[sdiy] Envelope attack smoothing for drum question

[Brian Willoughby]

On Aug 21, 2020, at 1:38 PM, Jason Nanna <jasonnanna at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would delaying the trigger until an oscillator zero-crossing be a simpler way to synchronize?  Assuming a bipolar triangle, I don't think it matters whether it's rising or falling.

There are people who can hear when the polarity of a kick drum is reversed. In general, it's accepted that polarity is not perceptible, but that's probably only for steady tones. The attack transient of a kick drum - or any drum - seems to be important. It could be that it's very important that the sound wave start with compressed (positive) excursion. But this is anecdotal - I can't find a reference.

Many mixing engineers will probably just reverse the phase on a drum track that's wrong, but if it's randomly alternating then they will probably decide that something is wrong.

Brian

p.s. Sawtooth oscillators manage to consistently start with a sharp edge that's always the same direction. I don't see why it would be too difficult for a kick oscillator to do the same, even if it isn't a sawtooth.