Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Just daydreaming out loud...

I was just thinking about how most synthesizer 'modifier' modules function
by changing the relative amplitudes of a sound's partials. This is true of
the family of x-pass filters, phasers, waveshapers, clippers, VCAs, etc.
They all change harmonic amplitudes in one manner or another. It seems to me
that the vast majority of them work this way.

What do we have for the frequency domain? Besides the Ring Modulator (and
it's close relative the Frequency [not Pitch] Shifter, is there anything
that lets you change the frequency, rather than amplitude, of individual
partials with respect to one another? Ring Modulators and Frequency shifters
work 'all or nothing' in a linear (sic) way. It seems like the only way to
do further, more flexible mutations of this sort is to go to additive
synthesis via a ∗lot∗ of VCOs or something.

I guess FM synthesis attempted to address this in its way. And every now and
then someone gives thought to perhaps new basic waveforms, but none have
proven themselves as useful as the 'big 4.'

I dunno... seems like there should be more devices in this category, that
function in this domain. Something to retune partials in ways different than
a Ring Modulator.

Back to my reverie...