Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

I have an open question about something that's bugged me for years.

Many synth modules have two inputs that act upon each other, and these are
typically called the "carrier" and "modulator." Now common sense says that
the "carrier" ought to be the signal that is being modified, and the
"modulator" is the one doing the modifying. At least whenever such a
distinction can be made.

In the case of a balanced modulator, the question is sort of moot because
both inputs are being symmetrically multiplied. Paul side-stepped this whole
issue by just using "X" and "Y" which pretty much tells the story. But other
BM's-notably ones with built-in sine wave oscillators for the shift (for
example, the Blacet 'Klang Werk')-call the LFO the "carrier." Doesn't common
sense dictate that this should be the "modulator," since you're using it to
tweak the sound of another, more primary wave that you are supplying?

I've seen the same reversal in many other modules, even vocoders, where the
voice input is called the "carrier," when in fact it is being used to
modulate another input, and therefore should be called the modulator. Right?

A friend suggested that, since much of our audio-shaping circuitry was
originally inspired by radio & telephone engineering, that some of the lingo
may have been ported over poorly as the circuits were being swiped, that the
reversal may have made more sense in the original applications. Could be.

I know it's nit-picky, but these are the things that keep me up at night.

As long as I'm being crabby on a Monday morning, and the coffee is taking
forever to brew, let me air out another, similar grievance. I fully realize
that a "positive-going" sawtooth wave and a "negative going" one have
identical harmonics, differing only in their phase alignment. But when used
in control applications (LFO), this becomes an important distinction. When I
was taught electronic music many yahrens ago, I was beaten into calling
positive-going waves "ramps" and negative, "sawtooths," with full knowledge
that these were arbitrary names for otherwise identical waves. But I was
told that these were agreed-upon conventions in the E-Music world to help
make things simple.

Yet years later, I seem to be the only person who's ever heard of this. And
it seemed like such a good convention. Did my mentors make this up? It would
seem to be a pretty localized convention.

Thank you for indulging my crankiness.