Vote-Which Vintage Oscs and Filters should be modelled next

wavelength · Post by **wavelength** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:02 pm

On 2004-04-17 07:27, astroman wrote:
...and obviously you succeeded - with what's compressed in the PS.
for me your synths aren't just plugins, but true instruments

cheers, Tom

wow! thanks, the highest compliment you could give me.

webbunny · Post by **webbunny** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:11 pm

Sorry Stephen,

On reading back my last comment, it's come across as a bit disrespectful.

I had figured that anyone using Scope DP has to have a damn good grasp of signal processing principles - it's been explained in a post in the Development forum that some of the 'atoms' go down to DSP code level adds and multiplies, so I did not mean at all to diminish your work...

and I also didn't want it to seem like I was saying your devices are facsimiles, because they are clearly not... they have the 'essence' of these classics, I'm sure the way you've said it was that the old synths have inspired you.

What I was trying to find out was, for example, many synths have a 2xVCO->VCF->VCA architecture, but they can all sound so different from each other, and the thing that makes them different is that essence I just mentioned.

And I was wondering how you came about getting those essences in your devices - but you've already answered that - you just 'feel it'

Andy

wavelength · Post by **wavelength** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:10 am

On 2004-04-18 18:11, webbunny wrote:
Sorry Stephen,

On reading back my last comment, it's come across as a bit disrespectful.

I had figured that anyone using Scope DP has to have a damn good grasp of signal processing principles - it's been explained in a post in the Development forum that some of the 'atoms' go down to DSP code level adds and multiplies, so I did not mean at all to diminish your work...

and I also didn't want it to seem like I was saying your devices are facsimiles, because they are clearly not... they have the 'essence' of these classics, I'm sure the way you've said it was that the old synths have inspired you.

What I was trying to find out was, for example, many synths have a 2xVCO->VCF->VCA architecture, but they can all sound so different from each other, and the thing that makes them different is that essence I just mentioned.

And I was wondering how you came about getting those essences in your devices - but you've already answered that - you just 'feel it'

Andy

hey, sorry if i was a bit defensive

!!... been a long week.

the 'feel' comes from knowing how things are going to sound when thrown together, as a simple example: a distortion algorithm can have a very different impact on the overall timbre depending on where it is in the signal-chain (before or after the amp envelope/ before or after the filter, etc)... these sorts of little details can be very important. experimentation when starting out is the key... move the basic components around and listen to what happens. also, the "subtle" use of effects usually reserved for more brutal wave-shaping (like distortion) can have very noticable results.

as far as oscillators go, some of the more pleasing sounding saw-waves, for example, aren't really true saws at all, but 'rounded saws' that look slightly more like a sinewave in a 'scope... a pulse-wave can go from a very hollow timbre to a very buzzy one, more like a saw, depending on how far apart the pulses are when cycling... the point is that there is already a rather large (and perhaps surprisingly so) variation that can be achieved when a synth uses even only the 'simple' waveforms (sine/tri/saws/pulse).

filters, like oscillators, can have their own characters as well, as can envelopes (slopes, etc) -- so you can very quickly see that even with the very basic "osc/filter/amp" setup a synth can end up pretty distinctive... throw in some FM and the possibilities really start to open up.

in the old vintage analogue synths the overall sound was also effected by where the components were on the circuit-board/ the type of power supply/ actual power source, etc, etc... it was all electrical, after all!... kind of alive. it's these idiosyncrasies that can give an analogue synth a distinctive tone, as well... and these are harder to pin-down and emulate than waveforms and filters.

the 'feel'-thing that i mentioned is just from time spent around something you are wanting to learn about... i recently heard Quentin Tarantino say something like he watched only old Kung-Fu flicks (and the like) for a whole year leading up to making "Kill Bill 1&2"... he wanted to be so immersed in the subject-matter that it would be instinctive when certain creative decisions needed to be made on set or in editing.

- Stephen