Introduction

This is a basic overview of the Entropy Technology that is built on every one of our plug-ins.

The Entropy technology was developed by our team to provide all our units the unique characteristic of altering it's sound with the pass of time.

As time passes, all analog hardware will decay and this will effectively change the sound of the unit progressively, our technology aims to do that by complex signal processing

But first we must understand:

What is Entropy?

Entropy is the only quantity in the physical sciences that requires a particular direction for time, sometimes called an arrow of time.

As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of thermodynamics says, the entropy of an isolated system will increase. Hence, from one perspective, entropy measurement is a way of distinguishing the past from the future

Application

The Entropy Tech brings to the Audio Plug-In world the characteristic of analog hardware that gives them some of they're unique sound and other qualities: the pass of time.

Until now, all Audio processors stay in a "frozen state", once the code has been compiled, it will remain the same for years to come. This removes all kind of natural maturity of the sound associated with the pass of time.

With time, capacitors, resistors, transformers and other electric components will decay and lose some of they're original specifications which will effectively change the sound of that particular unit.

Our technology tries to recreate that exactly.

Platform Components

The Acidgrooves Entropy Platform consists basically of:

  • Time log: When first installed the Plug-In will generate a file where some coefficients are stored, installation date, current date and "refurbish date" are saved on this file, and updated every time the Plug-In is used.

  • Entropy coefficients calculation: Each time the plug-in is launched it will calculate the current entropy by taking into account the installation date, the amount of hours that have passed since and the refurbish date, and will complement that profile with some other system parameters, this coefficients are used to calculate the current state of entropy in a particular system.

  • Entropy Sound Technologies: Based on the current amount of entropy, we initialize the according Sound Technologies which will use this coefficients as a parameter mapped to a regular range.

  • Refurbish date: Each plug-in features a randomly chosen "refurbish date" between 5 and 10 years, this refurbish date is used to calculate the range of time where the plug-in usage will take place.

  • Error correction: It is the duty of each sound technology that will use this entropy coefficient to efficiently use it within it's range of variance, so given the current entropy, additional coefficients are calculated by each technology to provide results that are better suited for that particular processor.

Entropy Sound Technologies

Some of the unique qualities associated with the sound and tone of vintage analog hardware come from the fall of tolerance and specification of it's internal components, we all know that some synths must be refurbished otherwise they will introduce strange and undesired sound artifacts.

Our Entropy Sound Technologies are mapped and feed by the current state of entropy of your unit, and based on that parameter they correct and calculate new coefficients which are equivalent to a regular pre determined range of usage.

Our technology is flexible enough to allows us to map this current state of entropy to almost any regular parameter, things like Attack, Release, Volume, Harmonic Distortion, can be controlled by the current state of entropy.

Some of our current sound technologies are:

Further developments

Since our Entropy Platform aims for flexibility we are currently developing new entropy sound technologies which will provide more sonic sculpting capabilities to our products.