Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

James Elliott <johans121@...> writes:
> Has anyone noticed that most of the digital wave forms have a "nasal"
> tonality to them (I'm referring to synths now and not people :)

Hmm, I guess if you're going to make an extreme generalization, that's
more or less true.

I think the majority of the digital waves are pretty mediocre when used
straight (wadaya expect from those tiny little waveforms created when
people mostly didn't know what they were doing ... :-), but there are
some definite standouts, e.g.:

  * The digital square (#3) is a great strong sound, very different from
    an analogue square, and very useful for layering with the analogue
    oscs.

  * Waves #14 and #15 (i think they're narrow pulses) have a lovely
    buzzy, "nasal in a good way" character.

  * Wave #19 ("feedback"?) is great, in your face, and very usable
    especially when used with lots of filter motion.

  * A lot of high waves have a nice crisp organy character.

etc.

Of course once you start to actually do stuff with them (FM, wave
sequencing, etc, anything to make them less static), things get more
interesting.

I think that even though the Evolver's digital waveforms are very
primitive, they're a useful part of the machine -- they often can
provide that little extra bit of grit or umph or whatever.  I expect
they took Dave about 10 minutes to implement (that's the plus side of
primitiveness), and so added almost nothing to the cost of the machine.
So think of them as "free grit". :-)

-Miles

-- 
"Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture
and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure,
and demoralizing.  On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the
future of the world depends." -Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"