[sdiy] Observations of synthesized stretched-harmonic waveforms and subjective comments on their musical qualities

[Paul Cunningham]

distortion/overdrive is a great tool for animating harmonics of static waveforms played at interesting intervals. the big problem is that most keyboards use equal temperament which often sounds awful overdriven unless you are playing 5ths. none of the upper harmonics align close enough to sound good.

in order to make relatively static tonewheels sound better, hammond used slightly altered tunings that make more of the common chords sound better -- like G major for example -- at the expense of other less popular chords. these inter-harmonic relationships have defined a whole genre of playing styles that was only enhanced by the application of overdrive, vibrato and leslie speakers.

my korg x5 is has a user tuning i setup that is based off the tuning of a hammond tonewheel generator. the interesting part is how much more i enjoy playing some of the other sounds in this mode. i created a wurlitzer patch that sounds strange and awesome when playing using hammond intonation. it's all about how the upper harmonics interrelate which brings movement to the sound.

those of you who have studied instrument harmonics, especially traditional acoustic ones like guitar, will know that our tunings and scales, and how we expect to hear them, are heavily dictated by the  instrument's harmonics, and the sound of their interference patterns when playing chords. guitar sounds are so popular, mostly because we've been listening to stringed instruments for hundreds of years and have learned to like the sound of it.

analog (and a few digital synths) have really allowed us mess with these perceptions. -pc


On Apr 8, 2010, at 6:27 AM, cheater cheater wrote:

> Yep, that's why I hope to one day be able to do this in analog - it
> would definitely sound more interesting than digital.
> 
> D.
> 
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 09:29, Simon Brouwer <simon.oo.o at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> 
>> cheater cheater schreef:
>> 
>> (...)
>> 
>>> A bare oscillator on its own doesn't sound *very* special at all when
>>> you're not animating any of the parameters,
>> 
>> Maybe that special sound only comes into play with some distortion or
>> nonlinearity. The effect of distortion will be different as the shape of
>> the non-cyclic waveform changes, animating the sound. I think this is why
>> a distortion effect is far less impressive on a guitar-like synthesizer
>> sound than on that of a real guitar.
>> 
>> --
>> Vriendelijke groet,
>> 
>> Simon Brouwer