The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Anyone enough of a Wakeman fan to have worked out his "other" sounds. 
There's a decent version of this trumpet like (saw wave) tone in the 
archives. But I was thinking of the sizzly pulse wave type leads. 
Like the one in the intro to And You And I.

Any Advice?

Jerry

on 12/14/02 4:03 PM, Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...> at
tuskerfort@... wrote:

I have tried a sine or triangular type wave (or square wave with lots of
frequencies filtered out) coupled 2 octaves apart with portamento to taste.

Sounds like the record!

Linda

> Anyone enough of a Wakeman fan to have worked out his "other" sounds.
> There's a decent version of this trumpet like (saw wave) tone in the
> archives. But I was thinking of the sizzly pulse wave type leads.
> Like the one in the intro to And You And I.
> 
> Any Advice?
> 
> Jerry
>

> I have tried a sine or triangular type wave (or square wave with 
lots of
> frequencies filtered out) coupled 2 octaves apart with portamento 
to taste.
> 
> Sounds like the record!


Yup. Two octaves does it! Very cool. Funny how important the pitch 
tuning can be. Thank you Linda.

Jerry

on 12/16/02 1:44 PM, Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...> at
tuskerfort@... wrote:

You're quite welcome!
I first did this on a Kawai K-3. I can [program sounds by intuition and lots
of time...no algebra problems here on this end lol!

Are you playing this stuff out? Must be nice if so. I have been looking for
a prog type situation for a long time. I'm a freelancer, love the jazz part
of that, but not so hot on the top 40 cover side of it.

Linda
http://www.dachtyl.com

>> I have tried a sine or triangular type wave (or square wave with
> lots of
>> frequencies filtered out) coupled 2 octaves apart with portamento
> to taste.
>> 
>> Sounds like the record!
> 
> 
> Yup. Two octaves does it! Very cool. Funny how important the pitch
> tuning can be. Thank you Linda.
> 
> Jerry
> 
>

> Are you playing this stuff out? Must be nice if so. I have been 
looking for
> a prog type situation for a long time. I'm a freelancer, love the 
jazz part
> of that, but not so hot on the top 40 cover side of it.

Cool that you get to play some jazz. What contexts do you find 
yourself doing jazz in. I play the occasional cocktail piano thing. 
I'd love to do some fusion gigs with a good drummer and bassist.

As to playing Yes music. The answer is yes and no. I do play some 
occasional Yes stuff with friends. More for fun than anything. But 
really my interest in it is basic sound-design for leads. I am a 
little tired of the pseudo-trumpet, pseudo-guitar, thing where the 
ADSR is responsible for a lot of the character of the sound.

So I have been casting about in my head for a couple of different 
paradigms. I hit upon the fact that Wakemans softer leads really 
weren't adopted by anyone else. (If you discount the sine wavy R&B 
lead that uses portamento in a similar way.) He's more subtle than 
you would think with his sounds. He's always messing with the 
portamento speed and things like that to tailor it to the tune. 

So I am just trying to find a new lead sound that is reasonably 
musical and a little different. And it struck me, I had never figured 
this particular sound out. 

Thanks a bunch,

Jerry

on 12/16/02 7:16 PM, Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...> at
tuskerfort@... wrote:

>> Are you playing this stuff out? Must be nice if so. I have been
> looking for
>> a prog type situation for a long time. I'm a freelancer, love the
> jazz part
>> of that, but not so hot on the top 40 cover side of it.
> 
> Cool that you get to play some jazz. What contexts do you find
> yourself doing jazz in. I play the occasional cocktail piano thing.
> I'd love to do some fusion gigs with a good drummer and bassist.

I play both keys and drums in jazz and rock groups. Have a piano trio and
also a B3 quartet. Freelance with various bands on drums/keys also. Had a
couple of stabs at prog bands doing some originals and reworked covers but
unfortunately they were vert high maintenance groups. We did get a nice
mention in a column in Progression Magazine a couple of years ago in Paul
WIlliams' (Quarkspace) column based on a live tape. The band's name was
"Logarhythm" and I am looking forward to getting this back together when I
find the right people who are as committed to doing a an original prog thing
as I am.
> 
> As to playing Yes music. The answer is yes and no. I do play some
> occasional Yes stuff with friends.

I've played a couple of Yes tunes in bands over the years. Like pulling
teeth! Long Distance and Owner were the only ones I could ever talk anyone
into doing. Yet it was ok for me to be bored playing Rush pads.

More for fun than anything. But
> really my interest in it is basic sound-design for leads. I am a
> little tired of the pseudo-trumpet, pseudo-guitar, thing where the
> ADSR is responsible for a lot of the character of the sound.

An ADSR is a necessity for these vintage sounds! I spend lots of time
programming for cover bands. I "won" a gig once with a corporate cover band
because I had the right sound for "1999" (of course I had to be able to play
it too;-).....)

The one thing that really bothers me in local cover bands is I hear allot of
people who do not take the time to program their sounds to emulate even
close to what was on the original recording.  I would assume they either do
not know how....but since I am a "tweaker" and not an acoustic physicist, I
personally think it is due to laziness. I would be embarrassed getting on
stage and not taking the time to do this kind of thing and playing a cheesy
sound just to get by.

Glad to help you out, especially someone who sounds like they know the
science behind trying to get these sounds. Like I said I just tweak, tweak,
tweak. But I do know where to start to get there. FM programming however is
not my forte. I would like to understand how this works better. I have never
been able to make 1+1=2 doing FM. Subtractive synthesis and a little
additive synthesis (from my experience with Hammond) is about all I can do
at this time!

Linda

"Rick Wakeman eat your heart out...here we go!"
-LArry

-dj Frantik-hard acid/techno
-computer controlled-live hard acid/techno
-muzik-->http://www.mp3.com/computercontroled


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Linda: 

You do some interesting and impressive things. Do you happen to have 
any mp3's with the AN1X? I am not sure where I think the AN1X's sweet 
spot is. It's quite the competent chameleon, but doesn't seem to have 
anything unique to it (yet). I still think about it though, and spend 
some time programming it.

--- In AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com, Linda Dachtyl <lindaleed@e...> 
wrote:
> Glad to help you out, especially someone who sounds like they know 
the
> science behind trying to get these sounds. Like I said I just 
tweak, tweak,
> tweak. But I do know where to start to get there. FM programming 
however is
> not my forte. I would like to understand how this works better. I 
have never
> been able to make 1+1=2 doing FM. Subtractive synthesis and a little
> additive synthesis (from my experience with Hammond) is about all I 
can do
> at this time!

Well, you clearly know what you are doing, if you could just name the 
pitch relationships off-hand! I've done three things with FM on the 
An1X that I like:

1 - For plucked sounds (momentary FM), I use the pitch eg to sweep 
osc 2, with fm on. Or just modulate fm depth instantanously with a 
free eg. Either way you get a useful burst of noise and side-bands at 
the point of impact.

2 - For sustaining sounds with FM, there are a few sweetspots. FM 
depth=42 allows you to retain the current pitch of both osc. I've 
done a couple of others (21, 25 if I recall right) where you end up 
retuning the oscillators. This works well for reedy timbres if you 
adjust osc1 volume and octave/harmonic to taste, allowing osc 2 to 
give the fundamental (make it mellow, so that osc 1 provides the 
character). The downside is aliasing at the high end of the keyboard. 
So I just don't play there. But it helps to tune your oscillators 
(with the FM) if you test it with the high notes.

3 -  FM as a "modulation" effect. Two ways. a) I sometimes map FM 
depth to the pitch wheel and wiggle it a bit for rasp. (I pitch bend 
with ribbon x instead) The pitch wheel is smoother than any of the 
other controllers for this effect, because of it's 128 X 128 
resolution. b) One other way is to have two "consonant" patches in 
the two scenes. One with FM, one without. The osc pitches may not be 
the same as a result. As you morph, the FM relationships (being non-
linear) cause side-bands to come in. When you are all the way to 
scene 2, the sidebands have gone away and you have a consonant sound 
again. You control the degree of side-bands based on where your mod 
wheel is.

Hope this helps. I am enjoying this give and take of ideas. Do you 
have any suggestions for expressive lead sounds?

Jerry

on 12/19/02 8:10 AM, Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...> at
tuskerfort@... wrote:

Let me get back to you on this. I have some new age stuff and a prog thing.
There is some AN1X on the Widdershins sampler mp3, but also Ensoniq ASR-10,
Kawai K-3 and K-4, and DX-7.

http://www.dachtyl.com/Widdershins.mp3

Linda
http://www.dachtyl.com

> Linda: 
> 
> You do some interesting and impressive things. Do you happen to have
> any mp3's with the AN1X? I am not sure where I think the AN1X's sweet
> spot is. It's quite the competent chameleon, but doesn't seem to have
> anything unique to it (yet). I still think about it though, and spend
> some time programming it.
> 
> --- In AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com, Linda Dachtyl <lindaleed@e...>
> wrote:
>> Glad to help you out, especially someone who sounds like they know
> the
>> science behind trying to get these sounds. Like I said I just
> tweak, tweak,
>> tweak. But I do know where to start to get there. FM programming
> however is
>> not my forte. I would like to understand how this works better. I
> have never
>> been able to make 1+1=2 doing FM. Subtractive synthesis and a little
>> additive synthesis (from my experience with Hammond) is about all I
> can do
>> at this time!
> 
> Well, you clearly know what you are doing, if you could just name the
> pitch relationships off-hand! I've done three things with FM on the
> An1X that I like:
> 
> 1 - For plucked sounds (momentary FM), I use the pitch eg to sweep
> osc 2, with fm on. Or just modulate fm depth instantanously with a
> free eg. Either way you get a useful burst of noise and side-bands at
> the point of impact.
> 
> 2 - For sustaining sounds with FM, there are a few sweetspots. FM
> depth=42 allows you to retain the current pitch of both osc. I've
> done a couple of others (21, 25 if I recall right) where you end up
> retuning the oscillators. This works well for reedy timbres if you
> adjust osc1 volume and octave/harmonic to taste, allowing osc 2 to
> give the fundamental (make it mellow, so that osc 1 provides the
> character). The downside is aliasing at the high end of the keyboard.
> So I just don't play there. But it helps to tune your oscillators
> (with the FM) if you test it with the high notes.
> 
> 3 -  FM as a "modulation" effect. Two ways. a) I sometimes map FM
> depth to the pitch wheel and wiggle it a bit for rasp. (I pitch bend
> with ribbon x instead) The pitch wheel is smoother than any of the
> other controllers for this effect, because of it's 128 X 128
> resolution. b) One other way is to have two "consonant" patches in
> the two scenes. One with FM, one without. The osc pitches may not be
> the same as a result. As you morph, the FM relationships (being non-
> linear) cause side-bands to come in. When you are all the way to
> scene 2, the sidebands have gone away and you have a consonant sound
> again. You control the degree of side-bands based on where your mod
> wheel is.
> 
> Hope this helps. I am enjoying this give and take of ideas. Do you
> have any suggestions for expressive lead sounds?
> 
> Jerry
> 
> 
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> 
>

--- In AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com, Linda Dachtyl <lindaleed@e...> 
wrote:
> There is some AN1X on the Widdershins sampler mp3, but also Ensoniq 
ASR-10,
> Kawai K-3 and K-4, and DX-7.

I'll check it out. Thx. By "FM synthesis", were you referring to the 
DX7? Sorry for the OT, if so.

Cheers,

Jerry

on 12/19/02 8:40 AM, Jerry Aiyathurai <tuskerfort@...> at
tuskerfort@... wrote:

Yes to FM/DX-7. I will read your post in detail and try things out.

FM is not off topic concerning the AN1-X. There is am FM bank.

What a great synth! Warm analog sounds AND FM.

Linda

> --- In AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com, Linda Dachtyl <lindaleed@e...>
> wrote:
>> There is some AN1X on the Widdershins sampler mp3, but also Ensoniq
> ASR-10,
>> Kawai K-3 and K-4, and DX-7.
> 
> I'll check it out. Thx. By "FM synthesis", were you referring to the
> DX7? Sorry for the OT, if so.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jerry
>