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The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

gamechangeraudio.com

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Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#11

Post by sideshowb »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #9
WalterBright wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital effects pedals have trouble emulating the nonlinear behavior of vacuum tubes, so I imagined the same issue would come up with mechanical implementations. I've never heard a digital trumpet that sounded much like a real trumpet. Digital implementations also often suffer from being too perfect.

You won't hear a trumpet suitably emulated by motors either. But that wasn't the question. Any motor-based oscillator can be accurately emulated by a digital oscillator, so the answer to the original question is "nothing." But yeah, neither is good enough to emulate a trumpet played by a human.

The trumpet on my prophesy ain't half bad but yes I concede that point.

For synthetic sounds however, at this point I think it's mostly a question of workflow. Like yes you can take time to program all those imperfections into a digital sound. Or you can take time to make an analog device which has them inherently.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#12

Post by WalterBright »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #9
WalterBright wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital effects pedals have trouble emulating the nonlinear behavior of vacuum tubes, so I imagined the same issue would come up with mechanical implementations. I've never heard a digital trumpet that sounded much like a real trumpet. Digital implementations also often suffer from being too perfect.

You won't hear a trumpet suitably emulated by motors either. But that wasn't the question. Any motor-based oscillator can be accurately emulated by a digital oscillator, so the answer to the original question is "nothing." But yeah, neither is good enough to emulate a trumpet played by a human.

Motors always have imperfections, resonances, feedback from the room its in, etc. I don't know if they'd have enough for it to be audible.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#13

Post by jancsika »

I feel like someone could generate sounds like this by learning DSP synthesis techniques and dogmatically treating aliasing as a feature instead of a bug.

Edit: to be clear, I like the sounds. I just think DSP beginners learn early to watch out for aliasing in their algos and have the side effect of rejecting timbres that are in any way reminiscent of aliasing from their toolset.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#14

Post by javajosh »

As much as I love the analog sound of early electric guitars and keyboards, I'm okay with simulations. After all, at the end of the day any possible sound is the output of a one dimensional function that takes the time and returns a value. You call this function 40k times a second (at most), wiggle a voltage in proportion to the return value, feed the output stream into a digital-to analog-converter of some sort, and bam! you can generate any sound possible, modulo the capability of your speaker to articulate different frequencies.

The only other boundary condition on the function is that we want to parameterize it in a way that is comprehensible and pleasant for humans to manipulate. I would suggest that a simulation of this synth would be superior to the synth itself in every way. If you were clever enough (or masochistic enough) you could even build in "flakiness" and "parts wear" and "thermal variation".

If you really want an analog sound, then get an orchestral instrument, or an electric guitar! I don't understand this half-measure of "use-machines-to-synthesize-sounds-but-not-THAT-way".

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#17

Post by fuzzfactor »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
dreamcompiler wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't hear a trumpet suitably emulated by motors either. But that wasn't the question. Any motor-based oscillator can be accurately emulated by a digital oscillator, so the answer to the original question is "nothing." But yeah, neither is good enough to emulate a trumpet played by a human.

Motors always have imperfections, resonances, feedback from the room its in, etc. I don't know if they'd have enough for it to be audible.

Plus the only way to emultate it is to have the real thing as a reference beforehand.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#18

Post by kjs3 »

gaze wrote: post #15
dreamcompiler wrote: post #10

This is impressive and fun but completely impractical, for 2726 reasons. (That's how many Euro they are selling it for.)

A huge market for synthesizers are rich kids who just like blinkenlights. This will sell pretty well.

Yeah...I know a couple of folks with 5-figure $US synth collections who can't actually play. They futz around with the knobs and press a couple of keys and call it 'ambient' or 'trance' or somesuch.

See also: guitar hoarders.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#20

Post by least »

kjs3 wrote: post #18
gaze wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge market for synthesizers are rich kids who just like blinkenlights. This will sell pretty well.

Yeah...I know a couple of folks with 5-figure $US synth collections who can't actually play. They futz around with the knobs and press a couple of keys and call it 'ambient' or 'trance' or somesuch. See also: guitar hoarders.

I'd ask that you define what "playing" a synthesizer entails. A lot of that comes down to designing sounds, especially given the fact that you have so many different kinds of oscillators interacting with each other.

Someone can play a keyboard, perhaps, but that's only one of many interfaces to interact with synthesizers.

It's not really the same as a guitar, where your fingers are directly responsible for the vibrations coming out of the strings.

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