
http://aspress.co.uk/sd/practical28.html
For PD. There are Max versions somewhere online too.
2 Likes
Something reedy like a Mangrove or 3-Sisters with a lots of envelopes seems like it could get you pretty far.
10 Likes
The best twittering sounds I’ve come across (without going looking) have occurred while playing with filters (Ripples and R*S VCFQ). LFOs and envelopes into the CV ins for resonance and FM can give canary-ish sounds.
1 Like
FM to VCO and VCF. Fast modulation. Non-linear envelopes.
I really thought it was Common Music, but there is a LISP-based synthesis package with a ton of birdsong synthesis examples… a friend of mine played around with this for a collab circa 2011, I’ll see if he remembers… I remember it being a collection of routines for synthesizing specific bird calls, as a tutorial to become familiar with synthesis primitives in the environment…
In the meantime, here’s Andy Farnell’s tutorial: https://web.archive.org/web/20080307143015/http://obiwannabe.co.uk/tutorials/html/tutorial_birds.html
(And speaking of Andy Farnell – does anyone have the link to his new TOR site? There was a mysterious message on his site for a while about moving to TOR because of “recent developments on the web”)
1 Like
Ah, here it is: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/clm/clm/bird.clm
Transcriptions of ~50 bird calls for CLM. (I think these are by Bill Schottstaedt)
I used to make great bird sounds back in the days with Audiomulch. I guess it was the device called “Nebuliser”.
Here’s a Kaivo patch I did that I call “Canopy Birds”:
{
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“licensor”: “”,
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“seq_value15”: 0.380000,
“seq_pulse0”: 1,
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“lfo_rate”: 11.950000,
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“lfo_offset_p”: 0,
“lfo_rate_p”: -0.240000,
“lfo_level_p”: 0.940000,
“lfo_function”: “circle”,
“noise_peaks”: 5,
“noise_width”: 2,
“noise_falloff”: 0.750000,
“noise_offset”: -0.130000,
“noise_rate”: 0.980000,
“noise_level”: 1.220000,
“noise_auto”: 1,
“noise_filter”: 1,
“noise_offset_p”: 1.000000,
“noise_rate_p”: 0,
“noise_level_p”: 0,
“env1_attack”: 4.435000,
“env1_decay”: 0.010000,
“env1_sustain”: 1,
“env1_release”: 2.670000,
“env1_level”: 1,
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“env2_repeat”: 0,
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“gran_rate”: 2,
“gran_density”: 0.250000,
“gran_pitch”: -1,
“gran_pitch_env”: 0.100000,
“gran_pan”: -0.300000,
“gran_follow”: 1,
“gran_smooth”: 0,
“gran_wrap”: 0,
“gran_position_x_p”: 0.280000,
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“gate_level”: 0,
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“res_position”: 0.300000,
“res_brightness”: 0.430000,
“res_pitch”: 1760,
“res_nonlin”: 0.280000,
“res_sustain”: 0.350000,
“res_pan”: -0.690000,
“res_mode”: “metal string”,
“res_position_p”: 0.560000,
“res_brightness_p”: 0.800000,
“res_pitch_p”: 1.480000,
“res_pitch_lin_p”: 0,
“res_nonlin_p”: 0.500000,
“res_sustain_p”: 0.220000,
“res_pan_p”: 0.580000,
“res_mix_wet”: 0.500000,
“res_mix_dry”: 0.650000,
“body_position_x”: 0.890000,
“body_position_y”: 0.900000,
“body_nonlin”: 0.250000,
“body_tone”: 0.220000,
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“body_sustain”: 0.110000,
“body_pitch_mode”: 2,
“body_mode”: “metal plate”,
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“body_nonlin_p”: 0,
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“output_tilt”: 0,
“output_chorus”: 0,
“output_limit”: 1,
“patcher_matrix”: {
“type”: “signal”,
“width”: 17,
“height”: 44,
“depth”: 1,
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},
“key_scale”: “12-equal”,
“preset”: “My Kaivo Patches/Canopy Birds”,
“sample_name”: “Vocal/edchord.wav”,
“maker_name”: “Madrona Labs”,
“app_name”: “Kaivo”,
“app_version”: 67587
}