Design your own waveform synths?

[Robert Williams]

Actually, after I wrote my first post I realized my error.   What I'm now thinking
about is a filter which would have extremely precision controlled timing.  Say we
take a sawtooth wave and give it low-pass filtering below 2500 Hz for 150 ms, then
increase the cut-off to 5500 Hz over the next 50 ms, then break out into two
band-pass filters, 400 Hz wide, one at 5500 Hz, the other at 6500 for 75 ms, then
have them smoothly merge back into one 400 Hz wide band at 6000 Hz over the next 500
ms before gradually spreading the lower cutoff back down to zero Hz over the next 2
seconds.  Customizable waveforms could do the same thing, but I see now that
filtering really is the trick to do it logically and with control.  Do instruments
exist with such precision timing over filter control?  All I've ever played with is
analogs that just give ADSR filter control, but none of it approaches the degree of
timing, control and filter variation that I'm thinking about.

Robert

Gene Zumchak wrote:

> List,
>
>     May I add my own two cents.  Moog may have been the first to recognize back
> in the sixties that what is important about a sound or waveform is NOT its shape
> or frequency recipe (spectrum), but how it changes in time.  A plucked string,
> for example starts out with lots of harmonics.  The higher the harmonics, the
> faster they die out.  Eventually you are left with just the fundamental.
> Hitting the Moog LPF with a transient, accomplished this.  A brass sound, on
> the  other hand, starts with the fundamental.  It takes some millieseconds for
> the harmonics to build up.  Sweep the filter from low to high and it gives a
> brass sound.  Accordingly, fabricating waveforms whose spectrum is constant is
> an exercise with little promise.  Instead fabricate waveforms digitally that
> change in time, and then you'll get interesting sounds.
>
> Gene Zumchak
>
> Martin Czech wrote:
>
> > > Actually, to do this you can do one of at least two things.  One, download
> > > a program called "Smorphi".  It allows you to draw your own waveforms and
> > > play around with them.  Two, a program called "Goldwave" allows you to
> > > directly edit the samples that make up a .wav file.  Just make a tiny .wav
> > > file (like 100 samples), direct-edit the waveform to your heart's content
> >
> > Right, sorry forgot about that.
> >
> > @ www.shareware.com
> >
> > And dont forget "granny" granular synthesis tools.
> > Cool, works even on my 100MHz P5.
> >
> > m.c.