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Tonbandfetzen

Tonbandfetzen is a collection of command-line tools that allow you to compose music based on audio fragments generated from plain text input. It contains:

• mel - generate sound fragments from plain text
• guitar - read guitar tablature
• stick - concatenate audio data
• stack - superimpose audio data
• stretch - rescale audio data
• repeat - loop audio data
• trim - strip leading and trailing silence
• mono - unzip audio channels
• harmonics - show spectra of wave samples
• inspect - show information on audio file
• riff2aiff - convert .wav(e) into .aif(f) files
• aiff2riff - convert .aif(f) into .wav(e) files
• tag - add ID3v2 metadata to .wav(e) files
• zplay - generate and play sound fragments

Usage

Different task are spread across separate executables, which communicate via files in the Waveform Audio File Format (.wav). Hence, the composition process can be controlled using build-automation software, allowing for partial updates and parallel execution (make -j).

At the heart of this toolbox, the program mel converts text into audio (try here):

echo "T pyth M A2'8 W ,5 A2' A3' E4' A4' C#v5' E5' Gz5' A5'" | mel | aplay

The guitar preprocessor converts tablature into suitable mel input:

echo "X synth |3
E4|--------------------0~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
B3|----0~~~~~~~~~~~~~3~~~0~~~~~0~~~|~~3~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
G3|--2~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~2~~~0~|~~~~~~~~~~2~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~|
D3|----------2~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2~~~0~~~~~0~~~|
A2|3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~----------------|--------------------------2~~~0~|
E2|----------------3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2~~~~~~~3~~~~~~~|
" | guitar | mel | repeat | aplay

The Functional Just System for just intonation invented by misotanni is partially supported.

Installation

To build all tools, you only need a recent Fortran compiler:

cd /path/to/Tonbandfetzen
make FC=gfortran FFLAGS=-O3

To make the tools and documentation accessible, consider adding the following lines to your .bashrc:

REPO=/path/to/Tonbandfetzen
export PATH=$REPO/bin:$PATH
export PERL5LIB=$REPO/perl/lib:$PERL5LIB
export MANPATH=$REPO/doc:$MANPATH

You might also want to link the Vim syntax file to the appropriate location:

ln -s /path/to/Tonbandfetzen/vim/mel.vim ~/.vim/syntax/mel.vim

To have Vim detect the corresponding file types, add this line to your .vimrc:

autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.mel,*.gtr setlocal filetype=mel

Documentation

Please have a look at the examples, some of which require Python or eSpeak NG:

cd examples/freedom
make -j 2
aplay freedom.wav

Each program has its own manual page:

man mel

You can also listen to the examples and browse the manual pages here.

Hear also

The name Tonbandfetzen originates from the song Explosion by Tocotronic from their 2007 album Kapitulation.

Have a look at ForSynth by Vincent Magnin.