[sdiy] Additive Synthesis - Wendy would say it works...

[elmacaco]

I've never worked with a K5, but the K5000 intrigues me, I have gotten
sounds out of it that I really like, and that actually happen to be more
than one sound, cuz sweeping the mod wheel can transform one thing into
something completely different.  the velocity response also is quite nice
and aftertouch can really be used to great effect on it.

But who has the time!!!  It can really be time consuming, it makes me wish
it had a detachable panel like that Akai S6000 so I could sit on a couch and
watch tv while I define different envelopes for 128 harmonics.

One nice thing about the envelopes is they are ADDR envelopes for the
harmonics, and you get a graphic representation of what it looks like while
you scroll numbers.  It still gets old by the 64th time you do it though,
still, the envelopes can be set up to loop between decay stages, I remember
2 configurations.

Anyhow, I find that I program it like an adventure, just start adding
harmonics and see what it sounds like, then play with the formant filter,
and go with it until I get something I like, then start assigning controls
to give it some tweakability.  If you know what sound you want, the K5000
isn't the best synth for you imo.

it is pretty amazing at times, the stuff of cult followings and digital
harshscapes yet unexplored.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Les Mizzell" <lesmizz at bellsouth.net>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 11:54 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Additive Synthesis - Wendy would say it works...


>
> >>Ed asked (off list) why the K5K is close but no banana.
>
> The K5 voice structure was actually *very* clever. It wasn't as additive
> as it really looked!
>
> 1. Basically, there were 4 digital oscillators, each with 1 EG.
> 2. On the main screen, you set the initial level of 64 (63?)
>     harmonics individually.
> 3. Then, you assigned each of those to one of 4 EGs
>
> Here's the "clever" part that made it look more complicated than it was
> - When you assigned a harmonic to an EG - it also assigned which of the
> 4 OSC's were generating that specific harmonic, but that was part of the
> process you didn't "see" when programming.   So, you got a big graph
> showing the combined harmonic content of the 4 OSC's on one page. You
> never got to see an OSC anywhere - only only dealt with the individual
> harmonics and which EG was applied.
>
> They could have done a completely different user interface like:
>
> OSC 1 --> EG 1
> OSC 2 --> EG 2
> OSC 3 --> EG 3
> OSC 4 --> EG 4
>
>   - with a page for each OSC where you defined the harmonic content for
> each OSC and it wouldn't have been the same synth.
>
> There was also a pitch EG, a master EG, EQ and some other nice stuff
> build in as well.
>
> You could get an absolutely killer B3 out of it with a little work - but
> it seemed to excel in glassy sounding bells and the like. It would do
> interesting pads, but "warm" isn't something I would use to describe
> hardly anything that came out of it. I had a reasonable amount of
> success looking at FFT graphs in books and getting something that
> sounded sorta like what I was going after when programming, with
> emphasis on the "sorta".
>
> It was a pretty cool idea, but the outputs had a rather low level and
> was pretty noisy. I'd love to see a more modern implementation of this
> with improved filters and such - but I doubt it ever happens in
> hardware. Software is the way to go for doing this, and a few folks seem
> to have done a pretty good job with it...
>
>
>
> --
> -----------
> Les Mizzell