Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

previous by date index next by date
  topic list  

Subject: synthesizer presets versus pianos

From: "spaceanimals" <alciere@...>
Date: 2002-06-16

Electrical instruments come with their own indiosynchrocies, giving
them their own unique sound.Think in terms of chaos theory-the small
little differences combine to make some big differnces in sound.

Electric pianos actually have hammers that hit reeds. Each Fender
Rhodes has its own sound, plus the player and the player's technique
greatly expands the timbral possibilities. Add to this the difference
that analog circuitry adds-tubes, pickups etc and you'll see that
it's impossible for any two electric pianos to sound exactly alike.
There will be a subtle difference between all of them

The same with organs. There's so many parts turning and reverberating
and preamping that no two could possibly sound alike.

Every preset # 45 will sound exactly the same-well a little different
depending on your playback system but still close. With a VA synth
this isn't as much of an issue because there's all these knobs so
while you play you twiddle the knobs and instantly have your own
individual expressive instrument-no longer a preset.Then when you add
the matrix modulation, your playing style can greatly change the
sound of the preset-adding some subtle or not-so-subtle variation.

I often wished that some instrument designer would add some random
elements to their synthesizer so that everyone's keyboards would
sound subtly different. This is probably an utterly insane idea.

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.mp3.com/spaceanimals
http://www.spaceanimals.com