Fruity plugins BeepMap

BeepMap is an image synth, that is it will translate a bitmap into a (weird) sound.

How it works:

As you probably know already, any color can be (& usually is) seen as a combination of red, green & blue components. As you might know too, any sound can be seen as a combination of sinewaves.  BeepMap, like any other stereo image synth, will translate red color into the amplitude of a sinewave on the left channel, & green color into a sinewave on the right channel, as shown in the picture. As a result, yellow will sound equally on both channels. The frequency of each sinewave depends on its vertical position in the bitmap. Optionally, the blue component will be used to define the freq range per pixel.

Parameters:

Freq
Select the freq range for the whole bitmap height.

Length
Set the duration of a pixel. The higher, the longer the sound will last.

Linear
Switch between linear frequency (Hz), & pitch scale in cents (1/100 semitone).

Use blue
Enable blue color.

Grainy
Sound will be heard as small grains.

Loop
Loop the whole bitmap, or play it once.

Max bitmap height
Set the max height for loaded bitmaps, that is the number of sinewaves to be added. The amount of CPU needed to process a voice depends on that value.

Tips:

BeepMap is streamed into the FruityLoops sampler, so the whole set of envelopes/LFO's is enabled, allowing amazing combo's!

There's no built-in graphic editor, so the cut/paste feature is very handy.
Unlike wav files, the bitmap is saved inside the FLP project (or FST preset), thus the file size can grow quickly, take care!

For another cool image synth tool, check out Coagula by Rasmus Ekman at:
http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm
While it's not realtime, it's more powerful & has a big set of editing tools. Images made with coagula will be more or less compatible with BeepMap (blue isn't used for the same feature).

You can also get funny results by using a spectrum of an already existing sound, using a wave editor like CoolEdit. When tuned correctly (linear switched on & length properly adjusted) you can get close to the original waveform.

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