Analog Console

[Galvonaut]

Most of that went straight over my head! It sounds like the results are absolutely luscious though. I think I'll start with my little synth here and maybe a monotribe next month. Then I'll probably get as hooked on synths as I have after buying my little 50mw diodes. For me, they complement each other quite nicely. I think I'll enjoy syncing lasers, synth 'music' and projection mapping over the coming years

Shepard tones. Forgot about those... (Always makes me think of Alan Shepard, in orbit, rising forever.. Wasn't him though, some other Shepard I think). They could be useful. Not sure what the scanning equivalent might be at best, but it's a great idea. FM is sorely underrated, incidentally. You're right about the usual perception, but there are at least two easy departures from form that head right into the best sorts of sound you'll ever hear from a synth. Try carrier 1 to modulator 1 or two as freq ratio for saw and square respectively, use full feedback for modulator to itself. Set 'feed forward' as opposed to output level of modulator into the carrier, slightly less than full, like 6 instead of 7. An SY99 will do this, a DX7 won't. Tweak modulator phase a bit, and you get awesome analog waves. Tweak fairly high output level right, and you'll get nice bandlimited analog waves, even with no level scaling to correct the mod index for pitch changes, which makes this even better an analog than Yamaha's own AN1X! Single parameter changes can change to saw/square as I mentioned, and another I forget, probably phase setting in carrier, can invert the waveform, so long as key sync is switched on. More widely usable is detune with pairs of equal stacks, using high mod index finely adjusted. very rich wavetable sounds. Bit off-topic now though because those waves, while stronger than most other sounds, are so rich in harmonics that they'll just mess up a scan pattern. fart-sound-land is where we get to if we don't strongly control that mod index. And I reckon that low mod indices are where it gets interesting for scanners.

[The_Doctor]

I didn't explain it very well. Too brief, and also, it makes a lot better sense if you have an SY77 or SY99 in front of you to try it on. A TG77 will also do, but I don't know if those are ever cheap enough for casual experiment. (Is basically why I ended up coding my own. Costs less, and I get to control the entire architecture..)

[Randomseed]

Long story short - FMFMFMFMFMFMFMFM
then
simpler sound/wave generators and technics will probably be more useful in analog laser control .....

That's what I'm walking away with anyways ;-)

[The_Doctor]

Long story short - FMFMFMFMFMFMFMFM
then
simpler sound/wave generators and technics will probably be more useful in analog laser control .....

That's what I'm walking away with anyways ;-)

Yep, that works. Thing is, you've heard of morphing synthesisers, right? What happens when you want to change from standard analog? You get two choices, either morph fluently, or chop and change. Each has its place. Now, suppose you also want standard ILDA frames too? That's your wavetable, in synth-speak. So can you imagine the strength of a hybrid phase mod/analog/wavetable synth? With that, under good controls, you can pretty much fuse all the known possibles in one instrument. Analog can't turn into 'FM' (it's been tried, with usually dire results), but 'FM' can emulate analog very well. So long as it can do that with not much more difficulty than using analog now, it's a win-win, and eventually people will want it. After all there's a limit to what you can do with a few basic waves and a couple of LFO's running fast. In scanning, just as in audio, people will be lookign for whatever can go further, preferable extending naturally from where they already are. Which is what I'm getting at..

I remember talk of the synthesist's holy grail, the 'resynthesiser'. No-one's got there yet. It is an ideal that can emulate anything. Slightly absurd notion because catching all the detail of a piano, or even a flute, is never going to happen, but anythign that can merge several known synth types fluently in one instrument will be useful. The separate types cost enough as it is!

[Randomseed]

morphing synthesisers - are you talking about east coast style patching (al-la Buchla...wave folders and shapers)?

Analog can't turn into 'FM' - not sure what you mean here?

Last Paragraph - that's the joy in modular, it can be whatever you want it to be (assuming you can afford the parts or are smart enough to design your own.

[The_Doctor]

Now that went over my head. I was thinking of things called Morpheus, or Proteus, little 1U rack synths around the late 80's.

Modular is good, but beyond me. I studied books, listened to music, wanted an ARP2600 havign no f**ing clue how much it cost and how unlikely I was to ever get one, or even SEE one, and that wasn't even really modular.. When I could afford a good synth, the DX7 was new, and I took to it straight away. No manual, I just sat around in a shop where they let me poke away at it. Code changed all that, eventually, gave me full control..... Computers are awesome.

Analog not changing to FM, I mean that analog is 'subtractive synthesis'. by formal title. So you start with complex waves. As you already have lots of harmonics, FM with it is horrible, especially in digital where nasty aliasing noise wrecks the sound more than not. Also, most analog oscillators are fairly complex, FM ones are simple, sine based, and give over the complex code to individual (and complex) envelopes generators, one per oscillator. Basically there's enough difference in architecture and concept that practical emulations of FM by instruments that started as analog, have almost all been limited, basically good for a nonlinear sound source, but it wasn't till Yamaha patented theirs, that a really complex controlled phase mod synth existed, Followed by Casio's phase distortion, which is so closely related that they evaded Yamaha's patent because it was hard to tell exactly how it was different, and how much the same. Anyway, Yamaha added 'analog' type filters in SY77/SY99/TG77. And as those can also do extremely good analog wave types that keep sharp and clean across a keybpoard with no level scaling, they cxan, and do, behave liek proper analog waves in portamento, so in mono mode, you can make an SY99 sound like a Minimoog! I sold my first to a guy who HAD three Minimoogs, and was totally tickled that he could have FM, and a 16-note polyphonic Minimoog as well. But I never heard an analog synth that could get anywhere close to the DX7 electreic bass. Not that you might want to, of course.. But I'm working on a true hybrid that can do both. Although, it has no filter yet, at all. Very much engine-on-block stage, and will be for a while yet.

[Randomseed]

Correction: I ment West Coast style patching....

"I mean that analog is 'subtractive synthesis'. by formal title."
Very untrue. You could say traditionally yes but this is simply because it was the general style that moog followed and we call east coast patching. It is based on building the tone up and then subtracking out via filtering (like your saying subtractive). West Coast style is using wave folders and wave shapers along with other various ways of shaping and collapsing the waves creating the final tone without any traditional filtering. Throw in FM (there are 3 flavors of it at least) and the fact you can basically do all of this in the same sound and there you go, modular life. In my system all the oscs have FM (its pretty much required) of some kind but the two that are specifically geared for it (one featuring the digital control over the two osc relationship) and the second being pure analog and implementing something called through zero FM (can go negative modulation) they are by far the most complex items in the entire rig. All are triangle based as well.
If your interested take a look on youtube for the Make Noise DPO and the Intellijel Rubicon for some sonic demos of what they can do. FM at its finest.

Im more a new school analog guy. The limitations of older (and most modern) hardware synths just pales in comparison to the infinite configurability of modular. Only draw back is that its just like lasers....expensive...addictive.....boutique....an d highly under appreciated.

Sorry for thread jacking

[Randomseed]

Pictures are fun.

Theres a DSI polyEvolver out of frame on the right.

[The_Doctor]

"I mean that analog is 'subtractive synthesis'. by formal title."
Very untrue. You could say traditionally yes but this is simply because it was the general style that moog followed and we call east coast patching.

Well, you could take that up with 50 years of UK and US publishing of books and magazines. But I take your point, 'Analog' is basically analog computing so while Moog and SCI and Oberheim set a standard that persists to dominate, it was never the only way. What I will say is that Yamaha did do something new with 'FM' that had not been done before. If any one of those other systems had done anything even moderately close, Chowning could probably not have got his patent. Digitising the entire process gave repeatable precision that no analog computer can match.

[Randomseed]

This entire thread is so damn cool I'm about to make an online introduction

Laserists meet the modular wigglers -> http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/vie...=desc&start=30