I got this from Brian Eno's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1122355076360572928
I think that’s actually an Eno fan twitter rather than the man himself, I also follow it though, there’s some good content :)
Subtractive synths explained (2011)
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Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#32What about FM synths ? They seem even wackier to program.
Elektron’s Digitone hardware is probably the most approachable FM synth I’ve come across. They’ve made some clever design decisions such as a fixed selection of ratios to make it easier to find musical sounds, and adding two conventional subtractive filters (one resonant, one more of a utility one to high/lowpass the resulting output) which makes it easier to tame the sound in an intuitive way. If you’re into FM I really recommend it, combined with their excellent sequencer which lets you lock any set of synth parameters to any step really quickly and great on board effects, you can get some excellent results.
I guess the closest software equivalent I’ve seen is Ableton’s Operator but I find the Digitone much more fun, not least because it’s hands-on hardware which encourages exploration!
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#33Why is it called subtracrive when the signals are added or multiplied?
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#34For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillat…
Subtractive makes a lot of classic synthesizer sounds, which is why it's a thing. It's also easy to understand.
It seems to be easy to implement digitally, but it really isn't, because a lot of the nuances and non-linearities that add weight and colour to synthesis with real electronics aren't present in simple digital emulations.
For pure DSP the choice is more or less between open additive, modal (which is a kind of constrained additive), AI-constrained additive, which is what Google have been playing with, and physical modelling, which is digital modelling of strings and bows.
If you want to "enforce a physically correct relationship" between etc you're going to want AI-constrained additive or physical modelling.
The aesthetics of all of this are a different topic altogether.
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#35For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillat…
> The whole experience made me suspect that there's an alternative approach to building modular synths, based on physical facts about sound
Yamaha experimented with this in the 90s with their VL series physical modeling synths, but it never caught on, mostly I think because if you want to have convincing results, you really need alternative midi controllers like a breath controller[1] for woodwind and brass intruments.
An alternative take on why physical modeling synths never really caught on is GigaSampler[2]. It was the first sampler (as far as I can remember) that could playback samples from hard disk, by only keeping the first second or so of the samples in memory. This made it possible to have sampled instruments where for example each key of a piano was sampled at various velocity/loudness values. Resulting in a sampled piano that could span multiple gigabytes. At a time where 128MB of RAM was still quite a lot, this was quite revolutionary. While physical modeling can produce convincing sounds with a potential expressiveness that no sample based instrument will ever match, it's base sound still doesn't sound as 'real' as a properly sampled instrument, recorded in a nice room with good microphones.
[0] simple overview, including some soft synth alternatives: https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/blast-from-the-past-yam...
[1] example breath controller: https://www.akaipro.com/ewi5000
[2] Review of Gigasampler's successor: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/tascam-gigastudio-4
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#36Why is it called subtracrive when the signals are added or multiplied?
I believe it's named this way because filters are used to subtract harmonic content.
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#37I’d highly recommend getting comfortable programming a subtractive synth to anyone interested in making music, particularly electronic music.
I’ve been fooling around with music for about 20 years, but the path I took (trackers, which are sample based, then into VSTs with their huge preset libraries) plus a lack of self-discipline meant that I never really mastered making a sound from scratch on a synth. It’s only in the last few years since getting into hardware that I’ve started to learn this, and it has made such a difference to my music making - I can now often dial in the sound in my head without having to trawl through presets, or I can take a preset and either modify it to my taste, or work out what it’s doing and recreate a similar sound.
If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be to pick up a basic hardware subtractive synth with knobs for each function on it and master making sounds on it from scratch. Something like the Korg Minilogue would be perfect. Alternatively, a good synth on an iPad or creating a good midi mapping for one VST synth and mastering it would do the trick, but I think there’s something about the hands on design of hardware, plus that you’ve invested money in it, that makes it the ideal learning platform (and a lot of fun!). The skills you learn doing this are transferable to any other synth and other areas of music making.
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#38For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillat…
There are physically modelled instruments like the one from Pianoteq. No samples, pure rendered. Very nice.
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#39For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillat…
Slightly related: your pluck sounds reminded me of the beginning of "Tonto" by Battles (https://vimeo.com/117914655)
Re: Subtractive synths explained (2011)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillat…
> The whole experience made me suspect that there's an alternative approach to building modular synths, based on physical facts about sound Yamaha experimented with this in the 90s with their VL series physical modeling synths, but it never caught on, mostly I think because if you want to have convincing results, you really need alternative midi controllers like a breath controller[1] for woodwind and brass intrument…
I feel if you're going to such lengths to approximate physical instruments..maybe just record physical instruments? Synths can do things that are unable to be done physically, so why not use them to that end? Although, I understand sometimes it's an aesthetic choice, having a poorly-approximated physical sound.