help in crafting your own sounds

Anything about the Scope modular synths

Moderators: valis, garyb

peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

hi all,

does anyone have any shareable knowledge or www pointers with help or tutorials on how to craft your own synth sounds? i know there are a lot of techniques to create nice fat sounds but they seem to be a bit hard to come by.. which is kinda understandable since many have their own secret tricks.

but in case you have some tricks or pointers, they are more than welcome.

edit: here are the findings so far:
Advanced programming techinques of modular synthesizers
Supersaw sound
Last edited by peksi on Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:10 am, edited 2 times in total.
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

uttf
Last edited by fra77x on Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

thanks! found one tutorial about which may not include any "secrets" but seems to reach quite depths:

Advanced programming techinques of modular synthesizers
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

That's an excellent resource. I have printed that. Also Sound on Sound contains a tremendous amount of information and the famous Synth Secrets.
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

getting very exited here... now what to do with my family to keep busy leaving me with my sounds :D
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

Buy them a Xite...
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

as most synth sounds are emulations of analog synths its all about chorus

and using the natural chorus of detuned oscillators you get a beating when you detune osc

the mini moog is famous example for this which there is an example

you can create 3 note chord intervals

5ths

in modular you can go into real synthesis as you can accomplish any type sound you can think of be it digital fm or analog va or sampling
digital additive

then theirs filter types by combining filters you can create resonators which create formant,s things like strings wind instruments have resonating bodies

and using 1 lowpass filters or high pass filters or bandpass filters as in most synths dont cut it because they just remove frequencies from the spectrum of the sound source with formant filters you can create the body of the sound source

there are data bases with the frequencies of instruments and vowel sounds that you can use 3 to 5 or more bandpass filters to create formants

then theirs modulation with modular you are opened to any source and destination and with sync to async and async to sync modules you can use audio as control sources

look at real source samples from synths or real instruments see how there contours change over time then you can see how to create the envelopes to create the same type contours

take a piano for instance it has a sharp attck transient where all the energy is then it starts to decay in a - exp curve theirs no sustain at all if sustained by the pedals it still decays in a -exp curve but takes longer to decay

also when moving up the keyboard the decay becomes less due to the length of the string so you would need to add key modulation to reduce the decay as you go up the keyboard this is known as key tracking

now when the key is removed there is a small release sound this is caused by the hammers releasing the string so you get a small blip of string noise to get that you need to retrigger a sample

you can also do an fft on the spectrum of the sound source which then you can create additive spectra for additive oscillators by adding several oscillators and set then to start and end at different times you can simulate sounds and then adding noise and transient attacks as samples as additive cant do transient or noise this is how a kawai k5000 works with its additive engine as you can mix upto 6 sources from additive to samples

the kawai k5 uses just 2 additive sources and no samples but has a lowpass res filter for sculpting

wavetable synthesis using single cycle samples these use set spectra that you can mix together via the wavetable module by sc

or by using a sample osc or bcmodular sts osc which is a multisample multilayer sample player you can then use your own

you can easily create kawai k5 and k5000 patches with these as basically when doing additive resynthesis it creates single cycle spectra

which is what a wavetable is

then theirs wavetable scanning synthesis theirs the waldorf osc for this a wavescanning osc is made up of a string os single cycle spectra that change over time these are wavetables originally designed on the ppg wave it used lookup tables to scan the wavetables over time this allowed to change the sound like real sounds do the down side at the time was that the buffering was slow and caused clicks in the changing but also gives its character to the ppg sound

the additive waves created by palm was guessed and he created them in strings of 60 waves and the 4 end waves were simple synth waves saw tri pulse square and these end 4 were the same for each wavetable there were 30+ wavetables and by just setting to one wavetable single cycle from the scannable wavetable you had 2000 single cycle spectra to choose from which gives you an endless pallet of sound sources but the magic was from using the wavetable scanning as by setting envelope 1 the filter envelope you could set how far the scanning went which made the ppg a very remarcable synth

the waldorf osc is based on this system but done totally digitally but it has the ppg wavetable but is actually based on the waldorf wave uwave wavetable rom set which gives you 60+ wavetables but unlike the waldorf wave they are fixed the waldorf wave had resynthesis and could create wavetables from audio sample source like the wavetermb

the uwave could create user wavetables also but from additive single cycle waves and algo to create new tables

the creamware waldorf wavetable osc is fixed to the rom wavetables only

but by combining 2 osc you can create most and more patches of the ppg and uwave as on the ppg there was only 1 osc and a sub osc and on the wave uwave both osc had to use the same wavetable but you can choose to use different wavetables on each osc like the blofeld and largo if you add a third osc as a va multi osc you can create most blofeld and largo sounds but it needs to be a 5 osc synth as the 2 wavetable osc also have a sub osc at -12 to -24 octave
below there associated main osc

infact modular can create emulations of most synths like the jaded800 which is a emulation of a jd800 but with single samples most of the samples in the jd800 are single samples but there are also a lot of multisamples with the bc modular sts osc a better accurate version could be created

its all down to your imagination be it emulation or a new hybrid creation of synth the key is experimentation

try things if i do this = i get that

see what works write it down things that dont discard

then you can create a cheat sheet of ideas that work every time

the formula of sound source= va multiosc/fm/additive/sample>filter>amp>fx

is how most synths are designed then you add your control matrix from envelopes to lfo to sequencers the more you add the more complex the sound can be

you can never go wrong with that formular but how you wire it up and how many sources you add and how many filters and if you do dual serial parallel filter per osc resonators

envelopes for pitch filter and amp

fm or am of audio

vector synthesis via a vector mixer like the prophet vs or vector mixing like the d50 via cross fades of 2 crossfades mixers ab cd same for the yamaha sy22/33/35

or vector mixing my style of 4 transient sources and vector mixed after the amp of each of the 4 osc
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

Wavetables are an interesting sound source but they sound a bit raw and are problematic at high frequencies because of aliasing. Not to mention that their pitch modulation is awful. I always mix wavetables with computed oscillators when i use them (not often) which sounds pretty good.

Vector synthesis is nice for evolving pads but one should always mix normal oscillators with the wavetables so to cure the high frequency content.

Good info by the way
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

thats why i compute mine

in a 8-6 multisample file

as wavetables also if used in the standard sample osc loose there transient as they are being slowed down

and they also have a lot of aliasing in the upper regions if not band limited

so for wavetables i prefer the bc modular sts osc as then i can have a a sample on each octave with only a max of 1 octave up transpose and i set them to 22.5 or 32khz so that there max playback rate is 44.1 or 64khz as used by the korgs as i make them mostly for the t series

they play well in the sts osc and because they are not being transposed up more than one octave dont suffer very bad aliasing like the normal sample osc or suffer from slowing down because of only allowed one sample

if you add a hpf before the main filter as used by the an1x you can filter out high frequencies if using high octave settings which produce aliasing in the higher notes as a eq type filter before the contour filter

i have sdk6 but was having problems with the guisdk and the sdk crashing

wish i had the 5.1 as it seems to be more stable

i created a polymoog resonator

a novachord extended resonator by adding res to all the filters and more volume controls

and the korg p3200 resonator

but because of the crashing in sdk6

and not having the sdk5.1

i sent them to sharc for creation

my multisample wavetable dont alias as i test them in hardware synths and use a chromatic tuner for tuning from the creation of them so that they

perform accurate pitch

because i use 2,s compliment for creation they are always in the math of 2,s compliment a 1024 sample at 32khz is a b0-21 cents

the same sample at 44.1 is a f1-23cents

this makes my multisample files very small i also multiloop them and then create the perfect loops with a few samples after for the interpolation engine of the t series and trinity
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

Why you don't have sdk 5?

sdk6 is a no go for the moment at least my version
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

because i never had it

and applied for the sdk6

which i got a copy of

i have been doing vsti using synth edit and synthmaster

and the stienberg sdk

i have several modules created with the synth edit sdk

namely a wavetable scanning osc as i love ensoniq samplers that have transwave synthesis

and worked for ensoning as a repair tech in uk until 1997 when we were laid of no longer needed as emu took over all servicing and

outsourced it all out

from being a repair tech i learned doing the transwave synthesis and also best techniques for sampling on the ensoniqs

most samples for these machines were done on a pcm tape machine these were like analog tape machines but recorded pcm digitally

i love the sound of transwaves and there creation in that with the help of other coders we can create user wavetables in ensoniq /audio/blofeld/some synth format

through resynthesis and additive synthesis

in synth edit i can then load these wavetable audio sample files and scan through them over time so that they change like the waldorf osc

being able to use user wavetable scanning tables means un limited sound creation and because modular you can add what sources you want you can create sounds that no other hardware can create

on the asr10 i can have 8 layers of transwaves all with there own modulation sources all with the own filter amp and envelopes for pitch/filter/amp

you can create massive sound scapes

and is the biggest reason i wanted the sdk6 for to implement the c++ code using the guisdk and sdk6

as i would love to create the ensoniq vfx and ts10 in modular but these use transwaves and there is no user wavetable scanning osc

we have the tables we have a way of creating them and ways of creating text or full sample files or audio samples of the wavetables

as it is at the moment im just creating multisound single cycle wavetables generated from the transwave creating program

so far i have created several thousand of these tables

from instrument samples like the ppg library and the fairlight library and robotic voices doing simulation of sync and pwm

and totally made up transwaves

im also created a modular EII sampler with the help of sharc and a special sts osc that has a chorus doubling setting like the eII does

and have converted my EII disk library for it along with the fairlight disk library into 16bits but keeping the frequency rates of the actual samples

but not the presets due to having to split the layers into single layers for the modular version so that the presets can be created how they are done in the sampler
fra77x
Posts: 889
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by fra77x »

You can use c++ and the guisdk with sdk 5. I suggest to get it. It is absolutely stable. I haven't tried but it is likely that you can create a user sweepable wavetable oscillator with the "guisdk". It's not just a gui sdk. It lets you compile a dll which appears in the dsp module list. You drop it in your circuit and you communicate with it through async and sync signals. You can create interfaces or whatever else. For a wavetable oscillator you just need a vector that will load all the different samples. Perhaps i'll sit down and do it myself.


I admire your work with wavetable synthesis. I haven't experiment a lot with wavetable synthesis, but when i read some of your articles
about transwave synthesis, i created some 1-cycle waves and yes the result was very interesting. Now that i'm thinking about it, in my version 5 of the sdk, for the Xite, 32bit, the samplers are not working, and guess neither the samper oscillator. But i have found a workaround for that when i need to work with samples in the sdk. There is a dll file in "scope sdk xite\app\bin" named akai.dll. I make a copy of that dll in a secure place and then i replace it with the akai.dll file of my normal xite software or with one of my older 4.0 akai.dll files. Then the wav oscillator works fine! But then i lose VDAT recording! So i can't simultaneounsly work with wav osc and record in VDAT but i have to pack my project, load it in Xite software and make the record there! Hard life in tropico! ;-)
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

yes i am working on a guisdk version as you can create it and like you said using the async and sync i/o for control by scope

my problem was that i was missing some files and the guisdk would not compile

found out recently that i was missing a file which i have just received

so that it will compile

so i will be working on it over the next few weeks


my other one was to see if i could use the digital wavetable osc of the vectron and create a preset with 128 waves in and see if it was possible to sweep through the presets using some type of buffering to allow for changing of waves

as if this was possible i could get text files created with the info from transwaves as single cycle samples would mean a quick way of doing it but having problems with the sdk6 it has been put on the burner until sdk6 becomes more mature

but if your saying that the sdk5.1 is very stable ill inquire about it as it might be a work around for me with the guisdk
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

thanks a lot for your information jhulk! i've been going thru your tips one at a time and some have required some extra studying. you seem to have this thing covered without a sweat.

if you listen to the first 20-30 seconds of demo song below you can hear a low synth sound coming in pulse-like style.

https://soundcloud.com/heavyocitymedia/ ... -winters-1

could you take an educated guess as how this kind of sound might have been crafted or even how it might be reproduced with modular? that sample is from sampler but it would be something else to have it actually synthesized with control over all parameters.
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

that sounds like a brass swell type sound thats produced by having the pitch envelope the filter and vca envelope the same

in fact the korg t1 does this very well

2 osc octave apart and one set fine tune to -6 the other set to +6 gives a nice chorus effect and a square wave sub osc -12 below the first osc

i would use saw waves for this

i would use a low pass filter no res set the cutoff low so that the envelope swells it on some modular envelopes you have expo curves set to a -expo for the attack so that it sweep up in an inverse arc

set the device to unison and a small amount of portomento

on the dss1 you can do this with 16 voices which sounds huge

use at low keys this will give nice bass swells

i have some preset brass type envelope setting for the t1 ill look them up and post the times and levels
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

https://soundcloud.com/jhulk

here are some examples of things i have been working on on several devices

still have loads to put on of examples from modular
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

i did try it the way you said with 2 saw wave oscillators and 1 square. it did not get that thickness but i will try but multiple oscillators with slightly different tunes and see how it turns up.
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

its how the envelopes are set also

you need a pitch envelope a filter envelope and a vca envelope or you can use 1 envelope and set that one for all those elements

the osc i would set

the osc 1 saw as 0 octave +6 fine tune

os2 2 saw as -12 octave -6 fine tune

square wave -24 octave for sub bass

you need to get the envelope right so that it swells correctly and you need to play notes below c2

if i get some time this week ill do a version using a custom bc module that i had sharc create for an ax80 emulation which has all the osc on 1 osc so that the sub is phase locked with the 2 main osc and by using 2 osc you get a 6 osc sound source
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by peksi »

my first take: https://soundcloud.com/pekkakuronen/son ... ar-iv-test

I must have some common flaws in the device and all critisicm welcome :) FM oscillator wants to do a loud POP at low frequences at note stop but there must be a nice way to cope with it. I intention with since FM oscillators was to bring a firm bass base to the mix.
Attachments
mydevice.zip
Device file
(674.3 KiB) Downloaded 157 times
jhulk
Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:49 am

Re: help in crafting your own sounds

Post by jhulk »

sounds fat but you have only the filter swell you need the vca to swell aswell to get the sound you were after and pitch up swell via a small amonut

but it has a good chorus type sound

you need to add some more modulation sources so that you can do interesting stuff with it

are you using a single fm osc and are you using the audio from the other osc as frequency modulation
Post Reply