I sort of got obsessed with the idea of being able to take a recording of a soloist and make it sound like an ensemble. As I found out, it’s not an easy thing to do, but adding on to spatialization software written by Ryan McGee, I was able to make something that sounds pretty decent (imho).
Technically speaking, this process is called “decorrellated upmixing” and it’s much harder than just adding a bunch of small delays to a signal. In real life, no two instruments are ever playing perfectly in phase with one another, but when we try to multiply a single signal that’s basically what’s happening, so as a result we often end up with a really strange “alien” phase-cancellation effect which sounds completely unnatural. My software gets around this by all sorts of filters and randomization techniques. Still there’s much work to be done, but I was able to create some realistic ensembles as well as some interesting effects on a variety of files. If anything it might be a quick way to sneak around copyright if you want to use someone’s recording…
[audio:http://amusesmile.com/old/projects/240B/violin.mp3|titles=Bach Chaconne Solo]
[audio:http://amusesmile.com/old/projects/240B/violin_multi.mp3|titles=Bach Chaconne Ensemble]
More Examples in the full project page.
Music