Swar

[Fortun Bawa]

Im trying to use uint64_t as if it was 8 lanes of uint8_ts; my goal is to implement a lane-by-lane less-than. This operation, given x and y, should produce a result with 0xFF in a lane if the value for the corresponding lane in x is less than the value for that lane in y, and 0x00 otherwise. A lane-by-lane less-than-or-equal would also work.

Based on what I've seen, I'm guessing I would need a lanewise difference-or-zero operation (defined as doz(x, y) = if (x Which approach will work the fastest will depend on what kind of instructions are available in the processor architecture of the target platform, such as shift-plus, add, three-input adds, three-input logical instructions. It also depends on whether one desired a throughput- or latency-optimized version, and the superscalarity of the processor architecture.

Since I was not satisfied, I observed how the compiler generated the assembler code of the macro SWARLTU and then following that code I wrote the macro SWARLTU2(x, y) (see file swar.h below). This last macro should be logically optimized.

Now, however, nary a day goes by without another advert Bollywooding it up or trance act sampling some 'Indian atmosphere'. Add that to the mainstream success of artists like Asian Dub Foundation, Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh and you can see that Indian music is finally becoming a visible part of British musical culture. And American too, judging by the Indian flavour in tracks from Missy Elliot, Redman and other hip-hop/R&B heavy hitters.

I'm lucky in that I grew up listening to my parents' record collection. So I'm naturally familiar with the sound of Indian music, whether it's the pukka classical tunes my dad prefers or the more poppy Hindi film soundtracks my mum sings along with. But to a puzzled outsider, Indian music may seem initially intimidating and they may approach it filled with questions. Is it true the classical form doesn't change chords? What are the different instruments you need to get that Indian flavour? What's that instrument that sounds like a goose being throttled?

Into this breach step Swar Systems (www.swarsystems.com), a Swiss company who specialise in Indian music software. Their Swarshala 3 Pro/Swarplug bundle can provide not only Indian instruments in VST Instrument form (Swarplug) but also teach you about Indian music and provide a virtual Indian backing band for you to practise with (Swarshala). For those who prefer to use a hardware sampler, Swartrax packages the same sample library in Akai format, but includes the MIDI files and Librarian application, which are important components of the product.

The program is divided into three main sections: Learn, Practice and Compose, all aptly labelled. The Learn section is a virtual encyclopaedia of Indian classical music. This is not to say it deliberately excludes Indipop but rather that modern Indian pop is very cross-fertilised with Western music as well as still having obvious Indian roots both in classical and folk songs.

Learn is further sub-divided into three sections, the first of which is Initiation. This is, thankfully, not some A Man Called Horse-type ritual but the background to Indian music, its basic building blocks and a very detailed history of its development. I found this section fascinating, especially the little jewels of information about the influence the Muslim conquest of India had. Once slight criticism I'd make is that the information in all of Swarshala is presented in a scrolling window which has a kind of wood-grain pattern behind it to match the rest of the interface. Although this looks attractive, it does make it more difficult to read and I found myself squinting several times. Perhaps if the background was rendered lighter it would contrast more with the text?

This loading methodology also applies to the instrument selection in the Rhythmic pane. The default is tabla but you can load in dholak, manjeera and other suitable instruments in the Compose section, whereupon then that instrument is available in the Practice section. I found this to be a bit confusing. I'd much rather all the instruments and ragas were available in the Practice section on startup. Indeed, you can kludge this yourself by entering their names into the auto-load section of the Preferences, but it's a bit of a laborious workaround. At the very least, you should be able to load instruments in the Practice section without having to switch to the Compose section.

If you double-click a component, this opens it up in the Sequence view window. Here, you can see exactly what parts the phrase is made of and then change them by dragging and dropping a new hit or note name. In this way you can muck around at root level with the preset elements, changing hits or creating your own bizarre cycles for the melodic instruments. Before you add a particular component, you can double-click on it, which also opens it up in the Sequence window. Since the different elements are meant to be played at different tempos, this can be handy to make sure you're not adding a cycle that was originally meant to be played at 60bpm to your gabba masterpiece. Or maybe this is exactly what you want?

A quirk of the Compose section is that each track is divided up into cells, and if you drop a new component onto a cell it won't automatically expand beyond its boundaries. Hence, a seven-beat element will play within a four-beat cell unless you right-click it and expand it to its proper length. I would prefer it if the dropped parts automatically assumed their natural lengths.

Once you've arranged your composition, Swarshala lets you save it in its own proprietary format or export it in either Wave or MIDI file formats. I experimented by assembling some inelegant combinations of components and then exporting the results as a MIDI file. I then imported them into Logic and listened to my ambient masterpiece. OK, it actually wasn't very good, but that's the workman not the tools.

Installation, again, was painless. Testing this on a Mac, I had to uncompress a SIT file and I dumped the resulting directory in my Logic VST plug-in folder. I ran the authoriser, entered the code and when I booted up Logic, there was Swarplug. The plug-in itself takes up very little screen estate, consisting as it does of a little graphic, drop-down selector and three virtual knobs. These control, from left to right, Gain, Pan and PBR (pitch-bend range).

The Swarplug VST Instrument itself is a simple plug-in with only three controls.I started with the bansuri (flute). Yep, it sounded as good as in Swarshala, breathier than Western flute but with more body and roundness than pan pipes. Next, the santoor (hammered dulcimer). This instrument excelled. I immediately started trying to play Ghulam Ali riffs but, unfortunately, I sucked. Which is a shame since the santoor is one of my favourite instruments, an import into Indian music with a rich history (www.santoor.com/ santoory.html). I defy anyone to play this preset and not be inspired by the timbre of the instrument. It will lead you instantly into John Barry territory.

Another standout for me was the sarod (a "short-necked, unfretted, waisted lute" according to www.sarod.com/thesarod/thesarodframes.htm), which again had a wonderful presence and zinginess. The only thing that let it down slightly was that the attack seemed slow in the lower range, something you expect with a harmonium sample but not with a plucked instrument. Moving onto said harmonium, it's another gem. It's grunty and groany and could suit a sea shanty as easily as Indian music. The only inaccuracies I could find compared to my dad's harmonium were the lack of mysterious internal clacking sounds, and the fact that it didn't smell of mothballs.

The sitar is the instrument most associated with Indian music in the West and it's well represented here. The low notes drone and build pleasingly (they're not loops, you do have to retrigger them) and the mid to highs have a crisp attack and voicing. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near skilled enough to emulate the pitch-bend that real sitar players use. Without that element, the preset can't help but sound a little artificial but, again, that's beyond Swar Systems' control.

The three tanpura presets round off the selection with some fine, raspy tones. As a drone instrument, the tone of the tanpura is crucial to the atmosphere of the music. The plus with Swarplug is that the separate strings are sampled, unlike some other virtual tanpuras I've heard. Because of this, you can quickly get a good drone going as the bed of your composition.

The only thing I really missed from the plug-in was some form of release control. Yes, you can pedal-sustain samples but I wanted an intermediate amount of control. Perhaps Swar Systems could add a small Release knob next to the pitch-bend parameter?

Throwing authenticity completely out of the window, I fired up EXS24 and imported the Swarplug instruments via the Sample Cell-format folder Swar kindly provide. After a bit of minor tweakage (switching on Pitch for the melodic samples) I was free to mangle Swar's lovely samples in all kinds of nasty ways. Yummy! I could also now see the internal sample basis of each instrument: some, like the santoor, have numerous one-note samples, others are more stretched. The entire sample library is about 100MB in size. I was happy overall with the level of detail and realism in the instruments, but as always, do try to hear them yourself before you decide whether to buy the product.

Each Swarplug instrument comes with a comprehensive library of MIDI file loops, which can be previewed and auditioned in the Swar Librarian application, then loaded into your sequencer. The interface looks a bit like the left-hand pane of Swarshala in the Compose section and that's because it serves partly the same function. You select your instrument from the top left drop-down menu and then choose an element from the folders below. For the melodic instruments you may get subfolders for different Ragas and for the percussion instruments, different taals. Double-click on the clip you fancy and it's loaded in the right-hand pane, revealed in detail.

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