Reach me at

elena @ elenadesign . eu

PLEASE DO NOT ABUSE MY TIME SUBMITTING LINKS, MUSIC, VIDEOS OR LONG MESSAGES: MOST LIKELY YOU WON'T GET AN ANSWER ! THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING !

Elena here. Yep, the only one, the original !
*Where science meets art, behind numbers there is a pulsing heart*




I am a musician, coder, graphics artist, scientist, writer. Despite my versatility and multi-skilled nature, I am *primarily* a composer of music across various genres. I've been composing music since I was 11. I only compose good, melodic music, with original melodies and harmony. Not noises. I compose Pop/Rock music, melodic dance music, instrumental, piano or electronic music. Not Ambient, not Hardcore, not Techno, not Trance, no Rap/Trap. It looks like there isn't good music anymore nowadays, and as a side effect people's tastes are now ruined. There is still plenty of room for good music, and I will do whatever possible to throw it out of me so that the whole world one day may enjoy it.

At present, I am chiefly dedicated to music and DSP programming under Windows.





QUICK LINKS

Official Repository
KVR page
Spectral Domain framework for Synth Edit (ESD)
ED Module Pack for Synth Edit
Synlay synthesizer





DIGITAL SOUND SYNTHESIS AND PROCESSING

My most notable work in recent years is an advanced modular STFT spectral processing framework for SynthEdit: Elena Spectral Domain [ESD] Modules for SynthEdit. This framework allows realtime spectral "STFT" processing and creation of VST plugins for realtime spectral manipulation and synthesis. I started this project with the aim of providing myself with a very advanced toolkit for vocal timbre manipulation for my music arrangements.
My most notable achievements so far include an innovative spectral envelope extraction algorithm (codename WHISPER), an original comb-based pitch-detection algorithm, a brand new peak estimation algorithm and a special STFT filtering process for Hann-windowed frames (these will be object of future Papers, the ones once published here are now undergoing revision and are momentarily unavailable, very sorry).
I have also developed a natively real FFT implementation that works directly on real sequences and on half-complex spectra, which is about 30/40% faster than the standard approach of feeding a complex FFT with two real sequences and post-processing the result. All these algorithms are implemented in ESD 3.0.




I've also been experimenting with new sound synthesis techniques, like delay-based synthesis. I've always been intrigued since infancy by how certain noises (like the background noise of the far city, or the noise of a jet plane flying over) could acquire a "pitchness" when naturally mixing with delayed reflections of themselves. I started experimenting in this direction since 2019, and the product of my efforts is Synlay, which now reached Version 2. Synlay is a professional sound synthesizer plugin capable of very diverse timbres and of high quality. I am genuinely astonished by how versatile this synthesis technique turned out (as long as implemented properly): Synlay is capable of incredible violins, brasses, orchestral and original synthetic sounds !




Currently in the works is also MIKTAR, a very innovative VST plugin which allows you to simulate an acoustic guitar (or other plucked string instruments) with unprecedented realism. Thanks to accurately engineered Feedback Delay Networks acting as virtual strings, entirely developed by me, you will be able to "play" a microphone with your right fingers as you would do with guitar strings while playing the notes on your MIDI keyboard with your left hand. MIKTAR will be available as a commercial product. An audio demo, a demo video and a first public beta version will hopefully be available soon. Despite announced prematurely, MIKTAR as a very complex piece of software is still undergoing some important fine-tuning, and I can't predict a release date yet.




FRACTALS
(Images of God)


Many people will surely remember me as a former Amiga developer (late 90s/early 2000s) and fractal artist. For many years I was passionate about creating fractals - which in simple and less technical terms translate mathematics to art, revealing that the two are not mutually exclusive and can be bridged together in fascinating visuals.
(For those who are interested, my old program ZoneXplorer 2.0 BETA, for MorphOS only, can be downloaded here. Note that this is a discontinued project which I have no time or intention of resuming. At present your only options to run it are MorphOS, which however can run on a limited number of obsolete PowerPC hardware, or under Qemu emulation, despite Qemu is about 10x slower than a PowerMac, even on a fast Core i7 !)
I do, however, have some images made with the latest True Recursive formulas in 2017 here. You can also access my old fractal gallery here.
Keep in mind that since 2017 I closed the Amiga/MorphOS chapter forever.
I would like to port ZoneXplorer to Windows some day, but hardly I'll have the time needed for that and life is only one !




THE TESTATIKA CASE
(Not science-fiction but a real story)


Somebody else may also remember me for my past research about the Testatika machine, in the years from about 2009 to 2015. This has been the darkest chapter of my life. As a scientist (not a pseudo-one !!!) I was almost compulsively captured by this legend, to the point it became a psychosis, or an obsession. Unlike most similar "free energy" inventions, nobody to date could really demonstrate it was a "hoax". I really started my passionate research, in an almost forensic fashion, to the unique purpose of studying the whole story SCIENTIFICALLY, and to prove to myself it was indeed yet another scam. I failed my goal, therefore this mystery (which not without a reason I defined "the greatest mystery of the 20th century") will keep disturbing my nights perhaps up to the last of my days...
My current opinion is that it was actually a genuine invention able to harvest thermal air ions, but it ended up in the oblivion for having been managed VERY POORLY, from beginning to end, both by their inventors and by third party researchers.
In fact, the unfortunate fate of this alleged invention, was indeed having been devised and then guarded by a kind of "sect" of bizarre peple, animated by some delirating moral and religious goals, who likely never fully understood and mastered their discovery. Any more serious inventor, scientist or individual instead, would have handled such a thing in a completely different way, maybe disclosing the principle or discussing it scientifically with some academicians or mainstream scientists, in order to better understand it and its possible limitations.
However, to put the word END on this unhappy (and embarrassing) chapter of my life, in 2015 I decided to write a book,
Tutta la verita sul caso Testatika, (Facebook page),
which now reached its second edition, fully revised.
I have been the first person in the world dedicating a book to this case.
(The book is currently published in Italian only, but I hope to arrange for an English translation eventually.)

NOTE: the old Testatika work group on Yahoogroups does not exist anymore. I created a new one with the sole purpose of collecting all important hystoric material and however as an official reference for future discussions.




THE ZANFRETTA CASE
(Another "borderline" story which gained my focus)


Who knows me intimately, also knows well I don't believe in UFOs, legends, miracles, paranormal, pseudo-science and other pseudo-things. As I am allergic to alternative medicine, astrology, non-scientific sciences and new-age crap. I don't even believe in God. And no, I've never been particuarly passionate about science fiction either. I am a rational, logical individual, with my feet solidly sticking on the ground.
Yet, as a rational person indeed, I must admit that the Italian and worldwide-known Zanfretta accident is another "borderline" story, not much different from the Testatika case, as another objectively incredible story supported by too many consistent clues and even proofs, to be easily trashed as the usual UFO scam.

I am not going to cover the whole case here, since the Italian journalist Rino di Stefano made a great job already, in his book The Zanfretta Case (available both in Italian and in English) - a book which I strongly suggest you to read. As I am not going to replicate his work: it would be pointless. But, hironically, we were moved by a similar if not identical goal: cleaning the playfield of journalistically "embarrassing" cases from junk and debrish, to leave room for the truth. And for a lucky fatality, unlike similar stories, this case was managed since beginning by a journalist, not by ufologists: nowadays we would have a more confused picture of it, if things had gone differently.

Yes, because every thing must be treated in a rigorous and scientific way: only then we are fully entitled to label it as either truth or fantasy. And this in particular applies to pseudo-science or incredible stories !

The Zanfretta Case is complicated, because it must be addressed from both a Journalistic, Ufological and, yes, even Psychiatric perspective. Very few people are aware of the whole story, therefore very few ones approached it with the proper attitude.
Nobody can deny that something unexplainable happened for sure, that night of December, 1978. And nobody can deny that further episodes occurred in those places of Genoa inland, possibly, over the next two or three years - places which I know quite well and I also visited, by living a few kilometers apart on the coast.
There were simply too many witnesses, too many reliable clues and consistent coincidences, too many unexplainable sightings, if we exclude several material signs on the ground, which were also seen and photographed by many people. The Police and Italian authorities were also involved, not just ufologists, enthusiasts and braggarts...

But what renders the case so complex is that poor Pier Fortunato - this is Zanfretta's first name - possibly developed some psychiatric disturbances over the years, despite he was diagnosed as perfectly sane and devoid of schizophrenia or other mental ilnnesses back at the time of the facts. Nobody would resist trashing the case immediately, by just seeing what he tells us today in his interviews or videos. In fact, today he appears as no longer capable to distinguish reality from fantasy, or even from dreams; how would you otherwise define somebody who now asserts he can enter non-better-defined "stargates", where he can meet deceased people and watch the ancient Egyptians building pyramids with the help of aliens ?
Also, who could ever take seriously somebody who, under hypnotic regression, admitted those alleged aliens were named "Dargos" (a name which smells science fiction one mile away), and that they came from the "third galaxy" at "4,000 light years" ? (The closest galaxy, as far as we know, is still 25,000 light years away, and no alien could ever use our own terrestrial units, which are relative to our measurement of time...)

And how could we ever believe somebody who states he received a mystery crystal sphere from the aliens, which contains a golden tethraedron suspended in a blue liquid, whose purpose is unknown, which is now secured inside a cavern somewhere in the Ligurian mountains close to "Passo della Colla", an object who nobody is allowed to see but him, and which he has been compulsively forced to visit and to check twice monthly for over 30 years ?

The most logical explanation is that a traumatic event, the repeated and even aggressive hypnotic sessions, often carried with little medical ethics, or both things, may have damaged to some extent the psyche of an otherwise healthy and even nice, friendly and huge-hearted man, who back then was assessed as medium-to-low IQ, high suggestibility, poor criticism and self-criticism capability.
(Surely, if the same alleged accidents had occurred to me, who have diametrically opposed qualities, everything would have progressed much differently...)

Well, it seems simple but it is not.
Because he actually went up there and often: a lot of people saw him. To which point going to such a wild place repeatedly, even by night or with unfair weather, if the "sphere" existed in his mind only ?
And because, still under hypnotic regression, he also stated a lot of consistent facts which could be verified, and not just momentary fantasies or supposed dreamlike memories.

So what ?

More than 40 years have passed since, most proofs are lost forever, most witnesses are no longer with us, and Zanfretta, as we have seen, is no longer a fresh and reliable source.
But evidently there is still something to discover...

In Marzano (GE), the place of the first close encounter, the military policeman Antonio Nucchi the day after took a photography of a large "horseshoe-shaped burnt and pressure spot, as though something had landed there" (note: those three dark trees were planted later). This spot is located in coords 44.509276, 9.138546.
Can you imagine my astonishment when I checked that place with Google Maps ?
And my astonishment was even stronger when I noticed that the same mark is even more evident in a youtube video, where the same area is hovered by a drone (from 11'34") !



WHAT still prevents grass to grow as in origin, after over 40 years ? Some radioactivity maybe ? Has anybody ever performed some basic analysis of the ground ?
Nobody, as far as I can tell.
Well, I just ask you to watch these pictures before laughing at Zanfretta case, and do NOT limit to listen to the crazy stories he goes telling now.
Trust me: this is a complicated case, exactly as the Testatika case: it cannot and must not be approached superficially.

And there is more...
Rino di Stefano once gave Zanfretta a compact 35mm camera, asking him to take some shots of the mountain place and of the cavern where he periodically went, to visit the mystery alleged "sphere". Standing to Rino, after developing the film, the first shots showed plain mountain landscapes (compatible with the very location), but all further shots came out "burnt" (over-exposed).
Fact is, nobody ever performed a professional, forensic analysis and high-resolution, high-depth scan of the original film, which Rino must still keep somewhere: it could still reveal a lot of things, even just about Zanfretta's either good or bad faith...

Exactly as I did with the Testatika case, I tried with all my honesty and good will to figure out some alternative explanations, as I usually do, to gain some inner peace.
So, I had four options: 1. Zanfretta made fun of us all; 2. Zanfretta's colleagues made a big fun of him; 3. some "third parties" made a big fun of them and of us all; 4. it was simply about a series of wrong evaluations, and everything that happened had other less obvious yet natural explanations.
No way, none stands. Can you do a better job ? You are welcome: please read Di Stefano's book, 3 times, 4 times, then we'll talk about it again !

So you DO believe in UFOs ! Ah-ah ! - you may now wonder.
I still don't, until I see one. I am just admitting that SOMETHING UNEXPLAINABLE HAPPENED and, sadly, from a logical viewpoint, the ufological explanation this time would still be the most sound one.

One more reason not to sleep well...


...despite, said much honestly, I still fear humans ways more than extra-terrestrians.







MY REAL LIFE
(Cos I'm human too, until a counter-proof)


I am not completely normal, despite I don't know what I have got. Nobody ever diagnosed me with anything but I know I am not normal. A part of my brain is hyper-developed, evidently leaving less room somewhere else... However, I am a Highly Sensitive Person for sure. I perceive everything amplified 10x, both the good and the bad things.
I bought my boyfriend at the supermarket, at a 50% off. I love him despite we are totally different beasts. He is not completely average either: he has some pathological childish traits, some bad habits, a moral depth which is perhaps 1% of mine, has several compulsions and is a nerd/fandom (despite handsome, unlike most of them); but if he had been 100% normal, he would have dumped me suddently... However I am engaged and I will love him forever, so please don't bother chasing me; also, I am not the vanilla one you may expect, you are warned !
I was born to be a daughter all life long, neither wife, nor housewife, nor mother (our planet is overcrowded already). I support the idea that the only illness of our planet is overcrowding, and Nature will rebel decimating us eventually, unless we take some measures in time.
Normal, average things always bored me, causing me depression. The only "normal" (read: simple) things I love despite all are going for excursions, picking mushrooms and visiting abandoned houses (yes, I am passionate with Urban Exploration !) And I love CATS (dogs are cute aswell but they stink and shit too much).
I am 100% atheist and against the catholic church and its materialism (if Jesus Christ could come back, he would strike them all), but I don't disregard Christian morale and spirit (after all IT IS PART OF OUR ITALIAN CULTURE AND IDENTITY !)
I am deadly against cremation and against any means of disrespecting our dears/beloved or treating them like waste.
I have already understood everything one should understand about what we are, why we are, what our universe is and in particular WHY it is. Therefore, no need to believe in humanized divinities or religions in general.
I love eating pizza BUT... only Marinara pizza !!!! I am not vegan (I HATE vegans) but I also hate most animal foods (in particular meat, fish and cheeses), because they disgust me. I LOVE carbs and sweets and I HATE those who talk bad of my diet.
Politically I define myself as a Right extremist or almost so (so I'll leave you figure out which other things or people I hate...), but I think with my brain and I have my own ideas. But I am NOT bad or wicked !
I actually hate bad people, and A LOT. And most people either love or hate me - there is not any way in between. I love who loves me to the point of giving upto to self consuming, but I also hate who hurts or hates me (again, to the point of self annihilating by revenge instincts). I do not forget friends AS I WILL NEVER FORGET ENEMIES AND THE WRONGS I RECEIVED. I am bloody true and have a profund, huge, immense sense of justice.

...do you want to be one in my deathlist ? You're welcome:
MANY ENEMIES, MUCH HONOUR !



Jokes aside, seeding love instead of war, reacting with love feelings before wrongs or bad people will surely make you feel better. Identically, "make love, not war" is not necessarily something only homosexuals, Left people or drug addicts from the 60's should say, that is rather an universally valid concept I fully agree with.
Unfortunately, as life teaches us, that is
NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE







STRIVING FOR FREEDOM
(I.e opposing the so-called "Progress-Regress")


I am a rebel, a bloody one, because when something is bad or wrong, you MUST rebel: who obeys and bends silently is a sheep, and will NOT contribute to a better world !
I have been using computers since infancy or almost, out of necessity. Computers must be precious tools and companions for our art, creativity, science, to help us reach our goals, NOT to substitute us or to control us. They are to make our life easier, not to make it worse !
Unfortunately, as time passed by, the opposite happened: huge mass control powers (like Micro$oft, Google or Apple...) formed and grew up, whose purpose is to own our lives and our freedom and to control us within every respect.
Since the times when I had to switch from AmigaOS to Windows, and since I started using modern smartphones, my battle for freedom began and never ended.

I have been using Windows 7 for several years, and I would have kept doing so indefinitely, because it was a very fast, slender OS, if properly configured. I can't tolerate intrusive policies, ads, unrequired bloat and crap. For my purposes an OS must be reactive, responsive, fast, boot and shut down in few seconds, and it must be under my total control. Because we must be the unique owners of our machines, and not the other way around !
Whenever I notice that something tries to escape my control, I fight for days, weeks, months until it goes back under my total control.
I hate Apple and Macs, by having an even more tyrannic policy, as well as I cannot symphatize with all those who still insist using Macs or IPhones.
And Linux is NOT an option, unfortunately: there is very few professional software for Linux, in particular Audio / Music software, and no official drivers for hardware. Also, Unix philosophy is very far from my experience.

I have always been using pirate software with very few exceptions. When I buy a good, I want to have total ownership on it and forever, and often using a hacked / pirated copy is the only way to achieve so (it is NOT just a matter of money). The only programs I bought in my life are SynthEdit, Reaper, NTLite and Themida and few others, because of their still honest and relaxed policies.

With time, more and more people started stressing me about moving to Windows 10, and more and more programs progressively dropped support for Windows 7, so I had to plan a careful migration. But I had to fight hard, thanks to NTLite, to create an installation ISO completely devoid of "bloat": I removed Windows Updates, Cortana, Edge, Defender, all Micro$oft apps and cr@ps, all unrequired and intrusive services, and everything else which may slow down the system and/or cause distraction. I never bought one Windows license in life, but I would even spend 1000 $ for an OS made the way I want and which is totally under my control.

Another example ? I have a professional Epson inkjet printer I am still using for graphic arts. I could not tolerate that somebody imposed me to buy chipped ink cartridges, just to spend more, and without the freedom of using the inks I want. Also, I was very disappointed with the printing algorithms used. Therefore, I started a very long and exhausting journay, in 2010, and which lasted several months, to literally reverse-engineer and "hack" the printer's firmware, in order to disable any imposition and limitation; I also wrote a personal program ("RIP") to drive the print head directly, so I could have total control on the printing process.

As for software development I only use free and open source solutions, like GCC and Code Blocks. Also, GCC is likely the best compiler in the world and still produces a much better assembly code than Visual C.

A similar story applies to smartphones. At beginning, Android was a free, open source OS. Then Google acquired it, turning it in a big mass control machine. Whenever I have to switch to a new phone, I have to work hard for several days in order to "root" it and "de-bloat" it, removing every Google cr@p and control stuff: a very hard work, that's why I tend to keep my phones for 4/5 years at least.
I use only Firefox and other open source software on my smartphones, plus a file manager, and I always "side-load" apps downloaded freely from the sources I prefer.

For me, smartphones must be small computers, but computers must NOT be large smartphones !!!!!

Freedom as you can see comes for a cost, which not everybody can afford (therefore, the few ones like me don't quite harm those big powers sadly, still being a minority). Freedom costs blood, time (stolen from actual life and work), patience, stubbornness and the price to pay is neural exhaustion. This is true today, virtually, as it was true in the past: it costed wars and blood, as History taught us. But this is the price if one wants to be a free man or woman, and to be able to WORK, or to LIVE !



I oppose to Progress when it means Regress, and to Evolution when I rather judge it Involution



My boyfriend understands my attitude only marginally, partially criticizing me, often laughing at me, supporting the idea that I am the only cause of all my stress and exhaustion, that I ruin my life with my radical positions, and blah blah... He may surely live better, as most people do, but as SLAVES. Sadly I was born with a brain together with a strong personality, so I cannot tolerate being a slave. It is not entirely my choice.
What a horrible world it has become...
I just wonder: will I have the needed strenght to keep fighting forever, in a battle which gets every day harder and harder ?




A world where for every bug you report you are said it is not a bug but a "feature" is a buggy world, and must be fixed