Vutu Quickstart: Sound analysis for Sumu

Vutu is a program for MacOS that turns sound files into collections of bandwidth-enhanced partials. Converting a given sound sometimes requires experimenting with the analysis settings. This video shows how to do that.
For more info, see madronalabs.com/topics/8984-v...

[@killiun55]

As a long time Kyma and Aalto/Kavio user I am super excited for this!

[@bozoleclown7851]

Thanks for your work and for this great tool Sumu

[@sub-jec-tiv]

This is the first i’ve heard of Sumu and this is blowing my mind.

[@KordTaylor]

Really a cool demo.

[@madrona-labs]

Thanks for saying so!

[@leftovercode]

I have waited soooo long for sumu lol, I seriously cannot wait, I love Aalto, love it.

[@MrSNEAKFREAK96]

You are such a beast Randy. Very excited for this and Sumu!

[@anckorage]

Great ! Very nice work ! That's very very close to what I'm currently working on for the Continuum :-)

[@starkravine]

It would be great if you and Randy could formalize a common file format for the analysis.

[@anckorage]

@@starkravine there’s already one thanks to Loris (and IRCAM) 😉

[@starkravine]

@@anckorage good to know. Thank you!

[@adamsmith7058]

Love the way it's gone with that Audio Term look. Which of course, has it's origins with proper old school UI's like Fairlight.

[@I_PLAY_WITH_SOUND]

Thank you! So looking forward to this!

[@starkravine]

This is very exciting! Thank you for all you have done for the community.

[@jackcimino8822]

This is one huge step in the right direction!

[@hielehielehiele]

Thanks Randy, looking very much forward to these two pieces of software ❤

[@AWalkMan]

Brilliant. You’re a madman, Randy!

[@madrona-labs]

😵‍💫

[@247digital]

I'm so excited for Sumu. Can't wait to try it :)

[@cmd_f5]

Super stoked for this. Additive is a wonderful synthesis playground

[@lazyabeats]

Wow, this resampling sounds pretty accurate! Looking forward for Sumu beta even more.

[@noisebug4428]

Eagerly awaiting Sumu's arrival! I love the Synclavier / Fairlight green terminal feel of Vutu. Thanks for your hard work.

[@buriedintime]

This is great. Thanks Randy!

[@chrisedu]

amazing!! looking forward for Sumu to come!

[@emptyvesselnz]

very exciting to see things progressing, the long-game sumu tease campaign is working ;) My WAVS patiently await their analysis, reconstruction and transcendence to a higher state of existence.

[@notnova892]

this is so cool! I'm excited

[@Robert_Babicz]

Super, looking forward

[@KirbyCurbwhy]

Christiaan Huygens robot noises is the best possible way to demonstrate this software

[@Vosbureau]

This is great! Looking forward to the release of sumu!

[@SlamAcademy]

Wonderful stuff, Randy!

[@meru_lpz]

Amazing!

[@wakax]

bigups Randy!!!

[@DaveCaseyin3D]

Can't wait! Would love to beta Sumu!

[@Raumweiter]

this is one of the more exciting things in the music world

[@nichttuntun3364]

I am very interested in Sumu and patiently waiting for it to come out. Exiting to see some news from you personally. 👋

[@treat_audio]

partials being conjured by black/green magic! anticipation rising!!!

[@zakku_]

I would die for a vst version of this woah

[@danielpirone8028]

Very cool and love the open source aspects! You still in Seattle? Hope to dig in this late spring when I have some free time in my new studio space! Coffee ?

[@madronalabs]

sure!

[@mimicontre]

Randy is the best. That’s all

[@JureJerebic]

Can't wait, looks like I'd be selling my Panharmonium after Sumu's released!

[@peternyboer]

The weatherman!

[@exposada]

great! is the only thing i want to say!

[@woodlandcritterpunch]

Is there a Windows port for this planned in the future, or is that something we'd need to work out ourselves?

[@madrona-labs]

I'll do one for sure, but probably not until I get the Sumu beta out. In my experience there won't be any more hard programming to do, rather likely a bunch of small issues with compiling, packaging, etc. that could take a day, or a week. Meanwhile all the tools are there and if someone wanted to take this on I would be happy to support.

[@bitegoatie]

This is really cool. Thank you for doing the tour of the app. Just out of curiosity, though I see I am late to this video, why design Sumu with a sixty-four-partial limit? Obviously, you have to make choices in any design, and the limit sixty-four at any one time should allow a whole lot to be done. I'll be buying the synthesizer regardless, but the thinking here interests me.

[@madronalabs]

It's entirely because of CPU use. The limit is so you can make a patch and not need a Mac Studio or new Ryzen to run eight voices of it. If I can optimize the heck out of things and get 128 partials working on my oldest computer here, I would raise the limit. But it seems like 64 will be the sweet spot.

[@bitegoatie]

@@madronalabs Thanks for answering. That's what I imagined, but I thought it was just as well not to assume I knew what I did not know.

[@amdrecording]

Is Vutu available for purchase/download? I'm super curious about the resynthesis using the Loris framework!

[@amdrecording]

OK follow up question. The JSON files that Vutu spits out. Is there any way for those files to be read in any other software? It would be immensely valuable to be able to have the resynthesized partials separated! I'm guessing that your upcoming synth will be able to do this? :)

[@corbobilly]

Where should we save the sounds in .utu format so that Sumu can see them as partials ?

[@madrona-labs]

Anywhere you like, then you import them into .sumu format using Sumu. See the Sumu manual and Madrona Labs site for all the info.

[@corbobilly]

@@madrona-labs THANKS; I finally got there . It's work fine_

[@247digital]

Can you morph 2 sounds in Sumu?

[@madrona-labs]

No, Sumu is designed around one sample and a lot of modulation options. But I might add morphing to Vutu at some point.

[@247digital]

@@madrona-labs When can we expect to get our hands on SUMU?

[@madronalabs]

we're getting there. @@247digital

[@melasonos6132]

Is Sumu going to be Mac only? :(

[@madronalabs]

no, Mac and Windows.

[@kangalio]

Isn't this basically the first half of a vocoder?

[@madrona-labs]

they both split sound into different frequency parts but there are a lot of differences. The main one is that a vocoder's frequency bands are fixed, while this tracks the moving frequencies that make up a sound.

[@Raumweiter]

this is much more complex and doesn´t work with bandpass filters. It resynthesizes partial/small parts of the frequency spectrum. Bascially tuned sinusoidal oscillators, if i´m not mistaken? And there are a lof of them. This is not a worlds first, other plugins can do this too (virsyn cube for example, and many more). But the clarity is on a high level and combined with a nice sounding synth engine (the upcoming madrona labs fm synth), this looks very promising. The creative possibilities are vast. It can be used for sound design, imagine an audio file of a car crash being analyzed and mangled in the madrona synth, use it as a vocoder...or simplify the process of creating a synthesized harp sound.

[@bozoleclown7851]

But you don't explain how to import the analysed and resynthtised sound from Vutu in Sumu. I don't see any import command in Sumu. I tried to place partial sound in the partial folder of sumu, but Sumu doesn't see it.

[@madrona-labs]

click the [...] menu in the partials module to import a folder of partials files and all the subfolders. More info here: madronalabs.com/topics/9253-sumo-preset-and-partials-maps-menu-selection . And please send any questions to support at madronalabs dot com because we won't always see them here. -Randy

[@jriceblue]

I know you've got to be sick of answering (or dodging) this question, but: How soon is "soon" for Sumu's release? My English is pretty poor (I've only lived in the US for 48 years), but in my dialect, we generally don't include "10 months" in the range of "soon." (...I mean... unless we're talking about astrophysics or geology, I suppose... Maybe I just need to think of synthesizer releases in geological terms?) Best of luck with it, though!

[@madrona-labs]

Thanks for your funny comment! I'm honestly not dodging anything, but I do constantly fall into the trap of being wildly optimistic about what I can get done by when. There's only one developer here and if I decide to go on some epic side quest or get burned out, it makes things wildly variable. You'd think I would learn but it's been a career-long struggle. Maybe I can learn not to say "soon." Anyway I'm on track to finish by the end of the year... as far as I can tell. -Randy

[@jriceblue]

@@madrona-labs Ooops! Well, I do hope we get to see it in 2024! Best of luck.

[@MarcTelesha]

Ai and this synth have me afraid of what scams that can be achieved.