PD - Fire Patch

Using Enzien's Heavy

I first heard about Enzien’s Heavy Audio Tools when I was doing a game audio course with Berklee Online, the prospect of it is really exciting. Using the open source visual programming engine Pure Data (PD) to create interactive audio patches, and compiling them online into an array of useful formats including Unity plugins, Wwise Plugins, Javascript and others.

There are 2 main benefits with this. Firstly PD is relatively easy to use and algorithms can be prototyped really quickly, meaning designers lacking strong coding skills can create dynamic audio patches for a range of formats. Secondly, the game specific potential is vast, opening up the authoring of generative audio components for games to indie developers and freelancers.

Click play on the player above and you can hear a patch being generated in real time by Javascript online, continuously randomised! It’s a patch that I put together based on the fire algorithm found in Andy Farnell’s audio book “Designing Sound”. The algorithm is based on noise oscillators, filters and the use of squaring signals to create super sporadic jumps that approximate the unpredictability of a burning fire.

 

Read more about Heavy Audio Tools on the Enzien website.