Applying a "stepped eq" to a wav track??

[xyq1]

(sorry bit difficult to explain)

I have a wav file that I want to apply a repeating "stepped eq" FX pattern through it - eg "bass - mid - treble - bass - mid - treble - bass - mid -treble" etc etc. Repeating throughout the track.

Does that make sense? Imagine you are pushing a button - 1st press: bass tones, 2nd press: mid-range, 3rd press: treble... over and over.

Is there an easy way (ie not manual) way to apply this sort of effect to a track in Audacity??

[steve]

Does that make sense?

Sort of, but could you explain in more detail, or post a link to a short example.

[xyq1]

Hmm I'm not sure where I could find a sample? I guess it's a techno/acid kinda thing (?), where the eq sweeps across the frequencies, but instead of being a continuous sweep (like a phaser), I want it in discrete steps, at regular intervals, and repeating.

[bgravato]

For better understanding of the desired effect can you describe the steps to produce this "manually" in audacity?

[xyq1]

OK, let's say I duplicate my track twice, so I got 3 tracks. 1st track I apply a low-pass to cut all the mids & high frequencies. 2nd track I pass the mids. 3rd track I pass the highs.

To do this manually, I guess I would split across all 3 tracks at regular intervals, then delete 2 of the segments in each column, so that 1st column has the bass segment, 2nd column has mids segment, 3rd column has treble segment - and repeat this through the whole track. (EDIT: Not sure how to do this in Audacity lol!)

I guess a picture explains a lot better --

example.gif (79.37 KiB) Viewed 680 times

(PS: I am creating sound FX for a short movie)

[bgravato]

You can probably automate the process with a nyquist script, but steve is the nyquist expert here, so lets wait for him to comment on it.

[xyq1]

Nyquist may be the answer, I will do some study myself too. Thanks.

[steve]

To do this manually, I guess I would ....

OK, I've got a good picture now, and yes it can be done with Nyquist.
As for how to actually write this in Nyquist depends a lot on the details of the effect.

For the Eq settings, are you looking for a gentle boost to the specified frequency bands or are you looking for a (near) total cut of all frequencies outside of that band?
For example, for the "mids", do you want the "mid" frequencies louder than bass/treble, or do you want bass and treble completely removed?

Do you specifically want 3 frequency bands (bass, mid, treble), or would you like more frequency bands?

Do you want the effect to cycle through the frequency bands up (low frequency to high), down (high frequency to low), up, down... or up (from low to high), then back to the lowest and up again?

Do you want the effect to cycle through the frequency bands at a user specified speed (for example, your picture cycles through the frequencies once every 3 seconds).

[xyq1]

Thanks Steve, yes such an effect would require some user-input to specify parameters. What I need on this specific occasion is a total band-pass cut, everything outside the set frequency band removed completely. I actually would like 4 frequency bands - bass, lower-mid, upper-mid, treble (yes I know I just used 3 bands for my visual example) - just 4 bands evenly spaced across the entire spectrum. And I would like it to cycle from bass through to treble, and then straight back to bass (not up & down). Speed of cycle would be something like 1.5secs I think (cycles through bass-lowermid-uppermid-treble every 1.5secs).

I guess that sums up in detail the particular effect I am requiring. It's funny, I thought this would be a common kinda effect (used in techno etc)? But I can find no such thing - except "possibly" Izotope's Spectron plugin? Not sure. I had a look at nyquist but I haven't been able to find the time to wrap my head around it...got too many other things I'm currently learning atm

[steve]

Have a play with this "Step Filter" plug-in:

stepfilter.ny

(2.29 KiB) Downloaded 155 times

Instructions for how to install plug-ins: http://audacityteam.org/download/plugins

Note that this is an experimental effect. There is no error checking against inputting stupid settings, but of course, stupid settings may create some good effects.
This plug-in was written for Audacity 1.3.13. It may work on some earlier versions, but I'd recommend not trying it on anything earlier than Audacity 1.3.12.
Ensure that your work is backed up (export as a WAV file) before applying this effect. I believe it is safe to use, but it has only been briefly tested so there's no guarantees that it won't crash (testing is your job ).

Let me know how you get on with it.

Here's an audio sample that I made using this effect (thanks to Tom and Shep "Our Helical Mind" for the drums and bass)

dnb-rmix.ogg

(444.82 KiB) Downloaded 31 times