4 ms·

I was starting on the opposite tack, tho haven't got far, synthesizing/sampling kicks, snares and bass lines from scratch, which is prett tricky, like a kick is

by gtani 9y ago

I was starting on the opposite tack, tho haven't got far, synthesizing/sampling kicks, snares and bass lines from scratch, which is prett tricky, like a kick is a sine wave swept down, play with ADSR envelope, saturate/compress, then you typically layer 3 separate kick tracks by phase aligning and more post processing. There's a lot to getting a good sounding kick with presence, attack, body. The reference on this is Rick Snoman's Dance Music Manual, 3rd ed.

bitL 9y ago
IMO you are limiting yourself by being in the analog mental model - ADSR, oscillators etc. are what made analog circuits generate sound but in the digital world they aren't necessary anymore and you can view all of it as just (periodic) function compositions in different spaces and model far beyond what analog can reach. Some new VSTis completely abandoned analog-style already.
- bitwize 9y ago
  Yes, but how you will achieve that fat synth sound without analog?
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    With better than average modelling. And oversampling.
  - sideshowb 9y ago
    How will you define fat? (I'm guessing that wasn't a serious comment!)
- sideshowb 9y ago
  From a musical perspective the analog mental model produces very clean and high quality results. My experience of advanced digital techniques is that they sound somehow lower quality. This is not to be confused with the analog/digital debate, In which I am a fan of digital: digital synths that use the analog mental model can and do sound great e.g. virus, sylenth, zebra, fm8. It's more that the analog model evolved from how our ears perceive things while newer paradigms while mathematically neat often lead to unwanted artifacts, or boil down to much the same sort of thing as before e.g. NI Razor. Then again we might be talking about different things bitL, if you want to post links to the sort of sounds you're talking about then I'm all ears. Rick Snoman is fairly basic though I'd say the definitive synth guide was the old Sound on Sound Synth Secrets series (google). Or better just hang out on forums with more experienced people and post up links to sounds you like saying 'how do I make this?'
  - klodolph 9y ago
    > It's more that the analog model evolved from how our ears perceive things while newer paradigms while mathematically neat often lead to unwanted artifacts, There are basically two approaches to designing sounds: you either model perception of audio or you model the physics that produces audio. Analog (subtractive, additive, FM) synthesis is basically entirely in the first camp. Digital is strictly more flexible so you have more options, like Karplus Strong, which gives you a simplified model of a plucked string. The most "mathematically neat" synthesis techniques are still the old analog models: you start with a simple mathematical function like a sawtooth wave and put it through a four-pole filter. Or you stack a few different overtones on top of a fundamental. It's hard to get more simple/neat in terms of the math. The digital synths can be fairly complicated, mathematically, when they're not emulating analog synths. I don't know what you're talking about when you say that advanced digital techniques sound somehow lower quality. Things like impulse responses are everywhere, like reverb, guitar amp sims, and distortion plugins. They sound better than ever. > or boil down to much the same sort of thing as before e.g. NI Razor. Wait, what? I own a copy of NI Razor and I don't see how it boils down to the "same sort of thing as before". Sure, it's an additive synth, and that has existed before, but it's not really a rehash of something I'd seen before, it has controls which simply don't exist in other synthesizers.
    - soundwave106 9y ago
      I'll bite on some guesses, not sure which the OP is talking about. A) Historically, before computing was fast enough, digital synthesizers often had major issues with aliasing (which could be defined as "lower quality", certainly it could be defined as unwanted artifacts. Although conversely some saw the aliasing as a sort of a "character"). IMHO this is no longer as big of a problem with the fast computing power today: techniques like oversampling, BLEP for oscillators, etc. exist to minimize aliasing. There is possibly a few mathematical issues out there for any "real time" oriented calculations due to the quantized nature of sampled audio, but software engineers even are coming up with techniques to deal with some of them (this paper -- https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/pdf/VAFilterDesign_1.1.1.pdf https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downlo... -- is well known for going over some solutions for filters for instance). B) The other possibility: the nice thing (or not so nice thing, depending on your point of view) about subtractive synthesis with pure waveforms, is you are usually starting out with waveforms that are harmonic in nature (like a square wave or sawtooth). With techniques like additive (Razor's technique), digital FM / PM, or the like, it's much easier to get non-harmonic sounds. I wouldn't call this "lower quality", just different.
scriptkiddy 9y ago
I've been mucking around with LMMS[1] lately and I found a great video that shows you how to synthesize a kick drum using ZynAddSubFX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVl1D-q7Bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVl1D-q7Bo. Basically, it's all about havin no sustain and whitenoise. Also, a tiny bit of reverb with a HPF goes a long way. [1] https://lmms.io/ https://lmms.io/

by gtani 9y ago

bitL 9y ago

IMO you are limiting yourself by being in the analog mental model - ADSR, oscillators etc. are what made analog circuits generate sound but in the digital world they aren't necessary anymore and you can view all of it as just (periodic) function compositions in different spaces and model far beyond what analog can reach. Some new VSTis completely abandoned analog-style already.

bitwize 9y ago
Yes, but how you will achieve that fat synth sound without analog?
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  With better than average modelling. And oversampling.
- sideshowb 9y ago
  How will you define fat? (I'm guessing that wasn't a serious comment!)
sideshowb 9y ago
From a musical perspective the analog mental model produces very clean and high quality results. My experience of advanced digital techniques is that they sound somehow lower quality. This is not to be confused with the analog/digital debate, In which I am a fan of digital: digital synths that use the analog mental model can and do sound great e.g. virus, sylenth, zebra, fm8. It's more that the analog model evolved from how our ears perceive things while newer paradigms while mathematically neat often lead to unwanted artifacts, or boil down to much the same sort of thing as before e.g. NI Razor. Then again we might be talking about different things bitL, if you want to post links to the sort of sounds you're talking about then I'm all ears. Rick Snoman is fairly basic though I'd say the definitive synth guide was the old Sound on Sound Synth Secrets series (google). Or better just hang out on forums with more experienced people and post up links to sounds you like saying 'how do I make this?'
- klodolph 9y ago
  > It's more that the analog model evolved from how our ears perceive things while newer paradigms while mathematically neat often lead to unwanted artifacts, There are basically two approaches to designing sounds: you either model perception of audio or you model the physics that produces audio. Analog (subtractive, additive, FM) synthesis is basically entirely in the first camp. Digital is strictly more flexible so you have more options, like Karplus Strong, which gives you a simplified model of a plucked string. The most "mathematically neat" synthesis techniques are still the old analog models: you start with a simple mathematical function like a sawtooth wave and put it through a four-pole filter. Or you stack a few different overtones on top of a fundamental. It's hard to get more simple/neat in terms of the math. The digital synths can be fairly complicated, mathematically, when they're not emulating analog synths. I don't know what you're talking about when you say that advanced digital techniques sound somehow lower quality. Things like impulse responses are everywhere, like reverb, guitar amp sims, and distortion plugins. They sound better than ever. > or boil down to much the same sort of thing as before e.g. NI Razor. Wait, what? I own a copy of NI Razor and I don't see how it boils down to the "same sort of thing as before". Sure, it's an additive synth, and that has existed before, but it's not really a rehash of something I'd seen before, it has controls which simply don't exist in other synthesizers.
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    I'll bite on some guesses, not sure which the OP is talking about. A) Historically, before computing was fast enough, digital synthesizers often had major issues with aliasing (which could be defined as "lower quality", certainly it could be defined as unwanted artifacts. Although conversely some saw the aliasing as a sort of a "character"). IMHO this is no longer as big of a problem with the fast computing power today: techniques like oversampling, BLEP for oscillators, etc. exist to minimize aliasing. There is possibly a few mathematical issues out there for any "real time" oriented calculations due to the quantized nature of sampled audio, but software engineers even are coming up with techniques to deal with some of them (this paper -- https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/pdf/VAFilterDesign_1.1.1.pdf https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downlo... -- is well known for going over some solutions for filters for instance). B) The other possibility: the nice thing (or not so nice thing, depending on your point of view) about subtractive synthesis with pure waveforms, is you are usually starting out with waveforms that are harmonic in nature (like a square wave or sawtooth). With techniques like additive (Razor's technique), digital FM / PM, or the like, it's much easier to get non-harmonic sounds. I wouldn't call this "lower quality", just different.

scriptkiddy 9y ago

I've been mucking around with LMMS[1] lately and I found a great video that shows you how to synthesize a kick drum using ZynAddSubFX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVl1D-q7Bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coVl1D-q7Bo. Basically, it's all about havin no sustain and whitenoise. Also, a tiny bit of reverb with a HPF goes a long way. [1] https://lmms.io/ https://lmms.io/