Synth-DIY Yahoo! Groups Archives

Thread

Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-20 by paulhaneberg

Here's an idea.
What if we start a patch of the week club.

Instead of Ken Elhardt writing a book and selling a dozen or so
copies, someone (I'm volunteering!) could collect patches from some
of the best patch artists on the list, maybe Mike Marsh and Scott
Juskiw along with Ken Elhardt for instance. There would be a
subscription fee. Each week each of the subscribers would receive a
patch in PDF format via email. The money from the subscriptions
would be paid to those who contribute the patches. If we had three
guys creating the patches, each would only have to come up with one
every three weeks. The patch creators would then be getting paid
for their time.

I don't mean to slight anyone. There are a lot of great patch
artists out there. Dave Wright has sent me some great stuff for the
MOTM CDR project. And of course Robert Rich is outstanding. I
picked on Ken Elhardt because he is the undisputed master of
replicating other instruments, Mike Marsh, because of the uniqueness
of what I have heard from him and Scott, because he is so good at
self running patches. Really anyone could contribute to this, but
someone would have to then decide what to use.

What does eveyone think? If there is no interest, obviously I'll
drop the idea. But I'd pay to take lessons from these guys. Maybe
there are enough MOTMers interested to make it worthwhile.

Paul Haneberg

Re: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-20 by Scott K Warren

I would subscribe! -- skw

On May 20, 2005, at 10:07 AM, paulhaneberg wrote:

> Here's an idea.
> What if we start a patch of the week club.
>
> Instead of Ken Elhardt writing a book and selling a dozen or so
> copies, someone (I'm volunteering!) could collect patches from some
> of the best patch artists on the list, maybe Mike Marsh and Scott
> Juskiw along with Ken Elhardt for instance. There would be a
> subscription fee. Each week each of the subscribers would receive a
> patch in PDF format via email. The money from the subscriptions
> would be paid to those who contribute the patches. If we had three
> guys creating the patches, each would only have to come up with one
> every three weeks. The patch creators would then be getting paid
> for their time.
>
> I don't mean to slight anyone. There are a lot of great patch
> artists out there. Dave Wright has sent me some great stuff for the
> MOTM CDR project. And of course Robert Rich is outstanding. I
> picked on Ken Elhardt because he is the undisputed master of
> replicating other instruments, Mike Marsh, because of the uniqueness
> of what I have heard from him and Scott, because he is so good at
> self running patches. Really anyone could contribute to this, but
> someone would have to then decide what to use.
>
> What does eveyone think? If there is no interest, obviously I'll
> drop the idea. But I'd pay to take lessons from these guys. Maybe
> there are enough MOTMers interested to make it worthwhile.
>
> Paul Haneberg
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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RE: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-20 by Greg James

Not to be a fly in the ointment - but are you planning to copyright these patches? And how would you

prevent them from finding their way into the wild, thus effectively penalizing those that pay? The book

alternative at least mitigates this, but obviously not entirely...

Sorry, I'm just thinking ahead a little...

RE: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-21 by J. Larry Hendry

I think something like this could be fun. How to document patches is always
an issue anytime you start discussing something like this. My only personal
involvement would be a promise to be one of the financial contributors. I
could certainly benefit faar more than the average guy from that kind of
documentation. I'm just a synth Stooge. :-)
Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: motm@yahoogroups.com [mailto:motm@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of
paulhaneberg
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 10:08 AM
To: motm@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

Here's an idea.
What if we start a patch of the week club.

Instead of Ken Elhardt writing a book and selling a dozen or so
copies, someone (I'm volunteering!) could collect patches from some
of the best patch artists on the list, maybe Mike Marsh and Scott
Juskiw along with Ken Elhardt for instance. There would be a
subscription fee. Each week each of the subscribers would receive a
patch in PDF format via email. The money from the subscriptions
would be paid to those who contribute the patches. If we had three
guys creating the patches, each would only have to come up with one
every three weeks. The patch creators would then be getting paid
for their time.

I don't mean to slight anyone. There are a lot of great patch
artists out there. Dave Wright has sent me some great stuff for the
MOTM CDR project. And of course Robert Rich is outstanding. I
picked on Ken Elhardt because he is the undisputed master of
replicating other instruments, Mike Marsh, because of the uniqueness
of what I have heard from him and Scott, because he is so good at
self running patches. Really anyone could contribute to this, but
someone would have to then decide what to use.

What does eveyone think? If there is no interest, obviously I'll
drop the idea. But I'd pay to take lessons from these guys. Maybe
there are enough MOTMers interested to make it worthwhile.

Paul Haneberg

Yahoo! Groups Links

Re: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-24 by elhardt@att.net

Since many people are asking about the same thing I won't cut and paste all their separate posts. I'll just respond to all of them at once.

I haven't really thought about writing a book, mostly because of the very limited market, the cost/act of actually writing, laying out pages, publishing, printing, distribution, and whatever all that needs to be done to create a book. However, it has crossed my mind to do either something like Wendy Carlos' "Secrets of Synthesis" CD, or a computer CD with audio clips, text, patchsheets, charts, or whatever. Compared to doing a professional book, creating pdf files, recording mp3 files, and burning CDs either myself or through a professional service would be a whole lot easier. The customer could print out anything he wants if needed in hardcopy form.

However, it doesn't even begin to make sense to do that just so a dozen people or so on this of another site buy it. It would have to sell to a larger audience, like through Amazon.com. That would imply an audio CD (not a computer CD ROM) like Carlos'. Or it could be an audio CD with another computer CD with it. I don't know. These are the things I haven't really thought all the way through. And even then, I don't know how much of a market there is since synth programming is almost a dead art. I looked up the book Andrew Sanchez mentioned and it looks like that one is out of print (don't know whether it is very good anyway, only Andrew can answer that). That might mean there isn't a single book in print on analog synth programming today (certainly can't walk into a bookstore and buy one). That seems to imply very little interest in the subject.

I also considered doing this a lower priority last desperate act to make a little money, to keep me from having to go back to game programming or getting a real job, incase the string synth I'm writing, or the set of modular synth Bahn modules I plan, or the recording of Switched-On Bach #3, can't be done before I run out of money.

Last time the idea of people collaborating and writing a book came up, I mentioned that people could easily just record audio demos easily and right away. That killed the thread on the spot. That seemed to show that people like talking about the idea of doing a book better than the actual act of doing it even if it's something much simpler like a "patch of the week" kind of thing. But I'm not all that big myself on just feeding out little parcels of info over long periods of time, like magazines do. I want things all at once, like books give you. Besides, one can't really make money with a "patch of the week" thing anyway with a dozen subscribers, it just eats up time.

Larry Hendry writes:

Show quoted textHide quoted text

>>I often wonder how well patching and emulation would have evolved by now if digital sampling had not pushed the manufacturers in a different direction.<<

Sadly, no difference. W. Carlos is the only commercial synthesist who seriously took on emulating all the instruments of an orchestra (with mixed results). That's it, one person in 5 billion. Even when it comes to synth only type sounds, it's gone straight downhill. To this day the synth is the most under utilized instrument even though it's the most flexible. It takes a back seat to the vocalist/guitarist/drummer. The film industry continues to use a real orchestras. Synths aren't used for sound effects where they sould be. Instead of sitting infront of a synth to create a sound, people are sent out to record natural sounds to digitally modify. For the movie Twister they spent a effort to build and attach a device to a truck so they could drive around and record the different pitches of wind blowing through it. This is about a minute of simplistic programming on a modular synth. Ridiculous. Nobody seems to know synths exist or how to use them.

-Elhardt

Re: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-24 by Les Mizzell

> Nobody seems to know synths exist or how to use them.

<begin rant>

There's also this "thing" that you have to get by with the public that
often hires musicians/composers.

I've lost scoring jobs before, and when I called to ask why:

"Oh, you mainly use synths. We didn't want that."

"You didn't listen to the demo I sent you? That was a real 24 piece
orchestra playing that."

"We heard you mainly used synths and assumed that's what it was. We
needed something that sounded organic for our score. No synths. That was
a beautiful piece, but we thought it was synths.".

"So, if you can't tell the difference between synths and other
instruments, what's the difference?"

"Uhhhhh.... we just didn't want synths."

So, the show in question comes out, and they've resorted to LIBRARY
MUSIC instead.

"We needed a big sound, and found we couldn't get it with the $500
budget we had. Besides, we don't have to pay royalties for this library
music."

Idiots...

At this point, all the video editors in town are now also the
"composers". They all have Apple Garage Band. Anybody here that used to
earn a living writing music has moved elsewhere or gotten into something
else.

</end rant>

--
-----------
Les Mizzell

Re: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-24 by Greg Amann

Ah yes, music. A wonderful hobby but a bugger of a place to make a living!

PLL, BFG

Les Mizzell wrote:

Show quoted textHide quoted text

> > Nobody seems to know synths exist or how to use them.
>
> <begin rant>
>
> There's also this "thing" that you have to get by with the public that
> often hires musicians/composers.
>
> I've lost scoring jobs before, and when I called to ask why:
>
> "Oh, you mainly use synths. We didn't want that."
>
> "You didn't listen to the demo I sent you? That was a real 24 piece
> orchestra playing that."
>
> "We heard you mainly used synths and assumed that's what it was. We
> needed something that sounded organic for our score. No synths. That was
> a beautiful piece, but we thought it was synths.".
>
> "So, if you can't tell the difference between synths and other
> instruments, what's the difference?"
>
> "Uhhhhh.... we just didn't want synths."
>
> So, the show in question comes out, and they've resorted to LIBRARY
> MUSIC instead.
>
> "We needed a big sound, and found we couldn't get it with the $500
> budget we had. Besides, we don't have to pay royalties for this library
> music."
>
> Idiots...
>
>
> At this point, all the video editors in town are now also the
> "composers". They all have Apple Garage Band. Anybody here that used to
> earn a living writing music has moved elsewhere or gotten into something
> else.
>
>
> </end rant>
>
> --
> -----------
> Les Mizzell
>
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Re: [motm] Patch of the Week? was Wooden Recorder Demo etc.

2005-05-25 by Andrew Sanchez

On 5/24/05, elhardt@... <elhardt@...> wrote:

I looked up the book Andrew Sanchez mentioned and it looks like that one is out of print (don't know whether it is very good anyway, only Andrew can answer that).

Hi Elhardt,
I'd say the book (my original post is copied below) is a winner in terms of recreating the instruments it covers. I'd have to dig it up to be sure, but going from memory, it listed basic formant frequencies, talked about envelope shapes, etc., and mentioned how playing techniques of the instruments could vary the harmonic makeup.

In a nutshell, it covers the main components of sound needed to emulate the original instruments. Of course, the detail is nowhere as thorough as what you've shared with us the past few years.

I think it's a worthwhile investment if you can pick it up at a reasonable price, and don't mind the fact that only one third of it relates to subtractive synthesis.

Andrew

My original post is below...

Hi,
Another good read on this topic is "A Synthesist's Guide to Acoustic Instruments" (ISBN: 0825610893).

This book, (by Howard Massey, Alex Noyes, Daniel Shklair), discusses the basic sonic makeup of various instruments, and describes how to re-create these sounds on a DX7, a Phase Distortion synth (Casio), and also a subtractive synth. There was even a plastic soundsheet with audio examples.

Some of the patches were a bit complex using mutiple LFOs, EGs, or what-have-you. I remember back then (1987) being a bit frustrated trying to patch some of these sounds using an a Roland SH-1. ;-)

Andrew