Re: [wiardgroup] What is the big deal about filters?
2006-11-13 by Bryan E Cornell
I agree with this. Sometimes for weeks at a time I ban myself from using filters in the usual ways because it's too easy to sit there and say "Oooohhh, listen to the gorgeous filter sweep." It ends up being a bit of a dead end. Bryan >>> syntht@yahoo.com 11/13/06 11:29 AM >>> I think that for the average user, the filtering is the quickest and easiest way to get a 'new sound'. Filters really only need 3 knobs (Intinal Cutoff, Resonance and FM Depth) and by turning these 3 knobs, most filters will generate a wide range of tones that are "musically useful". And the average user can dial in something they like in less than 30 seconds. Also, if you have multiple filters in a system, these 3 knobs basically "do the same thing" and so it's easy to compare the different sounds in a quick and straight-forward manner. Contrast this to say a DX-7. Unless you spend a LOT of time (and have a good memory), it's hard to recall what changing the carrier ratio on the 3rd sine operator of algorithm #14 does. And changing that ratio will be *different* on algorithm #5 in terms of what tone is made. Certainly, the 1 person that took the time made a LOT of money (Bo Tomlyn) but I suspect he tweaked more than not. If the DX-7 had no presets at all it would not have been a success. The same is true for additive synths (K250/Kawai K5, etc). What does changing the attack time of the 6th sine harmonic do? Same goes for most wavetable synths: can you draw me up a good violin? No, because the harmonics change over time. What about waveguide (remember the Yamaha VL-1?). That had 4X the numbers to juggle over FM! And no matter what you did, you made funny flutes :) Paul S. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com Yahoo! Groups Links