Bitheadz Phrazer (2001)

[supernova777]

Bitheadz Phrazer
Loop Composition Tool
Published in SOS April 2001
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With its on-the-fly tempo-matching for sample loops, Acid put a new spin on an old way of making music on the PC. Now, at last, there's a similar Mac program. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser try out Bitheadz' Phrazer...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr01/articles/bitheadz.asp

Computer Requirements    
     Bitheadz say Phrazer will run on a 200MHz PowerPC-based Mac, with Mac OS 7.6.1, but a G3 with Mac OS 8 (or even Mac OS 9) would be a better starting point. A minimum 64Mb of RAM is required; a more realistic recommendation is 128Mb. You'll need 300Mb of free hard disk space, but add 500Mb or so to that if you want to install the program's free sample library onto your hard drive. We tested Phrazer on a 450MHz G4 (not dual-processor) with 385Mb RAM and Digi 001 audio hardware.

n the early days of computer music, 'trackers' were a significant part of the scene. These rudimentary sample sequencers typically offered four to eight tracks on which snippets of low-bandwidth digital audio were arranged to create 'songs'. As computers became more capable, and sequencers as we now know them began to establish their dominance, trackers fell from favour.

Fast-forward to the late '90s, and sample-based, cut-up music dominates the airwaves, more and more people own powerful home computers, and DJs seek ways of moving from turntable to recording studio. It's fertile territory for software tools that update the ease of use of the tracker concept with the high-quality sampled audio and sophisticated real-time processing today's computers can handle.

Sonic Foundry must have thought so, when they released their PC 'music production tool' Acid, back in 1998. Since then, Acid has spawned a family of related programs, and it's fair to assume that the phrase-sequencer concept has proved popular with musical PC users. Now Mac users can see if they like it too, with the advent of Bitheadz' Phrazer.

In a nutshell, Phrazer does much of what Acid does, enabling the user to build songs from sampled loops and phrases which are processed on arrival to allow their pitch and tempo to be changed freely. Effects can be added, and mixer controls allow level, pan and so on to be set. One significant difference between Phrazer and Acid is that the Bitheadz program can actually record and edit samples: Acid Pro comes with a copy of Sound Forge for sampling and editing, but has no sampling or editing routines itself.

The beauty of a program like Phrazer for people who use a lot of loops is that it takes the donkey work out of making them run together. Phrazer can insert 'split points' into samples automatically, usually on rhythmically significant peaks, to allow audio to be stretched or squashed to fit a new tempo, and pitch is also manipulated automatically. With little user input, samples originally recorded at different pitches and tempos will play back at a single master key and tempo in one Song. The processing required is not always sonically transparent, but it's fast and easy.

[supernova777]

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/bitheadz-phrazer

[supernova777]

   Computer Requirements    
     Bitheadz say Phrazer will run on a 200MHz PowerPC-based Mac, with Mac OS 7.6.1, but a G3 with Mac OS 8 (or even Mac OS 9) would be a better starting point. A minimum 64Mb of RAM is required; a more realistic recommendation is 128Mb. You'll need 300Mb of free hard disk space, but add 500Mb or so to that if you want to install the program's free sample library onto your hard drive. We tested Phrazer on a 450MHz G4 (not dual-processor) with 385Mb RAM and Digi 001 audio hardware.

With its on-the-fly tempo-matching for sample loops, Acid put a new spin on an old way of making music on the PC. Now, at last, there's a similar Mac program. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser try out Bitheadz' Phrazer...