Simple questions on synth tech basics...

[JCJR]

I don't recall seeing it earlier mentioned, but Fluffy's sample waves are fairly low frequency. Low enough that the highpassed version might not be "outrageously highpassed" compared to a series of coupling capacitors in some of the analog synths. Some analog gear tried to preserve low frequencies more than others did.

The same two synths, if viewing waveforms at 400 Hz or higher, might look more similar to each other. Or not. Just mentioning the possibility.

Even good strong live sound systems can have trouble pushing much air lower than about 40 Hz, especially sound systems of yesteryear. Some designers would set the highpass of gear very low with big capacitors, but small capacitors don't cost as much and many designs were very cost-conscious. And given the nuisance value of blown woofers from excessive subsonic frequencies, rolling off a synth's output not much below 40 Hz might have sometimes been viewed a feature rather than bug. A "properly highpassed" synth could POSSIBLY sound punchier and louder thru a sound system, with less risk of blown speakers.

If you for instance run a 40 Hz sawtooth wave thru a first-order 40 Hz highpass, or even a first-order 20 Hz highpass, it will strongly affect the visible waveshape. Then again, some of the designs would choose big enough components to highpass at 1 Hz or lower.

[fluffy_little_something]

Is there any standard for how the envelope is retriggered in non-legato, whatever note priority, mono mode? Some synths such as Predator seem to make a hard retrigger which is as strong as hitting the key manually, others seem to only kind of pick up so that the attack is all but missing. Since in explanations for instance of last-note priority it often says that the previous key is retriggered upon releasing the current key, I wonder if the pick-up implementation is correct...
Or does it only apply to the amp envelope, but not the filter envelope?

[fluffy_little_something]

I don't recall seeing it earlier mentioned, but Fluffy's sample waves are fairly low frequency. Low enough that the highpassed version might not be "outrageously highpassed" compared to a series of coupling capacitors in some of the analog synths. Some analog gear tried to preserve low frequencies more than others did.

The same two synths, if viewing waveforms at 400 Hz or higher, might look more similar to each other. Or not. Just mentioning the possibility.

Even good strong live sound systems can have trouble pushing much air lower than about 40 Hz, especially sound systems of yesteryear. Some designers would set the highpass of gear very low with big capacitors, but small capacitors don't cost as much and many designs were very cost-conscious. And given the nuisance value of blown woofers from excessive subsonic frequencies, rolling off a synth's output not much below 40 Hz might have sometimes been viewed a feature rather than bug. A "properly highpassed" synth could POSSIBLY sound punchier and louder thru a sound system, with less risk of blown speakers.

If you for instance run a 40 Hz sawtooth wave thru a first-order 40 Hz highpass, or even a first-order 20 Hz highpass, it will strongly affect the visible waveshape. Then again, some of the designs would choose big enough components to highpass at 1 Hz or lower.

The lower the note, the higher the energy, right?

[JCJR]

The lower the note, the higher the energy, right?

Hi Fluffy

Not necessarily. The ear is most sensitive to high-mids, 1 kHz to 4 kHz. The ear becomes less sensitive the lower you go, so you need to make louder waves in the air for bass to sound as loud to the ear. It is also more difficult to build speakers that get real loud at very low frequencies.

40 Hz (fairly close to the fundamental of low E on 4 string bass guitar) has long seemed a target bass cutoff for live sound reinforcement speakers. Often even rather large PA speakers will begin rolling off at 50 or 60 Hz but can be EQ'd flat to 40 Hz without straining them too badly. Especially in years past.

It is "fairly inconvenient and expensive" to build a loud concert system flat to 40 Hz, and becomes "ridiculously inconvenient and expensive" to make a loud concert system flat to 20 or even 30 Hz. Pro sound bass bins are typically designed and tuned so they are "relatively light and small" and can get loud as bejeezus at 40 Hz but you will blow them easy if driven with the same power at 30 Hz.

To protect their investment, pro sound guys typically steeply highpass their speakers to keep damaging frequencies out of the woofers.

There's no reason you couldn't build a big loud system flat down to 20 or 30 Hz, except it would be really expensive and even more a chore to truck around.

Home and studio systems can be built to go lower. It still is expensive, but not insanely expensive because the home or studio system doesn't have to get so dang loud.

[Xenobioz]

Is there any standard for how the envelope is retriggered in non-legato, whatever note priority, mono mode? Some synths such as Predator seem to make a hard retrigger which is as strong as hitting the key manually, others seem to only kind of pick up so that the attack is all but missing. Since in explanations for instance of last-note priority it often says that the previous key is retriggered upon releasing the current key, I wonder if the pick-up implementation is correct...
Or does it only apply to the amp envelope, but not the filter envelope?

A good synth should have an option to retrigger the envelopes so they start from the beginning. At least all my synths do.
For synths that only have one mode, non-retriggered legato should be the standard. That is at least for me the main reason to use mono mode.

[fluffy_little_something]

The lower the note, the higher the energy, right?

Hi Fluffy

Not necessarily. The ear is most sensitive to high-mids, 1 kHz to 4 kHz. The ear becomes less sensitive the lower you go, so you need to make louder waves in the air for bass to sound as loud to the ear. It is also more difficult to build speakers that get real loud at very low frequencies.

40 Hz (fairly close to the fundamental of low E on 4 string bass guitar) has long seemed a target bass cutoff for live sound reinforcement speakers. Often even rather large PA speakers will begin rolling off at 50 or 60 Hz but can be EQ'd flat to 40 Hz without straining them too badly. Especially in years past.

It is "fairly inconvenient and expensive" to build a loud concert system flat to 40 Hz, and becomes "ridiculously inconvenient and expensive" to make a loud concert system flat to 20 or even 30 Hz. Pro sound bass bins are typically designed and tuned so they are "relatively light and small" and can get loud as bejeezus at 40 Hz but you will blow them easy if driven with the same power at 30 Hz.

To protect their investment, pro sound guys typically steeply highpass their speakers to keep damaging frequencies out of the woofers.

There's no reason you couldn't build a big loud system flat down to 20 or 30 Hz, except it would be really expensive and even more a chore to truck around.

Home and studio systems can be built to go lower. It still is expensive, but not insanely expensive because the home or studio system doesn't have to get so dang loud.

Makes you wonder how headphones can deliver 5Hz with one Watt

[fluffy_little_something]

A good synth should have an option to retrigger the envelopes so they start from the beginning. At least all my synths do.
For synths that only have one mode, non-retriggered legato should be the standard. That is at least for me the main reason to use mono mode.

Don't know your synths...

Yes, most bass sounds are by default legato. I am not so happy about that, though.
Anyway, I was basically asking about the nature of the retrigger mode.

[JCJR]

Makes you wonder how headphones can deliver 5Hz with one Watt

It is only a very small space inside the headphones and they are usually sealed fairly well to the head.

Low acoustic frequencies are easy in small sealed spaces. You could make quite loud 0.001 Hz square waves inside a bicycle pump merely by plugging the hose and then repeatedly pressing on the handle for 500 seconds and releasing the handle for 500 seconds.

[fluffy_little_something]

Um, I was just wondering about sync. I had a synth patch with the built-in delay enabled, and noticed that when I changed the DAW's frequency from 96 to 48 kHz, the delay timing was very different. Is that normal?

I think that doesn't make any sense. Imagine you have a project and only change the frequency to 96 for mixing down when CPU load doesn't matter. When you have several patches with delay, it can totally screw up the whole track...

Shouldn't the timing be synced to the bpm set in the DAW, regardless of the sampling frequency?

[Chris-S]

No, that's not normal. Delay time is either manual (sync'd to "time") or sync'd to host BPM, but it should not be linked to DAW sampling freq.

[fluffy_little_something]

Yes, seems odd. Unfortunately I don't think Air care about bug reports. I wrote to them about another issue some time ago, never got a reply...

They got a subforum here on KVR, but I don't know what for, they don't seem to be present here, either.

Their products are good, but their company sucks. If they were more like U-he, i.e. being accessible and listening to customers, they could shed their negative image.

[fluffy_little_something]

As we all know, many developers are trying to recreate the sound of old analog synths.
I have been playing around with the equalizer in Sylenth1 quite a bit, trying to figure out which frequencies to manipulate in order to make it sound more analog.
Is there any consensus on what frequency curve promotes the analog sound?

(Unfortunately my headphones are anything but neutral (they intentionally boost some frequencies to be more analytical), so it is hard to tell whether what I am dialing in on the Sylenth1 equalizer really make it sound more analog.)

[fluffy_little_something]

Also, why don't synths that have a phase control for oscillators, internally apply keyboard tracking to it?
A phase setting that sounds punchy on C3 sounds wishy-washy on C6 and vice versa.
I can set up a modulation manually, but it seems all but impossible to get the phase to start at the same position of the wave across the keyboard.

[stratum]

Phase is meaningless to ear unless it is modulated to create something that can be heard.

[antto]

i know some guys here cook bacon
i've been baking some cookies here and was wondering what's the best oven temperature curve that will give them that bacon taste?

what i've learnt is that things aren't so simple
"analog sound" doesn't mean much to me unless you put some more context to it
the best way you can go at this is to pick some specific analog sound (from a recording of an analog synth) and try to recreate it as accurately as you can, analyze the difference, then improve your approximation, then analyze again, improve more, repeat untill you get sick
i've went this route with one of the "simplest" analog synths and it was quite a long way

my advise is:
if you want a specific analog synth sound - try to get the best starting point - a dedicated "emulation" softsynth
if you don't have a specific synth in mind, and you just want to get the "well known (and undescribable) analog sound" - sorry dude, i don't know how to help, but i think you'll be wasting your time chasing that


as for your second post
i'm not familiar with many analog synths, but from those i know - i can't think of even a single one which has oscillator phase-reset on trigger (if that's what you mean)
oscillators naturally run free, so it's simpler and cheaper to not add extra circuitry to reset them at a specified phase

and i am surprised you're using phase-reset to get "punchiness"