Sonic photosynthesis? Why not! Manifest Audio, one of our Max for Live shop bestsellers, open new pathways to creative sound design with their first-ever Max for Live instrument as part of their updated Sonification Tools.
Manifest Audio return with a significant update to their acclaimed Sonification Tools, a collection of Max for Live devices that transform data, text, images, and video into real-time synthesis, sequences, and modulation signal. A finalist for last year’s MIDI Innovation Awards, the suite now introduces the brand-new Data Synth instrument while drastically expanding the capabilities of Data MIDI, Data Mod, and other existing tools.
Data Synth: A New Approach to Synthesis
The latest addition to the suite, Data Synth, is an eight-voice polyphonic synthesizer that turns numbers, plain text, or image files into unique oscillators. More than just a novel concept, it’s a full-fledged instrument featuring:
- Image Sonification: Drag and drop JPG, PNG, or TIFF files to generate synthesis waveforms (and LFOs) based on pixel data, with extensive image controls to shape the resulting oscillator.
- Advanced Sound Design: Equipped with frequency modulation, a dedicated noise modulator, and a sub-oscillator, Data Synth allows for rich, evolving textures.
- Comprehensive Modulation: Includes four dedicated ADSR envelopes, two LFOs, and a modulation matrix, making it an expressive tool for unique sound design.
- Real-Time Editing: A waveform display enables direct hand-drawn waveform sculpting, offering hands-on control over the core sound source.
- User-Friendly Interface: A multimode resonant filter, octave transposition, pan randomization, spread, and oscilloscope provide intuitive control.
Data Synth’s image mode is particularly noteworthy. By dragging and dropping JPG, PNG, or TIFF files, users easily convert visual information into audio waveforms. The instrument analyzes pixel data to generate corresponding waveform values, allowing for a fun new approach to sound design with creative manipulation of brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue to influence the resulting output.
Major Updates: Video, Camera, and OSC Sonification
Beyond Data Synth, the latest Sonification Tools update significantly enhances existing devices.
- Video Input: Data MIDI & Data Mod now feature video file and real-time camera input sonification. Users can process MP4 or MOV files frame-by-frame, extracting average pixel or motion tracking data to generate MIDI sequences or modulation signals. The real-time camera mode expands this further, converting live interaction into musical gestures.
- Live Data Streams: Both Data MIDI & Data Mod now support OSC (Open Sound Control) and UDP data feeds, allowing real-time sonification from any OSC app on the App Store or other desktop program that can output via UDP (and even API data for those willing to tinker).
- Text Sonification: Data FX, Data MIDI, Data Synth, and Data Mod all offer flexible text conversion, translating letters and words into melodic and rhythmic patterns, spectral filtration, oscillation sources and more, providing a new pathway into musical expression.
Sonification Station
There are myriad reasons to engage with sonification as a creative practice. The point of these tools is to make sophisticated sonification techniques accessible to all producers, requiring zero coding knowledge while still offering abundant flexibility. Fully integrated with Ableton Live 12, Sonification Tools invite artists to explore the music hidden as data in the world around us.
With a MIDI Innovation Awards nomination already under their belt, Manifest Audio continue to push boundaries, turning numerous forms of data into expressive, playable instruments. The updated Sonification Bundle—including Data Synth along with all sonification-based devices and MIDI Tools—is available now at an introductory price of $79 until February 28, 2025, before reverting to the regular bundle discount of $99.
Requires Live 12.1.5 Suite or higher running Max 8.6.5 or above on Mac or PC.
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