[HN Gopher] Bento is an alive, unstable Japanese noise box by Gi...
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       Bento is an alive, unstable Japanese noise box by Giorgio
       Sancristoforo
        
       Author : glitcher
       Score  : 101 points
       Date   : 2022-03-22 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
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       | weinzierl wrote:
       | This reminds me of _Wow Control_ [1] which is a tape simulator
       | but can also produce unstable analog-like noise.
       | 
       | [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zgSGuJB5gKk
        
       | mortenjorck wrote:
       | The video is well worth watching to understand what the main
       | sections do. If you have some familiarity with analog synthesis,
       | the components will be familiar (oscillators, filters,
       | modulation, clock/envelope generators), but the magic is in how
       | they're wired together and the design choices of what the
       | potentiometers affect.
       | 
       | This really is an incredible piece of virtual electronic design.
       | It's surprisingly deep, yet effortlessly responsive and playable.
        
         | kazinator wrote:
         | Well, they will be familiar depending on how good is their
         | written Japanese vocabulary or else understanding of the block
         | diagrams.
         | 
         | I see that Giorgio used the word Pin Du  (hindo) on a variable
         | frequency low-pass filter; but that word is not frequency as in
         | of a periodic signal measured in Hertz; it refers to frequency
         | of occurrence, like how frequently an accident occurs at some
         | intersection or whatever.
         | 
         | What we want is Zhen Dong Shu  (shindosu) or Zhou Bo Shu
         | (shuhasu).
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | I think a PoS/lexical category mismatch in a translation like
           | that ultimately comes to the fact that source and target are
           | independently conceived languages.
           | 
           | Frequency is a fast-ness or intervals of an event. The wrong
           | translation, Pin Du , is likewise a likelihood in a regular
           | occurrence.
           | 
           | The technical translations, Zhou Bo Shu , is "loop-wave
           | count", and Zhen Dong Shu  is "swing-move count"(used in
           | context of acoustic energy -- I'm aware you would be familiar
           | with it but for the record).
           | 
           | There is clearly no etymological connection between Frequency
           | and Zhou Bo Shu  or Zhen Dong Shu ; one way to call it is
           | it's a domain knowledge, but it's also true that one is
           | adjective and one is noun, or one is single and the other is
           | a composite word.
           | 
           | So I think it goes down to the fact that each language
           | encodes human cognition differently, even though it is often
           | argued that languages are universal in ability to express
           | ideas, and that translation is "impossible".
        
       | strogonoff wrote:
       | Bento could be such a brilliant machine for soundscape design
       | inspiration. Sadly, it is a standalone application.
       | 
       | In some ways it's more versatile and suitable for workflows that
       | don't involve a DAW. However, having it available as a VST/AU
       | would've opened up countless new possibilities--for example,
       | after seeing the demo video I immediately had a vision of a
       | soundscape that uses a few of those simultaneously, but 1) the
       | app does not let you launch multiple instances of itself; 2) even
       | if that was allowed, orchestrating launching all of them and
       | saving/loading corresponding presets every time would be an
       | obstacle; 3) that aside, playing (let alone automating) all
       | instances when performing or recording your scape would be quite
       | a royal challenge.
       | 
       | And as a minor grumble, unlike VST plugins and audio units
       | commonly distributed as single files that can be manually copied
       | where appropriate, this application needs to be installed (and
       | with root privileges to boot, not sure why that's necessary).
        
         | dmje wrote:
         | Aw man, that's sad. I was just reaching for my wallet when I
         | saw the standalone thing and I wondered if that was really the
         | case. It looks radical, but if I can't hook it into my DAW then
         | it's no good to me :-(
        
           | strogonoff wrote:
           | Yeah, I got the trial and it did not install any plug-ins.
           | 
           | I am close to buying it regardless. I plan to record various
           | pieces which could be extensively used in the DAW for
           | layering in post, triggering at a live gig, etc. Basically
           | same as digitized audio from a live instrument, voice or
           | hardware synth--slice and dice it, layer, transpose, reverse.
           | Not as many possibilities as from a playable DAW plug-in, but
           | still quite a few.
        
         | bambax wrote:
         | There are several virtual modular synths available, with VST
         | implementation, including Voltage Modular by Cherry Audio,
         | Modular by Softube, and many others.
         | 
         | VCV Rack is totally free and open source and works on most
         | platforms. The VST module is not free, but there is another
         | implementation (Cardinal) that's free (although it's not quite
         | ready for prime time yet).
         | 
         | Without the VST module, VCV can be controlled from the DAW via
         | virtual midi and virtual audio cables. It's a world of
         | limitless possibilities. I would strongly encourage anyone
         | interested to try it.
         | 
         | (At the end of the Bento video the author shows how to record
         | audio using virtual audio cables; but they don't say if and how
         | it's possible to control it from a DAW.)
        
       | coreyp_1 wrote:
       | I love circuits (I'm poring over the circuit diagrams for a
       | Rodgers 32c/d organ from the 60's in my spare time).
       | 
       | I'm a musician (degree in piano performance... currently trying
       | to fix an organ so I can start organ lessons).
       | 
       | I am not a guitarist, but I can appreciate the utility and
       | function of guitar pedals.
       | 
       | I don't understand the use for this. I don't see how it is used
       | for music, and the sounds do not seem pleasant to me. Can someone
       | help me understand what I'm missing?
        
         | anyfoo wrote:
         | Dntel's "The Dream of Evan and Chan" uses what quite literally
         | seems like recording noise artifacts and incorporates that as
         | one of the defining components of a very beautiful piece of
         | music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyispolH20Q
         | 
         | Like the sibling commenter Minor49er says: "Any sound can have
         | musical use". Classical instruments including percussion are
         | just the noises we are most used to.
        
         | rjh29 wrote:
         | Welcome to modular synthesis. It's more about experimental
         | generation of new sounds and patterns than being traditionally
         | 'musical'.
        
         | Minor49er wrote:
         | Any sound can have musical use, and some music doesn't aim for
         | pleasantness. I would make recordings of this, then chop out
         | the most interesting bits, rearrange them into patterns, play
         | them back at different speeds, time stretch them, put effects
         | over them, etc. There is a lot here to work with.
        
       | tomc1985 wrote:
       | What is with people making things that are essentially music
       | plugins and not making them VST...
       | 
       | Is this the new hipster hill to die on?
        
       | goodpoint wrote:
       | Where the katanas and other Japanese cultural artifacts really
       | necessary?
        
         | mortenjorck wrote:
         | Some of the illustrations actually support the signal flow
         | diagram, such as the katana for cutting frequencies in the
         | filter, or the wave crest for filter resonance. The daruma is
         | purely decorative, however.
        
         | Etheryte wrote:
         | Not everything needs to be flat and sterile, as is common in
         | modern design. Wacky, goofy and peculiar user interfaces are a
         | deeply rooted part of digital synth culture.
        
       | Splendor wrote:
       | The description reminds me of the Lyra-8 by Soma Laboratory.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8od1a1mySU
        
       | Jeff_Brown wrote:
       | Fantastic sounds.
       | 
       | I built a feedback-heavy synth based on Reaktor Spark. I was
       | disappointed to discover how difficult it is to anticipate the
       | pitch of the signal, which limits its harmonic usefulness. For a
       | sufficiently narrow band around each preset, including the
       | frequency of the source waveforms, the map from those source
       | waveforms' frequency to the output frequency can in general be
       | discovered. But as you wander around the relationship can change
       | wildly -- indeed, some output signals don't even have anything
       | that sounds like a fundamental frequency.
       | 
       | I wanted to program something that would manipulate the source
       | waveforms' frequencies to automatically produce an output signal
       | of the pitch a keyboardist had asked for. I think I could with
       | sufficient time but it's a nontrivial problem.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-22 23:01 UTC)