New old stuff

[Kirke Sonnichsen]

I concur. As far as I can tell "fat" is the most confusing because
some use it to mean 'bass heavy" and others for "multi-oscillator
beating" ("phat" means "really good"). "Warm" is boosted bass.
"Thin" might be shelved bass & "cold" perhaps no oscillator beating
(single or sync'd oscillators)

So, for example, a Solina string synth is fat but, not warm. A Mini-Moog
is warm and fat (even with only VCO active).

The one defintion that eluded me for years was "chops". I asked just
about every musician I knew and almost everyone would say the same thing:
"You know, his CHOPS!" as if stressing the word in a sentence would somehow
make it's meaning clear!

But I think most electronic music slang simply comes from a lack of
technical knowledge. Remeber, Picasso said that all _great_ artists
are also superb technicians...

- Kirke
(boyeee)


>
>Personally, I think there are many issues to the whole issue. I have so far
>never seen any really good description of what makes a synth "fat" or even a
>good definition of what is meant. Similarly the term "thin" doesn't have a good
>technical definition even if it seems to be implied that something that sounds
>"thin" sounds "not fat" and vice versa. I _think_ I know (now) what people mean
>by these terms, and I also _think_ I have a clue of some of the things that
>makes the difference.
>
>But, when we techies makes a perfectly ultra-stable synth, then people accuse
>us of doing "cold" synths, thus, not having the "warmth" of some semi-crappy
>synth that tech-heads at best describes as a mediocre solution, done to be
>cheap and all that.
>
>For me, part of the "magic" about a synth is not only how it sounds, but how it
>behaves and how it allows for a creative mind to acheive something with ease
>and fun. Personally, some of that got lost behinds menues, but that is MY
>personal view, even if some of those gear sounds very well when put into the
>right hands.
>
>For me, there are alot of subjective comments about synths and it to some
>degree come with the territory, but I don't take such statements as anything
>else than subjective comments. If I know where someone stands on synths and
>their sound, I can better build my understanding of what to expect.
>
>If someone could come up with good universal definitions and technical
>descriptions of "fat", "thin", "cold", "warm" etc I would really like to hear
>them and put them down on paper.
>
>Cheers,
>Magnus