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The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

gamechangeraudio.com

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Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#21

Post by soundarana »

javajosh wrote: post #14

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…

> wiggle a voltage in proportion to the return value, feed the output stream into a digital-to analog-converter

The first part of this sentence, the wiggle, is already a DAC.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#22

Post by gaze »

least wrote: post #20
kjs3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vibrat…

found the rich synth kid.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#23

Post by _spduchamp »

I think my electromechanical synth is way more interesting. It's a coat rack with 2 strings with stereo pickup, and played using a rotary magnetic bow, which is an Open Sound Controlled drone motor with a 3D printed wheel with an arrangement of magnets. Only the spinning magnetic field of the bow touches the strings. It is played by subtly controlling the velocity of the wheel. I call it an electroduochord.

Here's a set I played with it. https://youtu.be/nKFK_OhQv3k (Wireless soft-pot controller as well as wireless "hat" controller that uses accelerometers)

And here is the recent design of a rotary magnetic bow wheel with balanced irrational angled arrangement of magnets to reduce harmonic locking. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr4ZXGztY27/

Here's the OSC Rotary Magnetic Bow code... https://github.com/spDuchamp/OSCRMB

And here is an album made autonomously using an algorithm built in Puredata to control the bow based on the output sound in a feedback loop. https://stefanpowell.bandcamp.com/album/autonomous-drone-lul...

Here is an autonomous recording session... https://www.youtube.com/live/LpQBtJmrez8

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#24

Post by Tanoc »

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.

Ehhh, some guitar hoarders just like the different variations. Some actually understand the differences between guitars and have different ones for different sounds. Most studios have at least five different electric guitars not to show off, but because they need them in order to create different soundscapes. The way you can tell who a shiny hoarder is, is that they go for the extremely expensive stuff when a real player would know the cheapest possible option. I've got six guitars, each one has a specific role when recording, and I've never paid more than $200 for a guitar. I've got a friend who has nine guitars, costing between $500 and $2,000, and they can't play anything they didn't learn from a chord chart off Ultimate Guitar.

The same thing applies to synths. Everyone wants a $5,000 Juno-60 when you can get the same functionality out of a cheap $450 CS Reface. Or to go even cheaper, a $100 pre-amp, $100 used PSR keyboard, and access to VST4Free.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#26

Post by squeaky-clean »

jancsika wrote: post #13

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.

Check out Noise Engineering. Their oscillator modules use a variable speed sample rate so aliasing changes frequency proportionally to the note being played.

So rather than keeping a fixed sample rate with dynamic oscillator pitch (and having to account for bandlimiting the oscillator dynamically as it changes pitch) the oscillator is at a "fixed" frequency but the internal sample rate is changed to get it to play at your desired pitch. This way the aliasing is tuned to the harmonics of the oscillator no matter what pitch it plays.

They also make VST plugin versions of some of their modules but I don't know if they emulate the variable sample rate behavior.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#27

Post by DennisP »

gaze wrote: post #22
least wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vibrat…

found the rich synth kid.

I've been playing piano my whole life. Recently I bought some synths and it's a whole different world. Piano skill comes in handy sometimes, but other times its' mostly irrelevant. And sound design of course is a completely different skill, which on many synths you can do live as you play.

I've seen people on youtube making great music on a stack of modular gear, without a keyboard in sight, and I can't look down on them because at the rate I'm going it'll be years before I can do what they do.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#29

Post by squeaky-clean »

Tanoc wrote: post #24
kjs3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ehhh, some guitar hoarders just like the different variations. Some actually understand the differences between guitars and have different ones for different sounds. Most studios have at least five different electric guitars not to show off, but because they need them in order to create different soundscapes. The way you can tell who a shiny hoarder is, is that they go for the extremely expensive stuff when a real pl…

There is a type of guitar collector who is actually a hoarder though and doesn't play. Sometimes derogatorily called "Blues Lawyers" after the stereotype of a lawyer who has all the money in the world to buy guitars, but no time to play them because of their profession. Same thing goes in synth communities.

Personally I like these people because they keep my local music shop in business.

Re: The first electro-mechanical desktop synthesizer

#30

Post by least »

gaze wrote: post #22
least wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vibrat…

found the rich synth kid.

Maybe one day! I don't own any hardware synths. I do own several guitars, though.

To be fair; I didn't go to a bunch of elite schools so I probably didn't have the same exposure to the level of rich kid that you do/did.

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