[sdiy] What is chaos?

[Tim Parkhurst]

On 2/12/07, John Mahoney <jmahoney at gate.net> wrote:
> At 01:23 PM 2/12/2007, Ian Fritz wrote:
> >Fabio --
> >
> >None of the answers you have been given are even close to correct.
>
> Oops. I know my answer was all over the place, and mostly wrong
> (sorry, Fabio!), but...
>
> Is not Dave Bradley's three-oscillating-VCFs-modulating-each-other
> "glorp" patch (which I alluded to) an example of a chaotic patch?
> --
> john
>

Okay, so here's my understanding of this (using the 'glorp' patch as
an example):

I think if you had a digital system where you could set the start
points of the waves of each VCLFO and precisely control their
frequencies, then you would have a chaotic system. Why? Because if you
repeated the 'experiment' with the same settings, you would get the
same results.

Now try the same thing with analog modular VCLFOs. With all of the
"random noise" present in an analog circuit (e.g. thermal noise and
small amounts of drift present in even the best analog designs), you
probably wouldn't get the same repeatability, even if you can sync the
wave start points. This time, you have a random event. In other words,
starting with the same settings wouldn't yield the same results time
after time. The results might be close, but still not exactly
repeatable and/or predictable. This makes me wonder if it really is
possible to create a true chaotic system without some some of Digital
Control Gizmo. This IS however, one of the biggest arguments in favor
of analogs; from these circuits, we get small amounts of randomness.
This can create subtle differences which are very pleasing to the ear,
and we spend hours chasing that elusive quality (randomness, but with
control).

Then again, I could be totally wrong and misunderstanding this. If so,
I'm going to go pout in the corner.


Tim (I for one, welcome our digital control gizmo overlords) Servo
-- 
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein