Bloops (Mono)

Bloops (mono) will generate bloops when Audacity is in either mono or stereo. To make Audacity stereo, select the project menu then stereo track (alt-p, s in Windows).

Plug-in variables and explanations:

As on a hardware music synthesizer, you can adjust the 'envelope' of the generated noise bloops. An envelope is a way of changing the rises and falls in amplitude (volume) of a sound over time. It can also be applied to other areas such as filtering, pitch, etc. However, the envelope on these plug-ins only modulates the amplitude.there are five variables to the Bloops envelope:

1. attack time: time (in milliseconds) to rise from minimum 0.0 to maximum 1.0. A drum has an extremely fast attack time, whereas a violin can have a very long attack time, gradually fading in. 2. decay time (in milliseconds): time for volume to drop from maximum to the sustain level. A trumpet can reach a loud volume, then decay (drop) quickly or slowly to the sustain level: 3. sustain level: volume at which a note is held. 4. sustain duration (in milliseconds): You can adjust how long the bloop sustain level is maintained for each bloop, after which it fades out. an acoustic piano has no sustain level or sustain duration, since it gradually fades out over time after a key is pressed and held down. A music synthesizer can have sounds programmed into it which keep playing as long as a key is held down. A trumpeter can maintain the sustain level as long as he or she has air left to blow. 5. release time (in milliseconds): time it takes to fade out from the sustain level to zero.

Another envelope setting often seen on music synthesizers is included: 6. envelope type: inverted or normal. the above description of an a-d-s-r envelope is how most acoustic instruments can be simulated in volume. However, inverting the envelope creates some very unnatural and non-intuitive sounds, you will need to experiment with these. Using the inverted envelope can sometimes create 'backward-sounding' bloops. Effects of inverting an a-d-s-r envelope: attack time: time to drop from maximum volume to zero. decay time: time to rise from zero to the inverted sustain level. sustain level: If the normal sustain level is 0.2, the inverted sustain level is 0.8. sustain duration: as above. release time: time to rise from the inverted sustain level to maximum, at which point the sound stops. An inverted envelope has strong clicks at the start and end of the sound due to the instantaneous rise of amplitude from 0.0 to 1.0 at the start, and vice versa at the end of the sound. To avoid these clicks, a 2 millisecond fade-in and fade-out time is applied along with the inverted envelope in this plug-in.

Other variables: 7 & 8. lowest and highest MIDI notes: two variables which tell the plug-in the range of notes it can randomly choose from (maximum range is MIDI note #16 - approx. 20Hz - to 123 - approx. 10kHz). the notes are generated using the q resonance variable (see below). Middle C is MIDI note number 60, concert A (440Hz) is 69. MIDI notes are a way of counting and indicating semitones. 9. lowpass filter q ('quality'): Q refers to how much a filter resonates, the higher the number the more the filter creates a tone. 10. Normalize individual bloops: In these plug-ins, non-normalized lower-frequency bloops have less amplitude than higher-frequency bloops, so there is an option to normalize each individual bloop (make them equal amplitude with each other). By default this option is turned on. 11. tempo: number of bloops per minute. 12. Add tempo randomness: You can set how precisely (or not) each bloop in the bloop pattern is generated in tempo. When tempo is 60 bloops per minute, that's 1 bloop per second. With a randomness of +/-50 percent, each bloop can occur up to half a second before or after perfect tempo. These are the two value extremes: +/-0 percent is perfect computerized tempo, +/-100 percent sounds like a gorilla is keeping time. 13. number of bloops to generate (bloops pattern). 14. Repeat bloops pattern: repeat the above generated bloops pattern this many times. 15. (for stereo version only) pan positions: number of possible pan positions each bloop can be put in, randomly chosen. When you make this setting 1, the result will be in stereo but sounding mono, in the center pan position.

Note: This is to prevent "stack overflow" above approx. 120 in Nyquist.

The maximum number of bloops in a bloop pattern is 119, as is the repeat value. If the count and repeat values total more than 120, the repeat value is re-calculated to be 120 minus count.