[sdiy] Taking a Step towards - - --((FUTURE-PREDICTIONS))-- - -

[Glen]

At 08:57 PM 1/10/04 , Richard Wentk wrote:

>What *really* pisses me off about the MT scene at the moment is that a lot 
>of this stuff isn't even new. You could do useful resynthesis and make some 
>*very* cool additive sounds on a Synclavier in the mid-80s.

If you had $$$$, that is.  :)

>A proper additive synth project sounds like a very fun thing. Where do I sign?

I agree with you. Additive synthesis is addictive. I've help beta test a
couple of the additive VSTi synths. They're a blast to play around with.

The concept of making an affordable additive engine in hardware is very
appealing. If they are cheap enough, I would suggest to make a very
elaborate "single voice" additive module, and then use multiple modules to
achieve polyphony. The idea being, to hopefully create a much better
additive engine than can be done in a VSTi plugin, by putting all the
processing power in a single voice, and then using multiple modules to
create a polyphonic synth that will hopefully take years to catch up with,
using PC technology. The downfall to current additive VSTi instruments is
the intense CPU burden. A complex patch is often only playable as a single
note, not usable in chords because of the extra demand placed on the CPU. A
parallel hardware approach should perform great. I just hope the parts
required to achieve it are reasonable enough in price.

To be very honest, fabricating and testing something like this is beyond my
means at the moment, but if someone offered such a module in a kit form,
I'd definitely be interested. It could even be intermixed with some analog
gear, perhaps even used in an analog modular system. Keep it a basic module
and let the end user ultimately decide what to do with it. 

I'm thinking the spirit of the project might be a bit like the MIDI
projects at this URL:

http://www.ucapps.de/

Don't focus strictly on making a finished package, but focus on creating
some building blocks that the "rest of us" can string into a finished
package of our own configuration.


later,
Glen Berry