Soundscapes enabled by Audio Effects in Ableton Live

A Soundscape is the sonic experience of being in a space. It contains sonic events that take place in a space and duration. We hear significant sounds (that clearly tell us where we are) and the space (the reverberation or ambience), some in foreground and some in background.

The World Soundscape Project was a research and educational endeavor founded in 1969 by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University (SFU). The project established the modern field of study known as acoustic ecology or soundscape studies, which is concerned with raising public awareness of sound, documenting environmental sound and its changing character, and establishing the concept and practice of soundscape design as an alternative to noise pollution. Read more here 

Space

Reverb (all versions)

Predelay controls the delay time, in milliseconds, before the onset of the first early reflection. This delays the reverberation relative to the input signal. One’s impression of the size of a real room depends partly on this delay. Typical values for ”natural” sounds range from 1ms to 25ms.

Early Reflection are the earliest echoes that you hear after they bounce off a room’s walls, before the onset of the diffused reverberation ”tail.” Their amplitude and distribution give an impression of the room’s character.

The Shape control ”sculpts” the prominence of the early reflections, as well as their overlap with the diffused sound. 

Rhythm

Delay (all versions) and Echo (all versions)

Grain Delay (Intro, Standard and Suite only)

The Grain Delay effect slices the input signal into tiny particles (called ”grains”) that are then individually delayed and can also have different pitches compared to the original signal source. Randomizing pitch and delay time can create complex masses of sound and rhythm that seem to bear little relationship to the source.

The Spray control adds random delay time changes. Low values smear the signal across time, which adds ”noisiness” to the sound. High Spray values completely break down the structure of the source signal, introducing varying degrees of rhythmic chaos. .

The size and duration of each grain is a function of the Frequency parameter. The sound of Pitch and Spray depends very much on this parameter.

You can transpose the grain pitch with the Pitch parameter, which acts much like a crude pitch shifter.

The Random Pitch control adds random variations to each grain’s pitch. Low values create a sort of mutant chorusing effect, while high values can make the original source pitch completely unintelligible. This parameter can interact with the main Pitch control, thus allowing degrees of stability and instability in a sound’s pitch structure.

Spectral Time (Live Suite only)

Depending on which of the Manual/Retrigger Mode buttons are activated, the Freezer section controls how the freeze function is triggered and how certain temporal characteristics of the frozen audio are affected. 

• In Manual mode, audio can be frozen by clicking on the Freeze button. You can also control the Fade In and Fade Out time of the frozen signal in milliseconds.
• In Retrigger mode, you have more controls to fine-tune the rhythm of the frozen audio, which can be frozen automatically at every transient (onset), or at regular intervals.
• Onsets mode will freeze the audio after a transient is detected in the input. Use the Sensitivity knob to adjust the sensitivity of onset detection. Sensitivity is highest at 100% and lowest at 0%.
• Sync mode will freeze the audio at regular intervals, determined by the Interval control. By toggling the Freezer Time Unit buttons, the Interval control can be set to either milliseconds or beat-time values.

 If the Freezer section is enabled, the Delay section will be fed by the Freezer’s output.

• The Time parameter controls the delay time for the spectral delay lines. The type of value shown here is dependent on the unit type chosen in the “Mode” drop-down chooser:
• Shift shifts the frequency of the delayed signals. Each successive delay will be shifted up or down by the specified frequency amount.
• Stereo adjusts the width of the Tilt and Spray controls.

Melody

Simpler (all versions)

Resonators (Live Standard and Suite only)

This device consists of five parallel resonators that superimpose a tonal character on the input source. It can produce sounds resembling anything from plucked strings to vocoder-like effects. The resonators are tuned in semitones, providing a musical way of adjusting them. The first resonator defines the root pitch and the four others are tuned relative to this pitch in musical intervals.

The Note parameter defines the root pitch of all the resonators ranging from C-1 to C5.

Resonators provides two different resonation modes. Mode A provides a more realistic sounding resonation, while Mode B offers an effect that is especially interesting when Resonator I’s Note parameter is set to lower pitches.

Resonators II through V follow the Note parameter defined in Resonator I, but they can each be individually transposed +/- 24 semitones using the Pitch controls and detuned in cents using the Detune controls.

Spectral Resonator (Live Suite only)

Spectral Resonator uses spectral resonances and pitched overtones to add tonal character to any audio source. You can highlight chosen frequencies of the resonating partials and alter their decay, creating either short percussive reverberations or long washed-out tones.

When Internal mode is enabled, Spectral Resonator will be tuned to the frequency set by the Freq dial. The frequency can be set either in Hertz or to a specific pitch; to toggle between the two options, use the Frequency Dial Mode buttons.

When MIDI mode is enabled, Spectral Resonator can be tuned to the frequencies of incoming MIDI notes.The MIDI router allows you to choose any MIDI track as a source. 

Using the available switches, you can choose between four Modulations Modes: None, Chorus, Wander, and Granular. These modes determine how each individual harmonic’s pitch and amplitude are modulated:

1. None applies no modulation.
2. Chorus applies triangle wave modulation for every partial. When Mod Rate is set to 0, this mode only modulates the amplitudes of the partials.
3. Wander uses random sawtooth waveforms as the modulation source for each partial.
4. Granular modulates the amplitude of all partials randomly, using exponential decay envelopes. The partials are generated at random and, in this mode, the Mod Rate parameter affects the density of the partials.