AudioMulch is

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of soun ...

software for making music and processing sound. The software can synthesize sound and

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

live and pre-recorded sound in real-time. AudioMulch has a patcher-style

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

, in which modules called ''contraptions'' can be connected together to route audio and process sounds. Included are modules used in electronic dance music such as a bassline-style

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

and a drum machine, effects like

ring modulation In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...

flanging Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and (usually) gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and no ...

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abs ...

and delays, and other modules such as a delay-line granulator and

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

spatializer. As well as these internal contraptions, AudioMulch supports VST and VSTi plugins.

History

Origins of AudioMulch

AudioMulch grew out of musician Ross Bencina's performance practice in the mid-1990s. At this time, live, computer-based sound processing systems were often expensive and restricted to use within research institutions. By 1995 however, the processing capabilities of the personal computer were sufficient that Bencina was able to create OverSYTE, a real-time performance granulator. OverSYTE was used by Bencina to process sound in his real-time performances with vocalists and instrumental musicians. AudioMulch grew out of the limitations of OverSYTE, which could process only one sound at a time. In contrast, AudioMulch can process multiple sounds sources at once.

Development of AudioMulch

AudioMulch has been in development since 1997. The first release made available for download on the Internet was beta version 0.7b1, in March 1998. There were 36 Beta releases prior to Version 1.0 of the software, which was released in February 2006. AudioMulch 1.0 was developed for Microsoft Windows in the C++ programming language, using the Borland C++ Builder development environment.

Version 1.0

Version 1.0 was released on 21 February 2006.

Version 2.0

AudioMulch 2.0 was released 5 June 2009. According to the website, this version is available for both Windows and Macintosh computers.

Version 2.1

Version 2.1 was released 4 August 2010. Version 2.1 supports custom time signatures, Audio Unit plugin support on Mac OS X, dynamic processing contraptions, and an alternate light gray color scheme.

Features

AudioMulch 1.0 features

* An interactive user-interface with three main panes: # a patcher for routing audio between contraptions # a pane containing control panels for each contraption # an automation timeline supporting automation of contraption parameters * Support for real-time sound-processing and performance. * 24 channels of real-time input/output. * Multi-channel recording and playback of multiple sound files. * Contraptions including signal generators, effects, filters and mixers. * Input sound can be taken from sound files or real-time audio input. * Output is heard in real-time and can be simultaneously recorded to a sound file. * Any processing parameter in AudioMulch can be controlled by MIDI. This includes the use of external hardware such as knob boxes, gaming controllers, virtual reality gloves and custom control devices.

AudioMulch 2.0 features

* A new Patcher with advanced drag-and-drop patching and MIDI routing * MIDI and automation control for Clock transport (tempo, stop, start) and Metasurface interpolation. * Enhanced Drums contraption with 8 channels and a new pattern editor supporting arbitrary length high-resolution patterns * Expanded multichannel audio I/O capability to support up to 256 channels in each direction and improved compatibility with consumer multichannel audio interfaces using DirectSound and Windows Multimedia drivers.

Future

As outlined in AudioMulch's road map, future versions should bring new sound mangling, filtering and resonating contraptions, an overhauled undo system, 3rd party host integration and performance modulation, as well as further enhancements to existing sound and keyboard controls. As of August, 2022, the long promised 64-bit compatible version of AudioMulch has not been released and the website is no longer available. As near as anyone can tell, AudioMulch is effectively abandon-ware.

Musicians that use or have used AudioMulch

Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the ban ...

* Girl Talk *

Four Tet Kieran Hebden (born September 1977), known as Four Tet, is an English electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the post-rock band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist with charting UK albums such as '' Rounds'' ( ...

* Lackluster * Erdem Helvacioglu * Shitmat * Pimmon *

Tim Hecker Tim Hecker is a Canadian electronic musician, producer, composer, and sound artist. His work, spanning atmospheric ambient albums such as '' Harmony in Ultraviolet'' (2006), '' Ravedeath, 1972'' (2011) and '' Virgins'' (2013), has been widel ...

The discography on the AudioMulch website has a list of other artists that have used AudioMulch in commercial releases.AudioMulch website – discography Retrieved on 2009-01-28
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Notes

References

AudioMulch website – info page. Retrieved on 2009-01-28

AudioMulch website – discography. Retrieved on 2009-01-28

Clatterbox website. Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * Dugan, S. (2006), "Girl Talk". In ''Remix Magazine'', 1 December 2006

Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * (2008) "Girl Talk/Gregg Gillis on New Album/Music Industry". In ''The Washington Post'', 29 July 2008

Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * Inglis, S. (2003), "FourTet – Kieran Hebden: Recording Rounds". In ''Sound on Sound'', July 2003

Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * Hsieh, C. (2005), "Audio Anarchy". In ''Remix Magazine'', 1 June 2005

Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * Interview with the Nine Inch Nails by Greg Rule, ''Keyboard Magazine'', February 2000

Retrieved on 2009-01-28 * Gallagher, M. (2004), "Between the Lines." In ''Electronic Musician Magazine'', 1 February 2004

* Bencina, R. (2006) "Creative Software Development: Reflections on AudioMulch Practice." In ''Digital Creativity'', Routledge, Vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 11 – 24. * Bencina, R. (1998), "Oasis Rose the Composition - Real-Time DSP with AudioMulch," ''Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Music Conference'', ANU Canberra, pp. 85–92. * Cleveland, B. (2007), "Erdem Helvacioglu". In ''Guitar Player'', September 2007, pp. 32–33. * Frere-Jones, S. (2008), "Re-Start: Laptops go Live". In ''The New Yorker'', 15 September 2008, pp. 94–95.

External links

* {{Audio editors C++ software Audio editors Software synthesizers