[sdiy] Timbral musings

[Scott Gravenhorst]

Some good info in this thread.  I guess that my quest for a waveshaping
"Holy Grail" is not going to happen as it's not the wave shaper so much
as the way it's used.

When I listened to Ian's demos, I was most "attracted" to the sounds
which seemed to variably strengthen the 2nd harmonic.  Now I'm asking
myself "what do I really want?".  PWM seems mandatory (I look at PWM as
a VC waveshaper), but being pulse based it certainly won't do
everything.  What I know I do NOT want is a pile of different VC
waveshapers that all pretty much do the same things.  Since I know I
like the second harmonic increase, perhaps what I should do is build a
VC waveshaper that does period doubling.

jhaible at debitel.net wrote:
>
>> ..wave shapers are often 'disappointing' because the
>> harmonics produced have a constant phase relationship
>> (exactly what a real-world instrument DOESN'T have).
>> I'm not knocking wave shapers, they are a terrific tool,
>> but running a static program source into them is not 
>> terribly useful... they rally shine for LFO modification, though!
>
>
>From my own experiments with waveshapers:
>
>There are basically two ways to "breath life" into a waveshaper:
>
>(1) modulation of the waveshaper's transfer funtion
>
>(2) finding a transfer function, and "sweet spot" along 
>    this transfer function, where a pleasant change of timbre
>    comes from varying input level. 
>
>#1 is quite obvious.
>
>#2 has it's most prominent example in the classic guitar - distorting 
>   amplifier configuration. It's advisable to always have a VCA between
>   the VCO and Waveshaper. If you modulated the VCA with an envelope
>   and with a controller like velocity, you have a similar control 
>   over dynamic waveshaping as an average guitar player has. (And
>   the git player has a lot of other means for expressive playing ...)
>
>Bottom line: Waveshapers are a great tool to get interesting sounds,
>but it needs a VCA and a few controllers _at least_ to get them
>out of the "boring static" domain.
>
>JH.
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------
>debitel.net Webmail
>

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-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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