Fast VCOs/V->F converters

[Martin Czech]

> The reason for my query is that programmable wavetables are often seen as
> sometype of "panacea" for new timbral sources.  However, my experience with
> smallish, static tables was very disappointing.  At some level they all
> start to sound the same.  The reason is simple interesting timbres originate
> from dynamically changing waves.  Wavetable sequencing definitely adds
> interest.

I think I got your point, but maybe may mail was a bit offensive.
It's been a hard weekend/monday for me, that makes me even more agressive
then usuall ;->.

I also made a lot of experiments with wave tables, wrote programes
to compute waves etc. Yes, a lot of them are totally disappointing.
Only a few, about 5% or so seem interesting as static waves.
The important thing seems not to be the short time spectrum, but the *change*
of the spectrum in time.

> 
> Interest in 'lo-fi' not withstanding, getting good sonic results out of
> wavetable oscillators is not simple.  I was hoping to just give folks a bit
> of pause before they break their pick trying to do a technically challenging
> result but possibly musically disappointing.
> 

Yes, I think this is very important. It is much easier to write , say, a
little program that computes some waves, and then load the stuff eg. with
cool-edit in order to listen. You need no GUI, nor command line interface.
Just set constants etc. inside the programm. You don't even need to know
the .wav-format, you can just dunp raw binaru stuff. If there is an
interest, I could mail a short example in C. So you can change things
very quickly, listen if if pricipally works or not and then decide
whether to heat the iron or not.

Very often some mathematical very interesting idea prooved to be absolutely
boring when listening to the results!

m.c.


p.s.: I got so many responses to my .wav-format question that I still have to read
a lot of this stuff. This *is* a great list! Thanx to all who responded!