Books

[EricK]

Dan,
Thank you for that link.


Nick,
Two things occured to me since rereading through this post that there are some things that I left out.

1. Voyager Training DVD available from Moogmusic.com
2. Wendy Carlos "Secrets of Synthesis" if you can find a copy of it, do so because I understand its a valuable resource.



This thread should be stickied.



Eric

[mayidunk]

2. Wendy Carlos "Secrets of Synthesis" if you can find a copy of it, do so because I understand its a valuable resource.

I just ordered a copy of this CD from Amazon.com, I can't wait for it to arrive!

[GregAE]

Having been an Associate Professor of Music Synthesis at Berklee College and the University
of St. Francis, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone reading this forum:

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Tools-Synth ... 0879307730

It was written by Jim Aikin, former Editor-In-Chief of Keyboard Magazine.

I was hired by Jim to proofread and fact check the book before it went to press, so I can honestly
say that I believe everything written in it.

+1 on "Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming" by Jim Aiken. It's a great reference for anyone wanting to understand how synthesizers work, and one of the books recommended for further reading in all of the User Manuals!

- Greg

[Klopfgeist]

I have Power Tools For Synthesizer Programming. I haven't fully read it but the pages I've flipped through are excellent. Great to know it's backed by intelligent people.

[Klopfgeist]

Also you might want to check out "The Dance Music Manual". I don't spend my time making the latest electro-fidget-spazz-nuprogressive-tech-housetrance, but it includes great sections on basic synthesis, production, sampling, and many other areas of electronic music. It's valuable even if you don't flying fart about dance music.

[nick braithwaite]

Once again - thanks guys for all your suggestions. Your generosity of spirit is most encouraging and I truly appreciate all your efforts. I now have a good list of books and articles & I'll let you know how I get on Meanwhile, Johnjay, one of the things that both baffles and delights me is the filter and filter envelope. I had thought oscillating the filter might give me an insight. In fact, while I discovered lots of stuff by "happy accident", I still was no wiser as to the underlying electro-psychology, which makes doing anything on purpose somewhat elusive. Some kind of a map might guide me towards specific destinations, hence my request. The sounds & textures I found were fantastic; controlling them or finding them again next time was another matter. As for demon dan - I've never knowingly corresponded with a real "Prof" before - I am truly flattered

[EricK]

At first the spacing, and sustain/decay pots confused me, until I watched the Voyager DVD, that cleared that right up.


Eric

[_DemonDan_]

As for DemonDan - I've never knowingly corresponded with a real "Prof" before.

"Ain't nuthin' but a thang."

[mayidunk]

...one of the things that both baffles and delights me is the filter and filter envelope. I had thought oscillating the filter might give me an insight. In fact, while I discovered lots of stuff by "happy accident", I still was no wiser as to the underlying electro-psychology, which makes doing anything on purpose somewhat elusive. Some kind of a map might guide me towards specific destinations, hence my request.

Definitely check out the links I gave you earlier on the Synth Secrets articles. He has a really good discussion about how the filter actually works with the osc. signal(s) in one of the earliest installments.

[johnjay]

Meanwhile, Johnjay, one of the things that both baffles and delights me is the filter and filter envelope. I had thought oscillating the filter might give me an insight. In fact, while I discovered lots of stuff by "happy accident", I still was no wiser as to the underlying electro-psychology, which makes doing anything on purpose somewhat elusive. Some kind of a map might guide me towards specific destinations, hence my request. The sounds & textures I found were fantastic; controlling them or finding them again next time was another matter.

I think a solid understanding of all of the principles involvled in the Voyager would help you navigate. Although I imagine that's not everyones cup of tea.

First of all, I should mention that I'm no Moog expert, I'm more of a Moog groupie ( I don't own a moog) but I'll start the Filter discussion and hopefully others will jump in and add to it.

Filters do pretty much what you might expect any kind of filter to do- your coffee filter for example, it lets some things through and stops other things from getting through. (electronics can be a bit more complicated than that but let's ignore resonance for now.) But what are the “things” and why would you want to stop them?

To understand what the “things” are in the case of your voyager it helps to know a bit about how you can take something complicated, like the sound of a musical instrument- a plucked guitar string for example and break it up into more simple components which when all added up together give you the original sound.

To make a long story short (we can make it longer if you want) a complicated sound like a guitar string pluck can be broken down into it's fundamental frequency, That is, the lowest frequency of the note being played and integer (2, 3, 4, 5 etc) multiples of that fundamental frequency. So for a low E guitar note which has a fundamental frequency of about 82 cycles/second, there's a frequency component of 82, and a harmonic of 2 X 82 or 164 cycles/second, and another harmonic of 3 X 82 or 246, and 4 X .... etc. you get the idea. For an acoustic guitar, it takes about 80 of these harmonics to give a pretty realistic sound of a guitar. These harmonics, and how they change over time, that is, how they “attack” or start and how they decay (acoustic guitars don't really have sustain) are a way of understanding the details of the original complicated sound.

These frequencies that I'm talking about can be looked at as basic building blocks of complicated sounds. They are sine waves- simple oscillations. By themselves they're not very musically interesting but when you combine them you can make all kinds of interesting sounds.

Now with analog electronics, especially back in the day, it's not so easy to make a complicated sound by starting with a lot of simple oscillations and adding them all together. It was and is much easier to start by making something which electronic components are more suited to make which also has a rich assortment of frequencies already in it.

One example of something easy to make that contains rich harmonics is a square wave. Here's a link that explains it. You may just want to look at the animation which shows how a pure sine wave becomes a square wave by adding more harmonics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_wave

A square wave contains the fundamental frequency and odd harmonics. The more square the wave, the more odd harmonics you get.

A triangle wave contains odd harmonics too but the harmonics are not as strong as the fundamental. You can read about it here
http://www.thedawstudio.com/Tips/Soundwaves.html

So, getting back to your Voyager. You start by making a fairly complicated sound that has a lot of harmonic content. But the content is very regular, and that regularity limits how interesting it is. Then the filter takes away some of the regularity, that is, it removes some of the harmonics, taking away some of the harmonics in different ways provides a lot of variety of sounds and also makes individual sounds more interesting.

Getting back to the acoustic guitar for a moment. As I mentioned, the low E note needs about 80 harmonics to sound like an acoustic guitar. But it needs more than that. To sound like a guitar the high frequency harmonics have to decay faster than the low frequency harmonics. On a guitar, the way strings and wood behave makes that happen. You can get a similar effect on your Voyager, by sweeping the filter so that it starts by filtering the high frequencies first and then over time filters lower and lower frequencies. Of course, with the Voyager, you can get other effects too.

I'll stop here. I've introduced a lot of the basic concepts that you need to be familiar with if you want to really understand what's going on when you twiddle the knobs. Ask questions about any of this that needs clarification or ask a question that takes this to a deeper level. I'm sure someone will correct any errors I made and have other perspectives too.

[nick braithwaite]

Goodness - it's going to take me a while to get through all this Meanwhile, I'm taking steps to order the Wendy Carlos CD, Jim Aikin's book & the Voyager DVD. My thanks to each and every one of you. Actually, this is all Wendy's fault in the first place! She lit a fuse back in '68 with S.O.B., not only getting me into Bach but planting the dream of getting my own Moog eventually. I was playing S.O.B this morning and it still knocks me out......but I really must replace that old vinyl with a CD! Her Sonic Seasonings is probably my all time favourite album; I say probably, because I never manage to narrow down my favourites to a single one, whether it's albums drummers or even guitarisits (EEK!) (Incidently, the drummers among you - mayidunk? - If you've not yet checked out our own Bill Bruford, you should; rock, jazz, acoustic, electronic, he is one of our finest). Cheers!

[mayidunk]

(Incidently, the drummers among you - mayidunk? - If you've not yet checked out our own Bill Bruford, you should; rock, jazz, acoustic, electronic, he is one of our finest). Cheers!

Yup! Been listening to his work with Yes for many, many years now. However, I must confess that I've not checked out any of his later work.

My favorite Wendy recordings have to be S-OB and WTS! I think you'd love the Switched-On Bach Set if you're planning on replacing your vinyl with CDs. It's an excellent 4 CD set (Re-engineered from the original mixdown tapes, and recorded using a Hi-def recording process that may or may not be something Wendy dreamed up). It also includes a lot of good written information, as well as special features on the CDs. It contains S-OB, S-OB2, WTS, and S-O Brandenbergs. Highly recommended!

Bob

[nick braithwaite]

Hey Bob, if you e-mail me I can send you some info re. Bruford, if you like. That way I won't annoy the Context Police! nick.braithwaite@ourserve.net Up to you, mate. (er..haven't sussed the reply with quote thing yet!!)

[mayidunk]

Hey Bob, if you e-mail me I can send you some info re. Bruford, if you like. That way I won't annoy the Context Police! nick.braithwaite@ourserve.net Up to you, mate. (er..haven't sussed the reply with quote thing yet!!)

I sent you an IM.