MOTM

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "Kenneth Elhardt" <elhardt@...> wrote:
>
> I'ts a bit too much to cut and paste a bunch of responses, so I'll 
just
> point some things out.
> 
> I of course have to use a bunch of filtering in a lot of stuff I 
do.  But
> the ironic problem you get into is the more powerful, flexible, and 
more
> bands a filter has, the harder it is to acheive what you want.  

Agreed!  I did the same sort of spectral analysis thing and it took a 
long time!  On the other hand, I was so pleased with my quasi-
imitative sound, not just as a good brass sound, but as a great 
synthesizer sound.  And this is really my point.  There is a lot of 
untapped potential in the modular analog synth.  I think the module 
I'm talking about could be very useful.

> Somebody mentioned Teisco having a filter bank.  So did the 
Polymoog,
> Spectralis, and a number of modular synths had EQ and formant filter
> modules.  But if you listen to the history of synth recordings, the 
synth
> has been so underutilized except by two or three people, that it 
doesn't
> seem like people want to spend the time and effort in learning and 
doing
> anything groundbreaking or difficult.  

True, so let's make it easier.

> As for the attitude that if you want a clarinet sound just hire a 
clarinet
> player, besides samples, this is another reason synthesis is dead.  
The
> synthesizer was supposed to be a device to create any sound you 
want, but
> nobody uses it that way.

Right.  There's nothing wrong with the "standard" analog synth sound 
of low-pass filter swept sawtooths.  But if you want to create some 
other sounds . . . 

> And about allowing the freqs of a filterbank to track the 
keyboard.  When it
> comes to doing human vocal sounds that usually works best.  Anytime 
I've
> tried to keep filters fixed and create separate patches for male 
and females
> voices, the fact that all the different note pitches have the same 
filtering
> leads to an annoying strong boxy or vocoder type sound.  

Right, so here's an idea.  You're making a synth sound and you're 
tweaking it at concert A.  With the new tracking EQ, say in "simple 
graphic EQ mode", you mess with some sliders (virtual or otherwise), 
seasoning to taste.  Now, playing up and down the keyboard is likely 
going to result in some very usable non-boxy sounds that maybe don't 
sound exactly like your grandfather's Minimoog (unless you want it 
to, of course).  How about sweeping it with an EG?  Or maybe some 
interpid folks could come up with settings to share with the user 
community that would be also useful for imitative sounds, based on 
their hours of spectral analysis?  Or maybe a setting that imitates 
the MoogCE String Filter?