[sdiy] Moogey jitter - the old times were the oldest.

[elmacaco]

I think the acceptance of new synthesis forms and elements that give them
longevity with musicians are also very key elements.

The popularity of analog synthesis now and the interest in modular analog
synthesis stems in part from how accessible it is to make your own sounds
with it, maybe not a new sound per se, but the fact that you want a sound
like X and you can just make it instead of search through presets for it.
Because these techniques have easy to grasp elements and more esoteric
techniques there is room for growth, so time invested results in improvement
in one's ability to create the sounds and play them.

We have many different synthesis methods available to us, but not all of
them have this accessibility.  My K5000 gets programmed because I like it
and I get good results, but it doesn't happen too often because over the
years that I have used it it still takes a long time to program, even if I
know exactly what I want.  The sounds possible with it are not exhausted,
but the user is more likely to be exhausted before the synthesis engine is.

The same can be said for DX style FM programming, and other forms of
synthesis.  The hardcore will always find what they love, but if there was a
more immediate and inviting instrument that used FM or Additive or whatever,
analog or digital, you might see more interest in synthesis as a whole and
new forms of it emerging more readily.

People make great synths all the time but without attention to this aspect
of a synthesizer there is little encouragement to get involved deeply with
the synthesizer and give it longevity.  I've seen synths invite players to
get to know them and I've seen synths turn off competent synthesis's based
on these issues alone.  I think the fact that analog is so prevalent that
some people are sick of it is a great thing, it invites people to learn to
synthesize and get into their sounds more than most systems I know of. This
is why so much digital is used to emulate it, is that the elements of analog
that cause this haven't been isolated from the whole of subtractive
synthesis yet, so applying it to other systems becomes a UI thing when it
seems more than just that to me.

Personally, I love digital technology, but I think there is a lack of not
creativity but execution.  It's too easy to make a long list of features and
not really give people anything that helps them incorporate them into the
usage of the synth.  The Hartmann Neuron seemed to do this fairly well, I
wish I had more time on it.

I look at the sampler market and see this a lot.  I love old 12 bit samplers
because they sound great to my ears, the aliasing is an element that I can
manipulate and use in different ways and I grow into its use as well.

to me aliasing is the sound of digital, and I think if some digital synth
designers embrace it and figure out how to use it to create a synth with a
truly digital voice all sorts of interesting things can come from real time
modulation of bit depth and sampling frequency, try to make aliasing an
advantage and then shape that with FM, additive, or subtractive synthesis.
Make aliasing the centerpiece, take it to places where it can sound good,
and be another way in which we can interact with sound.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rainer Buchty" <rainer at buchty.net>
To: "Scott Gravenhorst" <music.maker at gte.net>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Moogey jitter - the old times were the oldest.


> >I don't believe that all sounds have to be "new".  I believe that there
> >are new uses for things that have been heard.  Consider a violin.  How
> >many pieces have been written for violin?  It's not a new sound, why
> >then do people listen to it over and over?
>
> I think you need to differentiate between instrument and music.
>
> The search for new instruments (and therefore a new sound) isn't exactly
> new. Today we take the pianoforte or clarinets and saxes for granted,
> but they are just a couple hundred years old.
>
> And here people also basically refined existing concepts e.g. by adding
> holes, valves, slideable tubes, introduce powerful compressors instead
> of a measly lung, or alter the way of dealing with strings (bowing,
> picking, hammering; rastered vs. un-rastered finger board vs. keyboard).
> Or just cram a hole lot of several instruments into a big cabinet and
> let them be controlled by a punch-card or punch-disk program (I recently
> visited the Museum of Music Automatons in Bruchsal, Germany; quite
> impressive!)
>
> Then came electronics and "we" were able to introduce a completely new
> sounds, which in the end evolved into a similar "set" of basic sound
> generation which are "traditional subtractive" using analog(-like)
> oscillators or sample playback, "additive", FM, and "others"  like
> granular, or dedicated synthesis methods.
>
> >I believe that it's not so much what cool weird new sound you can make
> >(although that _can_ be wonderful), it is what you do with sound that
> >matters most.
>
> Fully agreed. But people always were on the hunt for that new, unheard
> sound or just improving older instrument concepts as shown above.
>
> And this is probably what bugs Paul: while the 70s, 80s, and partly 90s
> were the era of exploring new synthesis concepts (i.e. inventing new
> instruments) we nowadays somewhat stagnate in trying to reproduce "the
> good old sound" instead of going back hunting for that new, unheard
> sound/synthesis.
>
> And maybe this is where frustration starts, cause what will there be
> next? We've seen analog computing (-> analog synth), sample playback,
> FM, additive synthesis, wavetable and granular synthesis, physical
> modeling, neural networks -- all commercially exploited with more or
> less success.
>
> The same situation as with traditional instruments.
>
> So what's coming next?  Is there still "new" sound to explore or are we
> at a point where the "instrument for the masses" doesn't need further
> refinement and it comes down to individual instruments?
>
> >I say: "Ignore the nay-sayers".
>
> Amen to that :)
>
> Rainer