DSP Dimension Latest
News
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DIRAC-based TimeFactory2 MacOS X Standalone
Software Released
April, 2007 -- We are happy to announce the
availability of a cooperation product with the
Germany based company Prosoniq, one of the industry
leaders in audio editing and processing software.
The new version 2 of Prosoniq's "TimeFactory"
application was designed and developed by our
development team and uses key technology like our
DIRAC time stretching and pitch shifting. See their
web site here
for more details and a free demo version
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OctaveShifter MacOS X AudioUnit by Frank Schoep
October, 2006 -- Frank Schoep of "Forever For
Now" has just released his OctaveShifter AudioUnit
plug in which is based on our smbPitchShift code.
This is what he has to say about it: "With the
success I had with my previous Audio Unit, the
Reverse Sampler, I set out to create another one.
This time I wanted to do a realtime pitch shifting
effect with a range of plus or minus one whole
octave. Initially I thought it would be the easiest
to make an effect that could only shift exactly an
octave up or down. I tried several variations to
create a decent pitch shifting algorithm but I
couldn't get anything to sound anywhere near a
decent quality pitch shifter. […] I
decided to stick with the pitch shifting code
available on Stephan M. Bernsee's DSP Dimension
website. In record time I had implemented his code
in my Audio Unit […]" Make sure
you read the full story and download the free
AudioUnit from
his web site.
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smbPitchShift Bumped Up to Version 1.2
October, 2006 -- We're happy to announce the
immediate availability of version 1.2 of our
smbPitchShift code. Version 1.2 fixes some long
standing minor issues with initialization bounds,
unused variables and sound quality when upshifting
the pitch by larger factors. If your project uses
the code make sure you replace the old version with
the new one available from our download page. If
you did not change the code from the original
distribution this should be a simple replace. Get
the new version from
here.
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Autodesk Releases New Products Using Dirac
September, 2006 -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:
ADSK) launched new versions of its visual effects
and editing systems: Autodesk Inferno 2007,
Autodesk Flame 2007, Autodesk Flint 2007, Autodesk
Fire 2007 and Autodesk Smoke 2007. Focusing on
connectivity and productivity, these latest
versions streamline workflow and provide artists
with more time for creativity. The products,
which have been used to create breathtaking content
for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,
X-Men: The Last Stand and Lady in the Water, now
include the DIRAC
Time Stretching and Pitch Shifting Technology from
the DSP Dimension. Get more info on their products
from
here.
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DiracLE 1.29 Released
May, 2006 -- Today the DSP Dimension would like
to announce the immediate availability of DiracLE
version 1.29 from our Download page. Version 1.29
offers the latest bug fixes from the commercial
versions and now supports Universal Binary projects
on MacOS X. The Windows version fixes several
memory allocation issues that could cause a crash
on deallocation of the Dirac object. We highly
recommend downloading this version from our
Download page.
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Steinberg Adopt DIRAC Time Stretching Technology
for WaveLab 6
February, 2006 -- We are happy to
welcome Philippe Goutier (the author of
WaveLab) as a new licensing partner amongst the
licensees of the critically acclaimed DIRAC time
and pitch manipulation software released by the DSP
Dimension in 2005. Goutier/Steinberg have adopted
our novel DIRAC time stretching and pitch shifting
technology for the latest version 6 of their
popular WaveLab audio editing software for Windows
which is in stores now. Read about the feature set
of WaveLab 6 here.
"DIRAC is among the most advanced algorithms for
time-based manipulation of audio material available
today. Excellent audio quality, outstanding
performance and maximum precision are among the
superlative qualities this technology brings to
WaveLab 6. Its flexibility allows it to be used on
a huge range of audio material including vocals,
drum loops and classical string ensembles to
name just a few", says the Steinberg web
site.
WaveLab is undoubtably one of the most popular
audio editing tools on the Windows platform.
Together with other leading software products that
already use DIRAC, such as custom-tailored
high-end audio and video systems presently being
used at the Paramount editing facilities, DIRAC has
quickly become accepted by the leading developers
in the audio industry as the standard for high end
time and pitch manipulation. Currently, we have
many more inquiries by leading companies and we
expect to announce new licensing partners very
soon.
DIRAC has been designed from the ground up to
deliver optimum quality with any audio material.
This means it is optimized to process both
musically monophonic and polyphonic material with
equal ease and success. Its innovative formant
correction keeps the tone and color of the
processed sounds unaltered even for large pitch
shift ratios, making it an ideal tool to transpose
lead vocals or entire scores at very high quality.
Its unique pre-scheduling feature calculates
dynamic time and pitch envelopes independently of
the host software, which makes it possible to edit
the audio material on a sample-accurate level
without actually implementing envelopes in the
host.
Employing the latest technology for adaptive time
frequency transforms, DIRAC is presently the only
technology that can have the coherence and
precision of time domain methods while preserving
the excellent resolution of frequency domain
methods for polyphonic material over a wide range
of stretch ratios, without reverberation artifacts
and echoes. In case you have not yet checked out
the DIRAC product page we'd like to welcome you to
our DIRAC
product page. DIRAC
is available in 3 different varieties at very
competitive licensing fees - the LE version of the
technology even comes entirely free of charge. Full
ANSI C/C++ source code is available as a special
licensing option.
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DIRAC 1.1 Now Includes Automatic Pitch/Intonation
Correction
July 18th, 2005 -- Being an ideal tool for sung
or instrumental tracks that aren't in perfect tune,
DIRAC 1.1 now incorporates an advanced way of
improving intonation on instrument and vocal
tracks. Its automatic pitch detection and
correction lets you automatically correct notes
that deviate from their closest key on the piano
keyboard. The DIRAC pitch correction is a lightning
fast process that makes this application faster
than realtime and ideal for A/B comparison
sessions. Contrary to other pitch correction
schemes on the market today that sound rather
synthetic and lend a robotic quality to the
processed tracks, DIRAC's advanced intonation
parameters allow for a natural result that is
indistinguishable from the orginal track. Due to
the fact that it doesn't use granular synthesis
like many of the other pitch correctors it does not
produce any distortion or artifacts, and it doesn't
rely on the underlying signal being 100% periodic
to produce a musical result. When you enable pitch
correction you can adjust the pitch correction
strength and capture range as well as the slur rate
that defines the time until the note settles at the
correct pitch. Much like a singer who adjusts the
note while he sings, DIRAC adapts to the signal and
smoothly shifts it to match the predefined pitch.
Of course, DIRAC gives you full control over the
reference tuning to match your recording. You can
get the library and updated documentation from
our
download page.
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DIRAC STUDIO Demo available for download
July 12th, 2005 -- We've put together a small
Windows console application that allows you to
process your files (AIFF format for now) with DIRAC
STUDIO. Full support for phase locked processing is
included - this application can actually be used as
a full-quality free time stretcher/pitch shifter
that works without any restriction! Please see the
accompanying README file for details on its use.
You can get the program from our
download page.
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DIRAC Licensing Conditions Posted
July 8th, 2005 -- An update to the DIRAC page
has just been completed, including the costs for
licensing
the technology
for use in your products.
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miniAIFF 1.51 Posted
July 4th, 2005 -- Version 1.51 of the free
miniAIFF library is available for download. Version
1.51 adds support for MacOS X Universal Binary
format and is compatible with the upcoming
Intel-based Mac models. Xcode 2.1 and MacOS X 10.4
or later is recommended.
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DIRAC 1.05 Posted
July 1st, 2005 -- Version 1.05 of DIRAC LE is
available for download. Click
here for
a detailed version history and changes in this
version.
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DIRAC Page Updated
June 27, 2005 -- We've just updated the DIRAC
page with a FAQ
section
that covers the most frequently asked questions we
are getting. More information is to follow
soon.
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Delays In Answering Emails
May 30, 2005 -- I'm sorry for not having been
able to reply to all email inquiries yet. I must
admit to being a bit overwhelmed by the tremendous
response to releasing DIRAC LE. Many inquiries are
asking about the licensing costs for the STUDIO and
PRO versions, the second most popular inquiry
concerns the availability of a Linux version. I am
working on a Linux version at this time and will
make it available a.s.a.p. and I will answer your
questions about licensing as soon as I can. Again,
thank you for your interest in DIRAC!
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DIRAC 1.01 Posted
May 26, 2005 -- Version 1.01 of DIRAC LE is
available for download. Click
here for
a detailed version history and changes in this
version.
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New Web Site Online
May, 2005 -- Welcome back and enjoy the new,
re-designed dspdimension.com web site!
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Announcing Dirac - Free Time Stretching and Pitch
Shifting Library
April, 2005 -- Some of you might remember my
ClearScale project that was aimed at bringing an
open source high end time stretching and pitch
shifting to the market, to be published under the
GPL. Well, as it happens frequently in this
educational business, the company who agreed on
sponsoring the development never paid for it and
the donations (a whopping 120 USD so far) wasn't
even enough to pay for the costs of keeping the
site alive. Since I had the project half finished
already I decided for a compromise: ClearScale is
now available as a free object library for various
platforms called "Dirac". I will not publish the
source code, but the library is still free to be
used in commercial and non-commercial projects
without restriction. I plan on making a
professional version available for a licensing fee
to finally cover the development costs, but the
basic library will be free for the time being. I
think this is fair enough, considering the many
months development time that went into creating it.
You can find the Dirac project page in the menu to
the left.
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miniAIFF 1.5 Released
April, 2005 -- I've finally released miniAiff
version 1.5 with support for MacOS X Xcode 1.5/gcc.
You can find the new version along with a demo
project for MSVC, CW8.3 and Xcode 1.5 in the
download
area.
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Major Site Redesign
April, 2005 -- This site just keeps growing and
growing, and evenutally it needed a redesign. I
hope you like the new look, and I think it's much
easier to navigate and find your way around now.
Make sure you use the "find" option if you're
looking for a particular thing and can't find it
from the main links.
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New FFT Laboratory Online
June, 2004 -- I'm happy to announce the
immediate availability of my new FFT Lab Java
Applet, available from this site in the
"FFTlab"
area. The FFT Lab Applet is based on code
originally written by Dave
Hale at
Stanford in 1996, which I have enhanced and
improved. I've included many minor fixes - dragging
the mouse over the samples now works smoothly,
redraw problems are gone and I have added a
magnitude and phase plot. You need a screen that is
set to at least 800x600 resolution for good
results. Have fun!
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Airy Andre unveiled Speedster at Musikmesse
May, 2004 -- Speedster is an Audio Units effect
plugin that pitch shifts and time-stretches audio
in real-time, based on code presented on the
DSPdimension.com site. A clever algorithm allows
for controlling (and automating!) pitch and speed
independently. As a powerful addition it can also
perform stereo/center separation, so that the user
has independent control not only of the right and
left side of the signal, but also of the center.
Speedster is a freeware plugin, due for release
later this year, a preview version is already
available for download
from here.
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Please Donate!
April 4, 2004 -- I've added the PayPal banner
with a link to my PayPal donation account and I'd
like to encourage you to make a contribution to
help me keep this page running. Even a small
donation will help. DSPdimension has several 10,000
hits per month and is already a standard ressource
in many university lectures around the world -
without my earning a single cent from this! So if
this page has in any way helped you understand the
concepts of DSP descibed here please help me
writing more articles and keep this site running so
others can benefit from it as well!
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Mailing List Service Online
April 4, 2004 --
I've now
added the news mailing list to make it easier for
people to get new information on articles as soon
as they become available here. This is a free
service available to everyone - to make sure you'll
never miss anything new here.
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st3pan0va Releases Spectral Subtractor
March 27, 2004 --
st3pan0va has
released the "Kn0ck0ut" VST Plugin for Windows.
Kn0ck0ut is a VST plugin based on the SMSpitchShift
code from this site that takes two mono 44.1KHz
inputs and spectrally subtracts one from the other
on the fly. More information is available from
st3pan0va's
website.
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Andrew De Torres Releases Key Changer for JMF
November 14, 2003
--
Andrew de
Torres has just released his key changer project
which consists of a pitch shifter effect for the
Java Media Framework (JMF). It is available as a
free download from his
personal web site.
The key changer can be used as either a
stand-alone, real-time player, as a non-real-time
processor that creates key changed files or as a
JMStudio plug-in. It currently supports 44.1kHz WAV
files. "I began this project, because I am a
singer, and as a baritone, I can't sing most of the
songs I like in their original key", says de
Torres. "Therefore, I need a key changer, but my
hardware key changer (from Pioneer) only goes down
three half-steps and has a very noticable beating
artifact. I set out looking for an algorithm that
would give me the best possible key changer (even
if it took overnight to run), and Stephan M.
Bernsee came to my rescue. He has an excellent
web-site on digital signal processing". Planned
feature additions for his key changer project
include direct MP3 support and an installer
application to streamline setup and
installation.
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Interview section added
November 6, 2003
--
Added the
"Interviews" section due to popular demand. I'm
currently collecting all the old interviews to put
up there if the original authors and magazines
agree.
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Stephan M. Bernsee Releases MiniAIFF - Free Cross
Platform Audio File I/O Library
November 4, 2003
--
For all
developers and DSP enthusiasts with a C compiler
and either a Mac or a PC there's now an object
library that makes reading and writing AIFF audio
files as easy as reading and writing text files.
MiniAIFF is world's easiest cross-platform audio
I/O library that supports MacOS X Carbon, MacOS X
Mach-o, MacOS 9 and Windows and requires no
knowledge of audio files at all. Complete with
online function reference and example source code
this makes writing your own DSP algorithms as easy
as it can get - and what's more, it is entirely
free! - Stephan M. Bernsee is Prosoniq's CTO and
lead software developer who provides free
educational resources from his lectures on his
personal web site. Aside from miniAIFF this web
site covers time stretching and pitch shifting with
ready-to-use C source code and explains the bells
and whistles about the Fourier transform. Zero
advertisement and a high degree of expertise and
many links to other useful online resources make
his web site a must for all students and DSP
enthusiasts.
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New Web Site Launched
November 1st, 2003
--
Redesigned
web site for better readability, expandability and
updateability... :-)
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Name Change
July 25th, 2003
--
Most
important event this year: got married and changed
my name to Stephan M. Bernsee.
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I Finally Gave In :-)
May 26th, 2003
--
Many people
from the music industry disputed
my terminology
with regard to "pitch shifting" and "pitch
scaling". Changing pitch without changing the
length of an audio file has been described here as
"pitch scaling", since it effectively alters
(scales) the frequency ratio of the harmonics in a
sound. Since the perception of pitch in a harmonic
sound is inevitably coupled to the harmonics and
can be deduced from the common frequency ratio that
explains the harmonics present, scaling the pitch
means scaling that frequency ratio. My colleagues
took a different approach by saying that, on a log
frequency scale like the one used for note
frequencies, this scaling corresponds to a shifting
operation. Since the term "pitch shifting" is much
more common now, I will use that terminology from
now on to minimize confusion.
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Minor Corrections/Updates
May 20th, 2003
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Reversed
What's New ordering for better readability. Removed
Rich Bloor's link since it pointed nowhere. If
anyone finds his page please drop me a line.
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Author Profile
January 12th, 2003
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Added details
on my past work and area of expertise.
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Bug Fixing
December, 2002
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Did some
minor bug fixing and cleanup of part of the code
presented on this site
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Fun Stuff Added
August 16th, 2002
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Added the Fun
Stuff category
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Added Search Engine
January 18th, 2002
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Added the
PICO Search engine and updated the links on the
Time/Pitch Scaling page
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Rich Bloor Releases Free VST PlugIn Based On
Code From Here
December 12th, 2001
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Added a link
to Rick Bloor's VST Plugin based on DSPdimension
code
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Links Page Updated
September 21th, 2000
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Updated the
LINKS page
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More Minor Changes
September 19th, 2000
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Did some
changes to the HTML code to speed up loading of the
pages
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Site Now As PDF Download
August 29th, 2000
--
Sorry folks,
I'm too busy to put more goodies up here. However,
I now managed to offer the entire website as one
PDF download (which is easier than saving each page
manually). Also, I did some minor changes to the
smbPitchScale code documentation since I received
several questions from you about data format and
units used there.
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Minor Corrections
November 19th, 1999
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Did some
other minor corrections on the Pitch Scaling
article code.
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More Tutorials
September 21st, 1999
--
Finally
finished and uploaded the two articles
"The
DFT à Pied"
and "Pitch
Shifting Using The Fourier
Transform".
Did some other minor corrections regarding the Meta
tags of the pages.
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New Webspace
September 13rd, 1999
--
Upgraded DSP
Dimension to provide a higher transfer volume due
to the immense interest. October alone had 114 MB
download of web content (not counting audio) which
is overwhelming considering the pages occupied a
little over 700kB at that time
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Typos Fixed
September 9th, 1999
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Fixed some
typos on the formant tutorial page
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More Links
August 29th, 1999
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Added some
more links to the 'Links' page. Created a paragraph
named 'favourite links'
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Links Page
August 16th, 1999
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Added 'Links'
page, added 'What's new' section. Checked the links
page for broken links and removed them. Did some
minor cosmetic changes.
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Web Site Launched
August 13th (yes, a Friday), 1999
--
Registered
domain name and allocated disk space. First upload
of the basic web site framework to the server
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