Well, you don't have to be an audio engineer to create nice sounding filters with
the nord modular synth. In this case a good ear is much more usefull..
In my experience cutting out the high frequencies are causing the sound to miss
texture. It's not hearing but rather feeling that something is missing,
especially on some on the softsynths I know. Those frequency don't have to be
loud they simply have to be present. Anyway when having a synth engine working
with 192khz this probably wouldn't be a problem anymore, but would cut down the
amount of voices alot...
Another problem is, that synth creators are not simply filtering out the higher
frequencies, since you can't filter aliasing, it has to create the aliasing free
oscillators, not sure if the edge parameter works that way or this whole
discussion is pure nonsense. At lower notes that could mean the calculation 512
harmonics and more otherwise it might sound a little LOFI (I'm certain since I
have some experience with addtive synthesis). Some of the synths simply don't go
that far and a juicy bass is simply not possible and all the resonant filters of
the world will not amplify non present frequencies...
My vote is having a synth with an enormous bandwith that can be limited by the
synths engine if needed. That's why I like FM (especially the FS1R) or having the
edge parameter. But it makes no sense to ban certain edge settings for all
sounds, I'd rather recommend to use keytracking on that parameter, since they're
suspected to cause aliasing, what at this frequency is rather quantisation noise
since Aliasing would go a lot further into audiable frequencies...
....Summa
On 18 Apr 2005 at 21:10, Dan wrote:
>
>
> > I read (a fairly scholarly) paper on modular synthesis for the Nord
> > Micro Modular and it said unequivocally that digital oscillators
> have > more energy above 10,000 Hz than their analog counterparts
> ============================ Here's part of the article that I was
> referencing:
>
> http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/%7Eclark/nordmodularbook/nm_oscillator.html
>
> > "Rob Hordijk has developed a very nice sounding "analog" style
> filter. His filter avoids the "buzzy" sound produced by many digital
> resonant filters. The buzziness arises because digital oscillators
> contain a relatively large amount of energy above 10kHz. Most analog
> oscillators have less energy in this region, as the analog circuitry
> itself filters part of it away. Imagine a sawtooth set to 200 Hz,
> therefore having overtones 200 Hz apart from each other. This means
> that in the area between 10 kHz and 20 kHz there are 50 overtones
> present, all crowded together within a single octave! When using, for
> example, 3 slightly detuned oscillators you're talking about 3 * 50 =
> 150 overtones all in that one high octave, and all phasing fast with
> each other. The amplitudes of these overtones are very small, but
> there are a lot of them and very high sounds are perceived quite well,
> so there is a distinct buzz in the high. If the cutoff frequency is
> set to this area the buzziness is increased even more at high
> resonance levels. The resonance band of a 12 dB filter is a bit
> broader than that of a 24 dB filter, so the 12 dB filter suffers a bit
> more from the buzz.
>
> The problem with this buzz is that it can mess up those other sounds
> that have by nature lots of energy in the same band, notably hihats
> and cymbals and some dipthongs in the vocals. Thus it is a good
> practice to filter everything above 10kHz away from all instruments
> when there are hihats and cymbals in the rhythm track, or if you use
> vocals from someone with a clear voice. Otherwise these hihats and the
> s's and t's will drown in the high of the other instruments. Its even
> worse if the 10kHz+ area gets in a reverb with a very bright tail.
> That will start to produce lots of noise.
>
> For most synth sounds, especially strings, its not the 10kHz+ area
> which is important, but the area between 3.5kHz and 10 kHz. So
> filtering away all above 10kHz but slightly emphasizing the 3.5 to 8
> kHz area greatly improves the warmth and depth of stringsounds. A
> single 6 dB LP filter set to 10kHz won't do the job, the cutoff
> frequency should be set to 2.5 kHz or less to effectively remove the
> buzz. Even the cutoff frequency of a 24 dB filter should be set to
> something like 5kHz. But in both cases you would also lose part of the
> important 3.5 to 8 kHz area. The most useful solution is to use a
> dipfilter with a notch around 12 kHz.
>
> The filter is composed of two 12 dB filters that are cascaded to get a
> 24 dB filter. On the first filter a little bit of the HP output is
> mixed to the LP output. This is tuned by a MasterOsc module. As it
> apparently needs some bizarre overexponential control to get
> everything right, the grey signal is raised to the power of two and
> mixed with the grey signal to control the amount of HP. This creates a
> notch at the top end of the spectrum, which does three things:
>
> 1) it attenuates the very high end, making the filter less "buzzy ".
> 2) it reduces the resonance at the top end of the spectrum relative to
> the rest of the spectrum, especially at high resonance settings. This
> also makes the sound less buzzy. 3) the notch increases the filter
> slope slightly.
>
> The messing about with that grey signal is just to keep the notch at
> the right place, which is tuned to taste by ear.
>
> The second 12dB filter increases the filter cutoff slope to 24 dB. The
> feedback from the LP output of the second filter increases the bottom
> end of the spectrum, giving the sound a little bit more guts.
>
> This filter can give good analog bass sounds with even a single
> sawtooth oscillator. "
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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