Comments on: How to convert a drawn waveform into a sound file?

Question: How to convert a drawn waveform into a sound file?

jammer — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:31:11 -0800

A friend of mine is looking for an application (Windows XP preferred, but other platforms might work) that will allow him to freeform draw a sound wave, and have it exported as an AIFF of WAV. Does anyone know of such a utility?

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:44:57 -0800

Adobe Audition (aka Cooledit) lets you modify individual samples of a sound wave. For instance, start a new document, generate a bit of silence, then zoom in as far as you can go, and individual samples will turn into knobs you can move around.

Audition also lets you read in text files of numbers, which it will turn into a wave form.

Orangator (old, no-longer developed, but still downloadable) lets you draw wave forms, and will use them as an oscillator.

By: zerokey

zerokey — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:45:46 -0800

I do this with Photoshop. Save it out as RAW and open it as raw audio in your audio app, then export to wav or aiff.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:55:39 -0800

(Should be noted that it's very very difficult to get "nice" sounds out of a hand drawn waveform. You end up with notes that contain many unwanted harmonics, often harmonics that are out of tune with the fundamental. But if you're after weird effects, it's good.)

By: Eamon

Eamon — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 21:58:57 -0800

Hmm, I bet you could get "nicer" sounds with a program that read hand-drawn spectrographs.

By: atom128

atom128 — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 22:05:36 -0800

Perhaps he should be playin with something like absytnth, where he can take a standard wave form, and then draw envelopes... What's he trying to do?

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 22:20:13 -0800

Hmm, I bet you could get "nicer" sounds with a program that read hand-drawn spectrographs.

Then you'd be after FruityLoops - it has a great plugin that does just this.

By: vernondalhart

vernondalhart — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 23:22:07 -0800

zerokey: While that's one way of producing interesting sounds, that has absolutely nothing to do with what the poster is asking for. You're just reccomending a source of raw data - which, frankly, any image will do just fine. What he wants is a way to actually draw the shape of the wave.

I'm probably not explaining this very well.

By: vernondalhart

vernondalhart — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 23:25:36 -0800

And if your friend has access to a dos machine, download an old copy of Fast Tracker II. Oddly enough, it's "wave editor" lets you do just that by right clicking and dragging.

By: psychobum

psychobum — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:20:16 -0800

i saw something like this on monkeyfilter a while ago but i cant drag it up, otherwise have your friend check out fleximusic generator, kid composer, or the vOICe

By: psychobum

psychobum — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:28:01 -0800

more here

By: psychobum

psychobum — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:31:59 -0800

and yet another one, plus a cool wired article about how aphex twin put an image in his music