Radley Marx

Pitch Shift in Flash

Lee Brimelow and Andre Michelle got together this week to actually do something we’ve only hypothesized about: enabling pitch-shift in Flash. We talked about it - they did it. I’m completely in awe… THANK YOU!!

image links to article & player:

(theflashblog.com) This is an extension of the example that can be found in the documentation for the Sound.extract method. Now this example does adjust the pitch but it also speeds the song up as well. This is because you need to skip some samples in order to increase the pitch. Now there are ways to increase the pitch of sounds without speeding them up but I have no idea how to do it. Do you?

image links to article & player:

(blog.andre-michelle.com) Pitching MP3 (Not PitchShift!) is possible since Flash10s new Sound API. Today I saw Lee Brimelow’s post about doing so, providing some source code. Cause we spend a lot of time to keep things running more smoothly in the AudioTool, I created another version with has some advantages.

• No objects are created in runtime (memory usage)
• The SampleDataEvent is receiving a static blocksize (steady latency)
• Linear interpolation (sound quality)

Speed can go down to zero

Schematic’s Flash / Flex Multi-Touch Wall

Behind the scenes of the Schematic multi-touch wall from Serge Jespers on Vimeo.

(webkitchen.be) Microsoft has (rightfully) gotten a lot of attention with their Surface multi-touch table. Schematic has now raised the bar. In Cannes at the Cannes Lions festival, they were showing a 3.5m (12ft) x 1.5m (5ft) multi-touch/multi-user intelligent wall which puts the Surface to shame.

The massive display gives attendees instant access to the complete festival program, 3D maps of the event and surrounding area, and information on local restaurants and bars. The Touchwall also helps delegates schedule meetings with each other and trade contact information via email. The presentation layer is built with the Flex 4 framework and runs on Flash Player 10.

Link to blog post

The Turn - interactive media by Fred Viola

Very fun Flash & media website. Each shape is a piece of media that you drag to the center circle to play. Credits, etc are displayed by selecting the small outer-ring circles.

(via today and tomorrow)

You know that coffee you’re drinking? It’s really Flash

Remember those coffee commercials in which a fine restaurant would replace really good coffee with a mega-corporate canned version and nobody would know the difference? (or maybe they would…)

This weekend Adobe Flex evangelist Ted Patrick officially leaked the upcoming name & branding change of Flex Builder to Flash Builder.

While most of us Flash developers know that Flex runs on the Flash Player, this info isn’t known to a particular group: enterprise managers.

For years, Adobe was doing a “reverse switch” - packaging their premium blend of Flash as a common enterprise IDE (Flex Builder) to attract the Java crowd with corporate swill that was actually yummy and visually gorgeous. 

 Flex on Flash Player wasn’t a secret. But enterprise developers have had to be careful to avoid mentioning this detail for fear they’d be forced to switch back due to prejudices and misunderstanding of their higher-ups. In their minds, Flash was bad: a proprietary platform used by memory-leaking, processor-sucking, SEO-less eyesores. In contrast, Flex Builder was a true application IDE with dev-happy concepts like Eclipse under the hood and the open source Flash SDK.

Many of the Flash/Flex technorati have weighed in on the change and all offer full support.

My only regret is this is one more nail in the coffin of Flash maintaining it’s artful nature and slowly dissolving into “just another” Java project. The good news is that the Flash Builder naming debate can start now… and be old news by FlashCamp. This debate has already impacted a few events for me, and I prefer FlashCamp to remain productive and fun.

I embrace Flash Builder. But I’ll miss the awesome Fx logo (and stickers).

Doggie Handbag Mix

This is a warm-up session mix I did for the It’s (for) the Dogs Knees benefit last Saturday. It was recorded on the fly on the day before the party, so it’s almost everything I played with just a couple of exceptions.

For those who may not know, handbag is a common term used by DJs (etc) that refers to a type of popular dance music produced in such a way that women are inclined to go out in groups on the dancefloor and dance around their purses.

In this case, a lot of the tracks are electro and trance released over the past few years. It’s a little enthusiastic - I went nuts with the filters because I was having so much fun and even tossed in a couple of super cheesy bits. Artists include Ils, 30Hz, Midfield General, Kidda, Underworld, Fatboy Slim, and Book of Love.

Here’s the mix: Doggie Handbag Mix (1:30, 207MB, 320k)