Your tool: the PTC sound library

 

1600 + sounds

 

To compose your work, PTC gives you access to a bank of more than 1600 different sounds from instruments unique in the world.

Jean-François Laporte à l'orgue de sirènes
Jean-François Laporte à la table de Babel
 

Detailed description

 

To guide you in your exploration, each sound has been meticulously described according to 9 criteria, such as register, musical pitch, mass, grain, etc.

 

 

Sound excerpt

 

The tables


demo

 

The instruments

Babel table

The Babel Table consists of two Bowls, a Pipe, eight Insects, several Vibrating Membranes and Divas, as well as a free latex electron. Each element has its own compressed air supply and is therefore independently controlled. In addition, a foot pedal sends an additional powerful jet of air into The Pipe to create articulation, including striking effects of attack and sforzando.

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Identification of the different parts of the Babel table

Components

Bol

A kind of drum for the poor, the Bol consists of a salad bowl covered with a latex membrane (a split balloon, stretched like a skin). You can play it by tapping or rubbing the membrane with your fingers, but the technique recommended by its creator, the one that gives the most magical results, consists of inhaling or blowing in a tube attached to the mouthpiece of a wind instrument (tuba, trombone, trumpet) that rests on the “skin.” 

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Insects

The Insect is a very small instrument, both disarmingly simple and unexpectedly versatile. Each Insect consists of a short piece of small-diameter metal pipe (through which compressed air comes in) covered with a latex membrane held tightly by fixed clamps. A second membrane may sometimes be knotted around the end piece like a cord, at the discretion of the performer, by doing so altering the way the first membrane is vibrating.

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Vibrating membranes

The Vibrating Membrane is a double-walled metal cup where air can escape through an opening made in the centre of the smaller wall. This system serves as a tank and has a mouthpiece at the bottom, where the compressed air supply is connected. A neoprene membrane covers the top of both walls, so that one can create pressure inside the tank. When the pressure reaches a certain level, the air seeks to escape, creating friction with the membrane. This generates the unique sound of this instrument.

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Pipe

The Pipe is the slightly twisted cousin of the Tu-Yo, an instrument made of a long PVC tube and a latex membrane. The Pipe consists of PVC lengths and elbows. At one end, a split latex balloon covers the opening, acting as both a double reed and a skin. The performer blows into the balloon mouthpiece or taps the membrane in percussive mode. You can pull on the mouthpiece to “lengthen” and “shorten” the pipe, or even compress the neck of the mouthpiece with a finger to make the air “scream” and set the latex beating.

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Siren organ

The Siren Organ consists of six sirens (or horns): two root pitches (at the same note), a major third, a minor third, a fifth, and a modified siren. There are also two bell-less sirens that can produce very high frequencies. The supply of compressed air is controlled either by pedals or valves, which allows a greater variety of articulations (attack, sustained sounds, crescendo/decrescendo, etc.).

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Identification of the different parts of the Siren organ

Sub tu-yo

Made of long tube lengths of different materials (plastic, cardboard, aluminum, etc.), it works in the same way as the Tu-Yo (latex membrane covering one end, inside of which we blow air). Its sound palette is made up of very deep rumbling and roaring rather in the low and over low register, hence its name.

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Photo of the sub tu-yo