[sdiy] Aphex Twin, Korg and 31.250 kHz

[Ove Ridé]

http://item.warp.net/interview/aphex-twin-speaks-to-tatsuya-takahashi/

This is an interview with Richard D James (aka Aphex Twin) and Tatsuya
Takahashi on their collaboration on the Korg Monologue. It's an
interesting interview in its own right, but one thing that stood out
to me was this detail about the Volca:

TT: "Talking of standards, the sample rate of 48 kHz is another one
for sampling and signal processing, but the volca sample uses a weird
one at 31.25 kHz. Purely because of technical constraints, but I was
thinking that might be part of the reason you liked it so much,
because the different sample rate gives it a unique sound."

I immediately recognized that as the baud rate of standard MIDI, which
in turn is chosen because it is 1/32 MHz so it's easy to derive
exactly from integer MHz clocks. But the interesting part is why he
would choose that as a sample rate. I'm assuming the technical
limitation he's referring to is choosing a sample rate based on a
clock crystal suitable for MIDI use. But using 48 kHz (at least as far
as math goes) should have been easy, by using a clock that's a
multiple of 6 MHz, which would make 48 kHz an integer division.

Just my thought of the day.

-- 
/Ove

Blog: <http://blog.gg8.se/>

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