Using Image Editing Software to Manipulate Sound

[@direct-music]

Woah, thank you for using my little web app in this video! I've fixed a few bugs since this video came out, but if anyone has any issues feel free to hit me up!

[@jordoneaton7083]

Yes, where can I find this app?

[@jaczob666]

@@jordoneaton7083 Description man directmusic.me/wav2png/

[@jordoneaton7083]

@@jaczob666 Thank you. My screen narrator has been glitchy lately and appears to have missed that.

[@tjwebb7428]

Do you have this up on GitHub or anywhere?

[@himagnamukherjee9382]

You really have to make this a VST

[@axman6815]

Ah, music to my eyes 😅

[@ygnoen6685]

Cursed

[@Peace_Moth]

Now we can say "I can see music notes"

[@kuzmannymusic]

🤣

[@hirano9383]

@@Peace_Moth perfect pitch In the eyes

[@Nugginsworth]

OW IT SOUNDS SO BRIGHT

[@PnfrlEnm]

I believe the way it works is each pixel's brightness represents the amplitude of a sample of audio, and it reads left to right like a book, so when he's copying and pasting vertical layers, theoretically it would be like repeating a line of text, and that's why it chops the sample rather than blurs it. I could be wrong though, but it makes the most sense to me. Edit: got further into the video, that also explains the distortion effect, because with more contrast, bright pixels get brighter and dark pixels get darker, which should also stretch the waveform in a similar way. It's kinda hard to explain, but I can sorta visualize how it's working.

[@farmerchuck7294]

I can explain it more simply: The X axis is frequency, the Y axis is time and the brightness of each pixel is velocity.

[@stxnw]

@@farmerchuck7294 wtf is velocity

[@farmerchuck7294]

@@stxnw It's basically how hard you play a note, it's in practically every DAW and it's kinda like volume but not exactly. I'm surprised someone can watch this guy without knowing what it is, but maybe you just started watching him.

[@stxnw]

@@farmerchuck7294 so its amplitude?

[@farmerchuck7294]

@@stxnw Pretty much

[@dylanlockemp3]

this reminds me of throwing pngs into serum wavetable

[@noface718]

Or harmor

[@Shrek_Has_Covid19]

poo

[@ig9te]

Hello Dylan

[@Spherey]

how this website actually works is related to the way the golden record from voyager 1 and 2 works. how it’s related is because both ways the record’s encoded image audio and the way the image is converted into sound uses the same encoding technique. i used to have a hyper-fixation over this, which is how i know how it worked. let’s say you input an image with a height of 432 pixels. the waveform that it outputs is actually divided into 432 parts, with each part corresponding to one pixel row of the image. how the converter encodes each part of the waveform (which corresponds to one pixel row of the image as i said earlier) is by using the crests (aka peaks or high parts) and troughs (aka valleys or low parts) of the waveform as different brightnesses. crests corresponding to lighter colors of each pixel row, and troughs corresponding to darker colors of each pixel row. so the converter scans through each row of the image left-to-right and outputs them as one part of the waveform. the converter scans through the image and outputs them as a waveform until it completely finishes generating. this is how the images are converted into waveforms.

[@RubyPiec]

I put random images into Audacity

[@them3ta_93]

Can we just all appreciate the quality of your videos

[@cerulity32k]

PNG and WAV files are probably the best formats and they are my favorite for image and sound. WAV format is just uncompressed bytes of sound. PNG uses 4 bytes of data per pixel (RGBA), and usually WAV uses 4 bytes characters as far as I know, so it's perfect conversion.

[@RegahP]

You should've tried changing the hue of the image

[@ESKI_MO]

can we get a round of applause for the editing in this video!

[@kdizzle005]

Of course here a challenge... Make a song out of pngs if that's even possible.

[@sergejsdarznieks321]

i already done it

[@banananarwhal6591]

@@sergejsdarznieks321 pics or it didn't happen

[@onidaaitsubasa4177]

It would also be cool to try to paint a full understandable picture with recognizable objects in the picture that make a song when converted to a wav file.

[@DafterHindi]

There is a thing called databending where you open an image in a audio software and add effects it looks super trippy!

[@adicsbtw]

I think that the best explanation I have seen is that it reads left to right top to bottom, red channel is probably the left channel and green is the right channel. That would make the most sense to me. That would explain the popping sounds, the color of the image, and also means it would be hard to use image editing software to actually edit it due to the way it is formatted Edit: This is almost definitely how it works. If it was formatted differently that would make editing it much easier

[@Eltiodelaslavadoras]

1:36 sounds so lofi 3:39 *TRIPLE DRUMS* 7:01 poppy guitar and drums 10:59 DISTORTED BOI

[@futureliink.]

Your content is so different from other music producers. I love that!

[@btarg1]

1:50 why does that sound so damn good wow

[@wyntrr_end]

i think the weird stuttering you're experiencing, which you speculate at 3:55 is the sample rate, is due to the actual png resolution. i suspect that each one of those delay/echo effects is occurring with every pixel in the image, so if there were some way to increase the vertical resolution of the images that the converter program uses, you could have less choppy results.

[@arcioko2142]

what if the png resolution is the same as the sample rate

[@wyntrr_end]

@@arcioko2142 if the .png resolution was the sample rate, either the images would be much much taller or we wouldn't be able to see all the little oscillations in the resulting waveform, like at 6:59 we can clearly see the waveform's oscillations occur more quickly than the stutter effects, and based on how many of those oscillations fit across the screen at once, we can easily see how if there was even one pixel for each oscillation, the .png would be so much taller than it is

[@arcioko2142]

@@wyntrr_end oh ok

[@ORyanMcEntire]

It's because the audio is encoded into one single horizontal line of pixels that is then wrapped vertically. It should be read right to left, and then when you reach the end of the line on the right it continues on the next row on the far left. Think of it like reading this comment. If you did a vertical motion blur all you are doing is duplicating letters vertically across words in different lines. Example: This is a sentence about ducks. Quack! Gets incoded as: This is a sentence about ducks. Quack! Turns into: Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Which would turn back into audio as: Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Rather than: TTThhhiiiss iiisss aaa ssseeennnttteeennnccceee aaabbbooouuuttt ddduuuccckkksss... QQQuuuaaaccckkk!!! This is why everything got stuttery. Because he was blurring the sounds vertically across multiple rows of time. Even when blurring horizontally, the blur doesn't wrap with the pixels so the audio at the left and right edges gets messed up. If you could unwrap this image into a single horizontal row of pixels the blur would probably sound a bit more like reverb.

[@wyntrr_end]

@@ORyanMcEntire (with the exception of the motion blur on your ducks example) that actually makes a lot of sense. after experimenting with it a bit myself, I see that your explanation makes much more sense than what I said. interesting that this means there's no connection between sound frequencies and the x coordinate in the image (in the sense that the lower frequencies are not to the left of the higher frequencies or vice versa)

[@3v068]

You just gave me the perfect tool to make weird sounds for video games, and dubstep. I can not thank you enough for this video.

[@jaczob666]

14:08 - That reminds me of scanning through radio stations sound.

[@TCWTre]

I can’t believe I’m watching this in the middle of class

[@VeralityCh]

There's a function in Serum where you can use PNG images as wavetables

[@ellod1]

In harnor in fl Studio you can do that too

[@noface718]

Its in the paid version of vital too I think

[@raoufbensalem3417]

@@noface718 you can try it in the free version i think

[@noface718]

@@raoufbensalem3417 nope Tested it You cant

[@raoufbensalem3417]

@@noface718 i think its text to speech not this

[@dexterian477]

I would actually love to see a part 2 to this video! That was awesome! ^_^

[@cupofdirtfordinner]

Now do the reverse. In audacity, if you click "import raw audio" it will accept ANY file type as audio. Ive found using weird file types with weird data (.AVI, .blend, .apk, etc.) Gives the best results.

[@hyperbeast4340]

Good to know!

[@xd-qi6ry]

These faster uploads are amazing.

[@WildWolf-pu4pj]

the noise added to the song when you first tried it, it sounded cool like it had a lofi-ish vibe

[@Spherey]

how this website actually works is related to the way the golden record from voyager 1 and 2 works. how it’s related is because both ways the record’s encoded image audio and the way the image is converted into sound uses the same encoding technique. i used to have a hyper-fixation over this, which is how i know how it worked. let’s say you input an image with a height of 432 pixels. the waveform that it outputs is actually divided into 432 parts, with each part corresponding to one pixel row of the image. how the converter encodes each part of the waveform (which corresponds to one pixel row of the image as i said earlier) is by using the crests (aka peaks or high parts) and troughs (aka valleys or low parts) of the waveform as different brightnesses. crests corresponding to lighter colors of each pixel row, and troughs corresponding to darker colors of each pixel row. so the converter scans through each row of the image left-to-right and outputs them as one part of the waveform. the converter scans through the image and outputs them as a waveform until it completely finishes generating. this is how the images are converted into waveforms.

[@endlessflp]

why is this actually kinda cool

[@hadleykibblewhite4877]

You should try converting audio to PNG to compressed jpg and back. Might be interesting.

[@waltwhitman7545]

guy literally be making beats in Microsoft paint. i thought excel was something, but now the music community has peaked. this is the ultimate DAW

[@cyantasks7129]

4:20 (not intended) that would make a good sound for like a machine gun.

[@dykodesigns]

The end result had a faint Daft Punk kind of vibe to it. Sounds interresting, could be a great thing for sound design.

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

Puft dank

[@carpet_appetite]

0:01 omg the fucking nostalgia from the gta san andreas destination marker sound

[@kreblz]

Omg I’ve ALWAYS wondered how this would work

[@knobwobble]

Levi with another banger as usual

[@mistyh92]

I am loving the upload consistency recently! Keep up the amazing work!

[@swedishvoice]

Definitely a lot of fun and quite useful as well. Thanks a lot! Great video.

[@ZethKeeper]

I can easily imagine Andrew Huang making music with that.

[@KaitlinGaspar]

WAIT THIS IS EVERYBTING IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR

[@natesalaa6810]

do this but try changing the orange color completely to blue or green or something. that could be really interesting

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

It does nothing probably

[@ncndemonplayz4859]

You gotta drop the full release of the first finished product at the end that was actually sounding good 🙌

[@EsportCat]

I love how the song at end actually sounds pretty good lol, btw can you try making music in a video editor like premiere?

[@Zennec8]

Another upload so quick??? This is great! Love the videos!

[@Sol4rOnYt]

12:26 laser gun yes

[@goodsoup9895]

This video was made with *red heart emoji*

[@elliotsmelliot]

it really was made with [ *red heart emoji* ] and it shows 😍

[@BrunoNeureiter]

Yeah but mix the two sounds! Also have you tried saturation, contrast and other light effects? For example tint? Or patterns?

[@RootReducer]

You are a madman. I love it.

[@banananarwhal6591]

10:06 "That's a bulgy boi" Beat proceeds to shart on everything.

[@hyperbeast4340]

Hmmmmmm

[@waltwhitman7545]

14:20 flipped all those layers and ended up sounding like a Blanck Mass song

[@nixellion]

I'm still watching, but the first thing I would do is convert the sound into a png and then BACK to audio without changes to make sure it even does that properly in the first place. Shakiness of audio might be just a png compression artefact or something like that

[@Twat2024]

Pretty true

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

I did it

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

It's not lol

[@nixellion]

@@Kai_On_Paws_4298 You mean it does not convert back to audio properly? :D Thought so

[@scottbaileymsc]

Now you gotta make a song where you hide some memes or something in it. The sounds come out very strange though when you use a picture and I think it may have to be black and white. I played around with doing it a while ago but couldn’t find a good way to hide the sounds without it seeming obviously out of place

[@dacolib]

Im surprised you didnt try using random images or doodling on the image

[@dacolib]

or pure sounds, like sine/saw/square waves

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

@@dacolib I used a sine wave-

[@dk-ff6op]

dang, levi is on a roll

[@2ndAccident]

I never thought of anything like that. But what really unexpected for me is that all this stuff makes sense, and it’s own laws.

[@doofs]

Aw yea i used to do this all the time as a kid. I loved using it for data moshing

[@Fuchzzia]

My boy direct!

[@FlorissMusic]

sending stems as pngs is actually a great idea

[@csvscs]

This is a really cool concept. I wonder what adding like visual distortion does to a guitar like does it actually distort it?

[@goldshort]

Jeez man you just keep coming back with bangers

[@samariumproductions5287]

2:09 the best banger dubstep ever

[@kwasinimako]

Nobody: 3:39 Travis Scott: thats fire 🔥🔥

[@EricE549]

now i have some sounds to use in my bandcamp experimental album!

[@tastelesstouch]

Awesome video! You should have compared the original loop to one that was converted to an image and then directly converted back into sound so you can see how much information is lost in the conversion process every time

[@9591r]

Thanks for this video Helped me a lot

[@lonergothonline]

have you found out about blob opera yet? I spent a couple days going through a bunch of covers people made with the 'experiment'. its an a.i powered choir.

[@MrGreenAKAguci00]

You are crazy. I'm here for it.

[@L_Aster]

If you want multiple layers to show up the same amount, you can’t set the opacity for 25 for all of them. You need to make the bottom 100, the second 50, the third 25, and so on. Otherwise the top layer shows well but the lower ones are all fighting to be seen

[@jaykay3561]

You're a legend, you should make a skillshare course because you're amazing at this! I'd love to learn from you!

[@not_porter]

yay new levi niha video :D

[@williambeaudette152]

Very sick vid honestly 👌

[@DaniSC_l1]

now you can save music to paper!

[@Noiztox]

Oh hell yea, another Affinity enjoyer.

[@TheDeepDiveLLC]

Thanks. I'm glad someone figured this out

[@Etiennecollard]

This is insanely cool

[@MoneyMindMusic]

Looks cool . i tried chopping and miss placing pieces over top each other gives cool effect if just doing vocals

[@amyrfrancisco7646]

a DAW you never thought you needed.

[@matthias916]

2 Levi Niha's is a lot of Levi Niha's

[@mage_no_title]

Now I can definitely prove I can hear images

[@mrkosmos9421]

This would be a beast for Lofi hiphop

[@genericname3685]

So this is what they mean by hearing images. Thank you sir

[@nikolasg5520]

this could be used to hide a message in an ARG :D .

[@raoufbensalem3417]

That what i was thinking XD

[@Kai_On_Paws_4298]

Gave me an idea

[@MaylorTaylor]

Do this again, but with your knowledge from this video! This could give a unique style if mastered!

[@RandomBirdy]

This will be future music production

[@prophecynine]

great experiments. you could use izotope rx8 to get rid of the pops

[@mg45yeetz9]

The guitar loop at 0:39 was used in a unreleased juice wrld song.

[@LORDSofCHAOS333]

I did made dubstep glitch sounds way back in my college day's . It was fun . But you must use EXE files or folders files . Something of that jazz .

[@Xatewn]

that random sample is used in a song with 122M hahaha Rels B, Dellafuente - BUENOS GENES

[@Solstici_]

me he quedado igual al escucharlo JAJAJAJ

[@Delta1nToo]

there are actually other ways to databend. if you convoert an image to bmp(bitmap) and throw them into audacity you can do some pretty funky stuff.

[@tim_means_heart]

- Hey man, what's your DAW ? - Have you heard of MS Paint

[@michaelduff2382]

I have that same shirt.... i get compliments on it every time i wear it. So... nice shirt! Lol

[@jc_did_stuff]

Heeyy levi i am here to BEG YOU to do an extended version of the old outro that sounds like a distorted violin I just love it too much

[@maverickREAL]

This could be crazy for making glitchy/weirdcore/hyperpop/experimental tracks

[@BooToob]

I did this and I did content aware fill on a part of the png I erased and you could here other parts of the song blended in. It was super interesting.

[@offchristianamr]

this is such a brilliant idea! that’s so sick omg

[@TheSoundFXGuy]

I use png to wav to add a visual watermark to my sound effects in the same way Mick Gordon made the pictures in the Doom soundtrack.

[@melatiro5]

Excuse me sir, are you a genius?

[@judith7238]

wow, making music with pictures, who would of known

[@ORyanMcEntire]

I think the way you are assuming the audio got encoded as the image might be the reason the experiments didn't sound great. I'm pretty sure the audio is encoded into one single horizontal line of pixels that is then wrapped vertically. It should be read right to left, and then when you reach the end of the line on the right it continues on the next row on the far left. Think of it like reading this comment. If you did a vertical motion blur all you are doing is duplicating letters vertically across words in different lines. Example: This is a sentence about ducks. Quack! Gets incoded as: This is a sentence about ducks. Quack! Turns into: Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Which would turn back into audio as: Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Tahbiosu t idsu cak sse.n tQeunaccek ! Rather than: TTThhhiiiss iiisss aaa ssseeennnttteeennnccceee aaabbbooouuuttt ddduuuccckkksss... QQQuuuaaaccckkk!!! This is why everything got stuttery. Because you are blurring the sounds vertically across multiple rows selection of time stacked vertically. Even when blurring horizontally, the blur doesn't wrap with the pixels so the audio at the left and right edges gets messed up. If you could unwrap this image into a single horizontal row of pixels I bet the blur might sound a bit more like reverb.

[@karyjas1]

Damn, this is really cool

[@nikolaudio]

What happens if you were to flip an entire png horizontally what it would do to the sound?

[@Povilaz]

Yo that's so cool

[@Novacayne-alt]

I literally used this to make dubstep growls 🤣 super sick wavetables

[@pearlplayaa]

Photoshop is my favorite music program

[@thehonestdude1067]

An assault both on the eyes and the ears. Magnificent 😂😂