Soundtorch 2.0

SoundTorch enables quick browsing through large collections of audio files.

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The GPU-driven, smoothly zoomable user interface simultaneously plays all sounds that are illuminated by the the torchlight on a surround-sound system.

The icons in SoundTorch are organized based on the acoustic similarity of the underlying audio file. Each icon is individually depicting the waveform of the corresponding sound. While playing, the icons spin similar to a vinyl record, making it easy to spot the current level and the duration of each sample.

The user can zoom very close to listen to just one single file at a time, or zoom out and move the light beam with the mouse seamlessly over a vast collection of files, listening to many sounds at a time. The interesting ones, however, are still easy to single out by what is called the Cocktail Party Effect.

With SoundTorch, collections of literally thousands of audio files are browsable in a matter of minutes. The interface is fun to use and sparks a user’s creativity, plus the sound designers’ often boring day to day task of searching for appropriate sound files is sped up tremendously.

SoundTorch was jointly developed with Prof. Dr. Jörn Loviscach, during his time at the University of Applied Sciences Bremen.

Further information can be found on soundtorch.com, in this YouTube Video, in the AES and ACM SIGCHI publications, as well as our Google TechTalk.