posted 14 February 2010 19:32            

I have been asked to come up with sounds for a CG generated fantasy creature - a large dragon-like beast.

I have begun recording material that I think maybe useful components (dogs, screeching birds etc) but I am still a bit unsure of which spectral analysis to use, as all attempts so far make things sound very "digital" and non-organic. Especially if there is noise/rasp as certain birds and gutteral animal sounds tend to produce. Tau seems to be the best so far, but even that struggles to preserve the organic characteristics.
At the moment I am mapping things to a Wacom tablet, !PenX as the TimeIndex, !PenY as Pitch, and !PenZ as formant or morph etc.
I'd really love to maintain this type of control, but it always seems to be a bit TOO MUCH a compromise for bending these sounds around the place.
If anyone else has had experience with these type of material, then any advice on what approach is best to use would be very much appreciated.

Perhaps I'll try cross-filtering again, but that seems to have a different set of struggles.

posted 15 February 2010 04:34            

Have you tried using FilterBank-Resynthesis on a spectrum file?

I have found it very usefull for taking the 'shape' of one sound and changing it's colour to something entirely different.

posted 15 February 2010 14:14            

Regarding the spectral and Tau analyses, you might also try some different starting samples. If you have some creature sounds that are more tonal or voice-like and have fewer raspy noisy bits, these may give more satisfactory results.

posted 15 February 2010 17:30            

Regards, Tom.

posted 16 February 2010 11:12            

quote:

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Another approach is to leave consonants/unpitched parts largely untouched and replace vowels/pitched parts with processed stuff --- first separating the two of course.

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