MOTM

I would agree completely.
There are any number of ways to create a given sound.  Additive,
subtractive, FM, Walsh Series, physical modeling . . .
All of these methods are valid.  Some may provide intuitive control,
while some require a great deal of analysis and tweaking to get
something useful.
It is all a learning experience.  If you look through the old issues of
Electronotes, you will see that Bernie Hutchins often built circuits and
then later admitted that they were not as useful as he had hoped, but
sometimes they were more useful.  
Sometimes the destination matters less than the journey.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tobias Enhus [mailto:tobias@...] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 2:33 PM
To: motm@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [motm] Additive thoughts

This is the case with all frontier pushing synthesis techniques. It's 
not going to come handed to you as a preset! But in the process of 
tweaking and building new concepts you make new discoveries, and get a 
deeper knowledge of how things work and what sounds good. Additive 
synthesis is a very valid technique to investigate
A very similar ongoing debate is Csound. Why bother with Csound when you

can buy a synthesizer that instantly can do what will take you weeks to 
figure out in Csound? Well, simply put because that's how we discover 
new things. That's where the frontier is, just as with MOTM in the 
analog world. I used a lot of Csound in the movie "Traffic". And in 
"Narc" I even used a hand made additive sound!

There's an additive technique in particular, that I've used a lot in 
both Csound and Kyma (with great results) and hope to recreate with MOTM

modules, additive harmonic filtering (Paul Lansky). You feed a sound to 
a bank of filters with high resonance tuned and enveloped to your specs.

This technique captures more noise and enharmonic material which is very

important ingredients of a natural sound.
I found out when experimenting, that the most interesting stuff happens 
with the first few filter partials. Six filters gives wonderful 
results.. Now, instead of crappy digital filter you use MOTM filters! 
The only problem is that currently there is no bandpass filter in the 
MOTM series.

Paul, more power to you for pushing new terrain!

Tobias



 

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This is the case with all frontier pushing synthesis techniques. It's 
not going to come handed to you as a preset! But in the process of 
tweaking and building new concepts you make new discoveries, and get a 
deeper knowledge of how things work and what sounds good. Additive 
synthesis is a very valid technique to investigate
A very similar ongoing debate is Csound. Why bother with Csound when you 
can buy a synthesizer that instantly can do what will take you weeks to 
figure out in Csound? Well, simply put because that's how we discover 
new things. That's where the frontier is, just as with MOTM in the 
analog world. I used a lot of Csound in the movie "Traffic". And in 
"Narc" I even used a hand made additive sound!

There's an additive technique in particular, that I've used a lot in 
both Csound and Kyma (with great results) and hope to recreate with MOTM 
modules, additive harmonic filtering (Paul Lansky). You feed a sound to 
a bank of filters with high resonance tuned and enveloped to your specs. 
This technique captures more noise and enharmonic material which is very 
important ingredients of a natural sound.
I found out when experimenting, that the most interesting stuff happens 
with the first few filter partials. Six filters gives wonderful 
results.. Now, instead of crappy digital filter you use MOTM filters! 
The only problem is that currently there is no bandpass filter in the 
MOTM series.

Paul, more power to you for pushing new terrain!

Tobias

> I used a lot of Csound in the movie "Traffic". And in
> "Narc" I even used a hand made additive sound!

Oh, wow. My hat is off to you. "Traffic" is a beautiful score; I bought the
CD immediately after seeing the movie, and I play it frequently. I would
love to hear about your involvement with its production.

I have not yet seen or heard "Narc"--I just discovered that it is credited
to Cliff Martinez also, though, so I should pick it up. I love his other
scores also, such as "Kafka" and "sex, lies, & videotape".

--Adam