Synthesizers (and other pro audio stuff)

faetal on 8/7/2020 at 17:52

Fixed mine - you have to generate a link via the share button, rather than paste the one from the browser, if the track is set to private.

PigLick on 8/7/2020 at 17:57

(https://soundcloud.com/darryl-25/drone)
my effort. again i cant really describe what i have done as I just tweak oscillators and filters, resonance etc

like yours faetal very soundtrack like

so whats next?

faetal on 8/7/2020 at 18:43

I like yours - kind of likea cross between swampy frog noises and an idling quad bike engine. Nice.

For mine, I was going for what the inside of an Emperor Ming themed passenger aircraft might sound like.

[EDIT] I heard Aja's drone now. Nice. This is what I imagine a drone should sound like. Mine is a bit too brash I think. No surprise since you're the ambient musician.

Aja on 8/7/2020 at 19:42

I added mine to a new TTLG playlist and it broke the link. It's fixed now.

Pig, yours is very Thief-like; it's unsettling but also oddly soothing.

faetal, yours is more System Shock. The P6 has such a big sound; my Minilogue doesn't really compare.

Aja on 8/7/2020 at 21:34

Quote Posted by faetal

Thanks. I like how it turned out, and I might try developing it into an actual track. I still feel like mine's a bit peaky in some frequencies, though. I still find it hard sometimes to make smooth-sounding tracks; most synths seem to put out tons of unwanted frequencies, and I end up using lots of EQ to rein them in.

demagogue on 8/7/2020 at 22:32

I think Aja's has just the proper amount of yearning for a drone. It's a classic sound. So it's my favorite.

Faetal's sounds like what I was trying to do, modulating a low growl. The 6 layers, the subosc especially, really adds to it the way they are pulsing in and out of each other (although 6 layers and a sub isn't exactly monophonic, or is it if it's still all coming from one oscillator? Well drones are better layered in any event).

Pig's is environmental which I like a lot. The croak is great. I feel like it'd benefit from having the tonal loop slowed down.

((https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150667&page=3&p=2452386&viewfull=1#post2452386) My drone is up at the top post of the page.)

Quote Posted by PigLick

so whats next?

Next was a generated melody.

I sort of already made (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150667&page=2&p=2452137&viewfull=1#post2452137) one above, but it really just loops three notes. Not much of a melody. So I tried again with chords, and used the wonderful Orca's Heart on VCV Rack. I think this is also not much of a melody since Orca's Heart only alternates two chords, and also Orca does all of the work selecting the pitches. So I might try again with a legitimate multi-chord melody and hand-making a system for selecting notes. But I felt like this has such a cool sound, I wanted to share it anyway.

[video=youtube;V6ROleYOi5g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ROleYOi5g[/video]

Edit 2: I uploaded an new video to replace the original to level down the kick drum. So Aja's later post about the kick drum being too loud was about the previous patch.

Edit 1: Here's the patch notes. Orca's Heart has its own clock, and I sent that to a clock divider that triggers all the events. A simple switch alternates the chords (every 3rd measure for 1 measure duration), and other switches at other time divisions switch back and forth the algorithm (the notes it selects), the starting pitch, and the octave, so it has a lot of motion over a long period. The pitch CV goes from Orca's to Vult's Bleak, which is going through Lindberg Research's Valerie Filter, for that cloud of notes at the top end (also getting the reverb). I also used pitch CV for the filter cut off, which makes it jump so notes pop out in a way I thought was kind of cool (which also goes through a timed switch so it only does it periodically, then jumps back down to normal). And a slow LFO on "Peak", which I believe is resonance. The Suboscilator for Erika's Blackwave is the bass, which gets pitch CV from Orca's channel two. Then there's an LFO modulating its wave shape. Then the rhythm is Erika's PicoDrums, with a /2 clock division doing the hihat and an LFO (that modulates a random pitch it gets from a sample & hold of noise, so it still generally pulses up & down like an LFO but notes are a little randomized) dwaddling the pitch of the kick drum. Finally the drum module goes through a high pass filter to level down the relative volume of the kick drum.

faetal on 8/7/2020 at 23:08

Quote Posted by demagogue

Faetal's sounds like what I was trying to do, modulating a low growl. The 6 layers, the subosc especially, really adds to it the way they are pulsing in and out of each other (although 6 layers and a sub isn't exactly monophonic, or is it if it's still all coming from one oscillator? Well drones are better layered in any event).

Ah yes, I hadn't thought about the unison breaking the monophonic rule. The slop is the key parameter on mine - it makes the voices drift subtly out of tune and phase with each other to mimic older analogue gear. Since the P6 is LFO per voice, and the poly mod also works per voice, this means that the transition between notes happen as a kind of brief dissonant blurring. plus the PWM swims around between the six voices creating a kind of breathing texture in the lower registers on top of the sub, separate from the resonant filter movement, which is accentuated by the white noise. If you dial the slop down, everything sounds more in tune, and behaves much more nicely, which is usually not what I want :).

Not sure if my bell patch got lost earlier in the thread - would be interested to hear any comments, as I find that a better test of actual synthesis skill versus a drone, which doesn't have to sound like anything in particular (I'm anticipating the piano one being toughest).

faetal on 8/7/2020 at 23:20

Quote Posted by demagogue

[video=youtube;eK9LCoAXN4I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK9LCoAXN4I[/video]

Edit: Orca's Heart has its own clock, and I sent that to a clock divider that triggers all the events. A simple switch alternates the chords (every 3rd measure for 1 measure duration), and other switches at other time divisions switch back and forth the algorithm (the notes it selects), the starting pitch, and the octave, so it has a lot of motion over a long period. The pitch CV goes from Orca's to Vult's Bleak, which is going through Lindberg Research's Valerie Filter, for that cloud of notes at the top end (also getting the reverb). I also used pitch CV for the filter cut off, which makes it jump so notes pop out in a way I thought was kind of cool (which also goes through a timed switch so it only does it periodically, then jumps back down to normal). And a slow LFO on "Peak", which I believe is resonance. The Suboscilator for Erika's Blackwave is the bass, which gets pitch CV from Orca's channel two. Then there's an LFO modulating its wave shape. Then the rhythm is Erika's PicoDrums, with a /2 clock division doing the hihat and an LFO (that modulates a random pitch it gets from a sample & hold of noise, so it still generally pulses up & down like an LFO but notes are a little randomized) dwaddling the pitch of the kick drum.

That's really complex. I plan to get more into generative stuff after my Minibrute arrives and I can start messing with the sequencer. If it takes, I may get a few modules geared towards that end. I have a Disting Mk4 on order, which does more or less everything (but only one thing at a time) to test the water. Been eyeing up an Ornament & Crime too.
I will try to do my generative sequence in a few minutes. Will probably use Ableton's midi tools with the P6.

Aja on 8/7/2020 at 23:33

Just in case it wasn't clear, when I said generative melody, I meant a melody that isn't composed or played manually but is generated according to a set of parameters devised by the user. I don't do this very often, so I'm not really sure of the best way. I do have an (https://ornament-and-cri.me/) Ornament and Crime module that can generate random melodies constrained to specific scales all on its own, but that seems like cheating. Or maybe that's how the pros do it. I'll give it a shot tomorrow morning.

Dema, I can't quite tell if your patch is actually looping or is changing slightly on each go-round, but it sounds like a generative melody to me. It's interesting in that it actually sounds like multiple instruments playing the different melodies, but I'm guessing it's just the wave shape changing periodically. I think I would bring the volume of the melody up a bit relative to the bass drum, which I just realized is also changing pitch.

faetal on 8/7/2020 at 23:49

I'll be using a combination of the random, scale, and pitch plugins in Ableton to generate a melody from a single note.