About Alphabet Soup

So, what exactly is Alphabet Soup?

Play The Computer

Alphabet Soup allows you to play audio files from your computer’s keyboard.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop audio files from your drive onto the on-screen representation of your keyboard.

Intuitive interface

If you can type an email, you can make music with Alphabet Soup.

Loops

Alphabet Soup is a fun “beat” making application. It allows you to trigger loops of musical phrases to create new compositions.

Hits, Beats or Songs

Play short single drum hits like a drum machine, sound effects, sound “bites”, or entire MP3 songs, simultaneously or in any combination. Alphabet Soup merges the functions of a drum machine and a MP3 music player application.

Supports Many File Formats

You do not have to be a digital audio expert to use Alphabet Soup. You can play nearly any formats of sound files together at the same time. You can play 8, 16, 24, 32 bit, floating point WAV, AIFF, SND and MP3 files (among others) at the same time without waiting for conversion.

Sample Library Included

Includes samples from Sonic Emulation’s Sonic Stop sample series. Will work with nearly any other sample library.

Unlimited Keys

You can have multiple user interface windows open and playing sounds. There is no limit to the number of keyboard windows you can have open and playing simultaneously.

Mixing

Alphabet Soup allows you to control the volume and the stereo pan for each sound. Sounds loaded on the same keyboard can be faded and panned as a group with a single control.

MIDI Supported

Sounds can also be triggered by MIDI or USB controllers. Setup of MIDI is easy, click the “Learn MIDI” button, press the key on the MIDI controller and Alphabet Soup remembers the settings for that sound. No need to plough through MIDI manuals...

Fast

Latency between pressing a key and playing your sound is very low, dependent only on the audio hardware buffer. Using the standard audio output on iBook, PowerBook, iMac or PowerMac, it is less than 12mS. Using external CoreAudio compatible audio devices will reduce the latency even further.

AudioUnits supported

Apply Apple AudioUnits® Effects processing to each sound. Each key can be set to apply an unlimited list of Audio Units (including the standard Apple effects including Reverb, Delay, Low and High Pass Filters, Graphic EQ etc) to it’s sound.

Edit sounds while playing

Regions of sound files (all formats including MP3) can be copied and pasted to new keys, sounds trimmed or collaged together.

Background Saving Your Mix

Automatically saves your performance in the background. At appropriate moments a mix can be written out to supported file formats (including WAV, AIFF, SND).

International

International keyboard layouts supported, i.e AZERTY, QWERTZ, Cyrillic etc.

Multiple Color Schemes

Choose from a list of user interface designs.

What are some potential uses for AlphabetSoup?

• DJ’s - Use Alphabet Soup to supplement live sets.

• Producers - Use Alphabet Soup to produce remix tracks.

• Performing Artists - Use Alphabet Soup to play backing tracks.

• Broadcast - Use Alphabet Soup to play tracks in any order.

• Post Production - Use Alphabet Soup to audition sound effects.

• Theatre - Use Alphabet Soup to trigger sound effects and theme music.

• Educators - Alphabet Soup is an easy to understand means for students to use sound and create music in educational settings, without requiring additional hardware purchases.

• Mash-ups - Alphabet Soup is one of the easiest tools for jammin’ “mash-ups” of your favorite MP3s.

What are the system requirements?

• Apple G3/G4/G5 iBook, PowerBook, iMac, eMac, or PowerMac.

• Mac OS 10.2 and above, Mac OS 9 is not supported.

• 128Mb RAM (256Mb, or greater recommended).

Have fun.   Make noise.   Repeat as necessary.