adsr and lfo abolish

[Andrew Schrock]

On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Paul Perry wrote:
> At 06:27 PM 7/04/99 +0200, you wrote:
> >Just one idea:
> >
> >Modulation modules like adsr and lfo etc. tend to make our music
> >boring, 
> 
> ho yes, this is truth.
> Fact is, you need many more envelopes.
> But, sending envelope shape via midi is not the way to go..
> send envelope generator control paramaters, perhaps.
> I think envelopes generated by rectangular pulses which are
> then deformed by lag ckts and ringing very low freq filters are
> the go for psychoacoustically rich sounds. 

My 2 bits: 

Synths which use waves filtered by many envelopes coupled with VCAs and
formant filters exist. They're called additive synthesizers... it's simply
not feasible to do this with modular analog subtractive synthesis. There
are attempts at additive synthesis, at the Vemia (sp?) action there was a
moog prototype.. (non-working) but in general it's too cumbersome to do
this within the analog domain due to many factors, mainly revolving
around the fact that it's hard to keep that many analog VCO's etc. in tune
with each other. You'd drive yourself up the wall trying to deal with even
32 VCOs! 

I'd love to see a digital DIY oscillator based around, say, 64 
harmonics and few voices... you could then manipulate the oscillator
shape/harmonics easily via midi. 'Sending' envelope shapes via midi would
be a bit cumbersome... what if you needed to send a large number of
envelopes? What if the resolution was not fine enough and you could hear
stepping? Yack. Part of the allure of analog synthesis is that it _is_ so
simple compared to FM and additive. 

But more practically, if you're just bored with ADSR envelopes, you could
always think about transients/level generators for n-stage envelopes if
you're bored with 4-stage. Or DADSR. Or DADSRR. Or ..? If you're bored
with LFO's, try a VCLFO. You get the idea, there are many nifty analog
modules which haven't really had their day in the DIY spotlight yet. 

later
Andrew

-| Andrew Schrock | aschrock at cs.brandeis.edu |-