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LAB FIVE

REVIEW
Understand the relationship between digital signal processing
and its analogue predecessors.
Understand the principles behind basic signal processing,
such as reversal, pitch shifting, filtering.
Be able to apply these signal processing techniques to your
sounds.

PARALLEL VS. SERIES PROCESSING


There are two avenues of exploration in processing your source
sounds that relate directly to the classic tape studio. The first
method is considered parallel processing (which has nothing to do
with multiple CPUs). The idea is to create different processes from
the same source: for example, a filter process, an echo process, a
different process, and so on. In the studio these processes were
done in real time using the effects send model.

A parallel process in which a single input is processed at the same time in different ways.

Parallel processing allows for interesting dynamic mixing of


the processes at the same time. The processes themselves may be
simple and/or subtle; the interest derives from their combination.
The notion of parallel processing can be modelled, at least in
part, by selecting a source file and processing it, saving the
processed file with a different name, and then doing the same again
to the source file using a different process. We will come back to
this ideaand the possibility of combining parallel processesin
later labs.
The other type of processing is called series processing. It
involves taking a processed sound and processing it again. An
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Lab Five

example would be slowing a tape down, putting it through a filter,


then taking the output of the filter and putting that into a
reverberation unit.

Series processing.

Series processing can be modelled by selecting a source file and


processing it, then processing it again (and again and again . . .).
You should explore both types of processing. However, it is
useful to save intermediary processes when you are series processing
since you never know when you might have a use for those
particular processes. In other words, the difference between the
two methods is not that you dont save between processes, but
rather that series processing begins with a processed file.

This is especially true in VST processing; use only one VST plug-in at
a time before bouncing.

TO DO THIS WEEK
You should be completing Project Two: Processing.

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