Recording - October 2017 - 38

Soundware Showcase
At the highest level, the architecture is
straightforward: you can choose up to
four sounds as Sources (1, 2, 3, 4), which
are then run through up to three Convolvers
(W, X, Y) and sent to the output. The main
display gives a few quickly-accessible
controls for each Source (highpass filter
and dry and wet amounts) and for each
Convolver (output level, pitch shift, and
highpass filter). Standard ADSR envelopes
are made handier with an easy-to-use
graphical editing display.
At the center of the interface is the
Convolution Triangle. Four 'pucks' representing the Sources can be dragged
around to control how much of each
signal is directed to which Convolvers.
The lines around the triangle are an animated waveform display. A few global
controls and popups and an easy clickdrag map to set keyboard ranges for
each Source and Convolver appear at
the bottom.
The user can go deeper into the control of each Source and Convolver via
popup parameter menus. For Sources,
you'll find detailed envelope controls, dual highpass and lowpass
filters, two Gates to either remove
or accentuate noise, and controls

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RECORDING October 2017

for sample pitch, playback speed, and
Start Offset (where in the sample the
sound actually starts). Convolvers have
similar parameters, with even more
envelope control, easy sync to DAW
tempo where desired, and the ability to
control the size of the FFT (Fast Fourier
Transform). Like buffer size, FFT size
trades off latency for CPU load.
There are four synchronizable LFOs
for modulation control, and Mappings
windows to relate LFOs or MIDI control
signals to parameter via user-controllable
scaling curves. Tempo control and
automation capability are present pretty
much everywhere, which is important
when setting up soundtrack cues or effects
locked to a song or picture.
BT Phobos overflows with nice programming touches. A Randomise function
allows the user to change parameter
values, mappings, and sounds for each
part of the structure, but it's constrained
to relatively small parameter variations
so sounds don't stray too far from what's
already working-you can always click

multiple times to get a wider spread.
Holding down Shift or Alt/Option while
randomizing waves lets you constrain
changes to tonal or rhythmic sounds, so
the essential framework of the patch
remains the same.
Speaking of sounds: BT Phobos
provides a browser window for
every Source and Convolver-which,
by the way, all share the same set of
files. Searches can be filtered by various keywords or constrained to the
BT TONAL or BT LOOPS libraries as
desired. Loops play back at the same
speed and pitch regardless of which
key is played, so their behavior is tightly controlled via parameter settings-
an important touch.
There's a lot of content to choose
from: well over 2000 samples and
over 700 presets created by Spitfire's
Paul Thomson and Christian Henson,
recording artist and sound designer
Richard Devine, and of course BT
himself. The library requires 22.8 GB
of storage on your computer, and double
that for the installation process (a onetime operation).

In use

There are instruments that are designed
for subtle purity, for simple sounds with
tiny nuances that can be carefully
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - October 2017
