The basic premise is that everything is happening between the power supply and the speaker A Changing the pitch of the oscillator lowest pitch 60 sec! as high as possible, then stay there high pitch as low as possible, until 30 sec there are only clicks left. What can we do with low pitches? 3 4 Play fast clicks Play clicks slowly Note: Try to locate the point when the oscillator shifts from clicks to a discernible pitch
An oscillator just oscillates around a certain voltage fast enough to make the speaker vibrate, so that we hear the vibrations as pitch. How fast it oscillates depends on the voltage we are sending into it. We can use a second oscillator to send rapid voltage changes into the first one SQUARE just switches between 0 and maximum voltage, SAW ramps from the top to the bottom, then switches back up. That makes all the difference. B SAW / Play low SQUARE / on high Play with the settings until you have a nice pulse going on SQUARE / Play middle SAW / on high Move the pitch of the left oscillator around a small are so you get a rapid changing pulse going. Sounds like morse code. 3 SQUARE / set high Get a periodic bell sound going. SAW / set low 4 5 SQUARE / play high SQUARE / play high Move both pitches rapidly so you can make the synth speak! SQUARE / set low SQUARE / play medium low Move the right oscillator s pitch to get a nice bassline. Note: The left oscillator modulates the frequency of the other one, so we call that frequency modulation, FM.
The keyboard supplies the same voltage to the oscillator, except not as fast as on the previous page. Each key provides a different voltage, if they all lined up it provides us with a diatonic scale. The delay does what it says, plus echo! We can use it to fatten the sound, C Keymode: Press Octave: high Oscillator high Play rapid melodies with short notes, best with two hands time: 0, feedback 0 Keymode: Hold Octave: medium low Get a nice ostinato bassline going SQUARE / medium low time: 0, feedback 0 3 Press a few notes, then play with delay time to create overlapping drones Keymode: Hold Octave: high Oscillator high feedback high (full) 4 Play short notes, create echo pattern Keymode: Press Octave: high Oscillator medium feedback medium time: medium 5 Play a note or two, then let the feedback take over occasionally add another note Keymode: Press Octave: high Oscillator high feedback full up time: full down Note: you can leave the delay pretty much always at the end of the signal chain, right before the speaker. The delay allows you to mess with any of the sounds we are creating with all the combinations here.
The sequencer supplies 4 different voltages to the oscillator, set by the 4 knobs. They go from left to right, --3-4---3-4---etc. D Clock: Speed Get a nice fast pattern going Oscillator high Clock: Speed Play a low bassline pattern Note: If you turn one or more of the knobs all the way down, there will be no sound. Means, you can make rhythmic pattern that way, albeit simple ones! Note: Try to set all 4 knobs to the same pitch. Since they are most likely slightly apart from each other, you can get a nice microtonal bass pattern going.
Now we can also drive the sequencer with an oscillator, so we have more control over the speed. With every pulse ( trigger ) from the oscillator the sequencer goes one step ahead. We can also drive the sequencer with speeds that are in the range of audio, which gives us some new ways of shaping the sound. E Clock: Step Oscillator high Set up a pattern, then speed it up over 60 seconds until it becomes a high frequency lowest pitch left osc 60 sec! as high as possible, then stay there SQUARE / high Clock: Step SQUARE / high Move the 4 knobs rapidly for constant change of the sound of the drone. 3 Clock: Speed Set it in a way so an overlapping rhythm appears. SAW / medium Note: We have talked about SQUARE waves and SAW waves. Imagine now the sequencer going through the 4 voltages at high speed, so the resulting wave that drives the right oscillator is not as symmetrical as in SQUARE or SAW. It depends on the settings of the 4 knobs and would look pretty arbitrary. This is called wavetable synthesis, and the resulting sound depends a lot on the shape of the wave you pull from the table - in this case the (albeit simple) table is our sequencer. SQUARE SEQUENCER WAVETABLE with 4 different knob settings SAW
My favorite module is noise/random. In the noise setting it sends out, well, noise, and would not need an oscillator to drive it. In the random setting it needs an oscillator, and with each pulse ( trigger ) that it receives, it sends out a random voltage that we can use to drive another oscillator. The range of the random voltage is actually determined by the voltage at the input, so with an oscillator on SAW we are getting interesting results. F SAW Noise SAW Play with both oscillators and imagine you d doing the sound for some war movie Rapid pitch shifting melodies! Random SQUARE / high 3 SAW / low Rapid pitch shifting rhythm! Random SQUARE / medium Note: The sequencer needs a voltage above a certain threshold to receive a trigger that lets it advance one step forward. The random voltages from the random module will sometimes be above, sometimes below that threshold. By using a random module before the sequencer, we can get it to go a-rhyhmically, because only when the voltage is high enough the sequencer goes to the next step. 4 Random Clock: Step Rapid non-rhythmic random pitches SQUARE / high
Let s look at filters now. G SQUARE / middle peak: low Move the cutoff between zero and middle to make the synth wah SAW / low cutoff: medium low Adjust filter peak to find the perfect setting between pulse and resonant pulse. The pulse resonates when every click seems to trigger a high pitch as well. 3 SQUARE / play high peak: high Play with pitch and cutoff, you may be able to get the synth to speak, similar to some of the vowel generators you can see in other synthesizers. 4 Get a fast pulse pattern going, and use peak to find the spot where the patterns slightly resonates. SAW / low random cutoff: medium Note: The filter is a so-called self-oscillating one, means when it is set a certain way it can even produce a sound by itself. In fact, it is feeding the output back to the input, and what happens when you hear feedback I am sure you know. The filter can serve as an additional oscillator. Try it out, with only the filter between power supply and speaker! Crank up the peak, and move cutoff
Let s look at filters, but what is that trigger in on the side? Well, depending on the voltage that is put there, the filter opens and closes (the same as if you d move the cutoff). Please note that now we need the SPLIT cables to provide power to our second line. H clock: speed (medium) SAW / low cutoff: medium / peak: high Get a medium bassline - same pitch, but different filter settings Change in the above image the sequencer into OSCILLATOR->RANDOM Get a fast bassline - same pitch, but random filter settings Note: Through the trigger in the filter can be controlled not only by your fingers, but by the keyboard, sequencer, another oscillator, random and so forth
Let s look at the envelope! With every trigger the envelope opens and closes, but it does so depending on the attack and decay settings. Attack ramps up, decay ramps down - that way we can decide whether it fades in slowly and rapidly fades out, or the other way around, or any combination thereof. I medium Make a sound slowly fade in and out attack: medium / decay: medium In the above image, put a random between the oscillator on the top and the filter trigger input If you play it fast, you get an ever-changing rhythmic pulse.
The envelope can also be applied to the filter cutoff! J attack: low decay: low cutoff: medium peak: full Make a sound slowly go up and down in pitch In the above image, put a sequencer and oscillator before the filter. Clock: speed cutoff: medium peak: full Get two independent rhythms going: one from the (bass) sequencer, one from the filter. Note: by turning the bottom oscillator down, you may even be able to get a third rhythm going. Also, it should be clear now where it would be fun to insert the random module.
Oscillator in SAW setting plus random allows us to get a few different saws going. K SAW / low Random clock: speed cutoff: medium peak: medium Get a medium bassline - and the filter goes down in various steps In the above image, add an envelope between random and filter Have the filter randomly mumbling above the line
The last thing I want to cover is the mixer: that way you can set up two small lines of sound, and mix them together at will. With so many options this is actually an instrument! L Mix clock: speed cutoff: medium peak: full pitch: medium random pitch: medium time: medium feedback: medium Create an instrument with a bassline (upper row), and a solo line (lower row), play the controls of the solo line at will, and mix both lines in and out. Notes: You can replace the oscillator/random combination with the keyboard, if you want it to be more fingerplayable. The delay can also be at the very end of the lines, however, in the above combination it allows you to be more flexible on the solo line. You can also add the envelope in between the sequencer and the filter, which gives you a little more flexibility in shaping the sound of the bass line. A little trick for your solo line: in the above combination you can easily create pauses between your lines by pulling the modules apart.
Another instrument using the mixer, this time the sequencer provides the timing for both lines. Bottom line with the filter is bass, but works also with higher frequencies. The rest is the solo line, which works well with percussive/short sounds. M clock: speed random pitch: high attack: low decay: low time: medium feedback: medium cutoff: medium peak: full Mix Create an instrument with two lines, play the controls at will, and mix both lines in and out.
Remember the range of the random voltage is determined by the voltage supplied at the input, so we re using the sequencer for doing that. N clock: speed speed: low attack: low decay: medium low random pitch: high Set the tempi of sequencer and top oscillator to low, so you get many changing melodies going. Notes: Each sequencer knob controls a different melody produced by the envelope/random combination. We call that a self-running instrument, when you can let it going by itself without the need for touching it. Umm nasty! Move every knob!