Shaping sounds
Playing any instrument, or grooving any rhythm , requires an essential element which is to understand the logic interface between user and the sound generator).
This understanding unlocks the user ability to establish a deeper relationship to it that at some point, nobody knows if the user is playing the instrument or if the instrument is playing the user.
This vision applies pretty much to every type of instrument, acoustic or electronic. The key element is to understand the tools available to us and let these tools also help us better understand ourselves.
Building up the path
For a long time, my instrument of choice is the Synthesizer.
Synthesizers produce different sounds, ranging from perfect copies of classical acoustic instruments to unimaginable organic sounds.
These machines generate sounds by different synthesis methods. One of the most popular method is the Subtractive synthesis, which basically attenuates frequencies from the sound spectrum filtering them out of the signal path.
Usually subtractive Synthesizers have sound generators (Oscillator), sound modifiers (envelopes), filters and amplifiers. Almost every Synthesizer nowadays are also equipped with Low Frequency Oscillators.
On each of these machines, these names are mostly easy to locate. Sound Generators are Oscillators named as VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) or OSC. Modifiers are usually Envelopes named as EG (Envelope Generator). Filters are usually named as VCF (Voltage Controlled Filters). Amplifiers are named VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifiers). Low Frequencies Oscillators, LFO, are Oscillators which oscillates below audible ranges and are used to modulate parameters in the sound design chain. (Or modulating audio signals stepping onto the realms of Frequency modulation, which we can talk about it in another occasion.)
With these parameters in hand, you can basically synthesize an enormous amount of sounds and different timbres to your taste.
Digging Deeper
Oscillators, as per their names, oscillate at a determined frequency. Every object oscillates at a certain frequency, and these oscillations can be heard. Usually acoustic instruments are tuned to A which is 440Hz (in frequency), all notes from any harmonic scale are parametrized to these frequency distribution.
Oscillators produce sound waves in different shapes, such as Sine, Triangle, Square and Saw waves. The difference between them are the harmonic content that each one has, being Sine waves with “no” harmonic content and Saw waves with high harmonic content.
(there are oscillators that produce other wave shapes, but for this exchange we stick with these 4 basic ones).
Sine wave
Triangle wave
Square wave
Saw wave
Playing with its form
After tuning our Oscillators we need to shape the sound generated using envelopes, shaping the sound which will follow the composition’s rhythm.
Envelope Generators usually have 4 stage of action such as Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release. ADSR. Attack is the first stage and means how long the sound will take to arrive to the Decay level set up as the second stage. Sustain is the third stage that keep the sound as high as it was established on the second stage for as long as it is set till it gets to the Release stage, when the sound starts fading away to silence. All these timings are calculate in milliseconds
Crafting further the process of shaping sounds, we bring some warmth by filtering down some High frequencies with a touch of saturation.
just let the magic be
Finally the sound goes through the Amplifier giving final character to it (modified by envelope generators). At this point Low Frequency Oscillators can excite even further the sound’s stereo image, panning it from Left to Right.
The result, we run through effect boxes like delays or reverbs, and feel the magic…
if you are interested in more electronic music experiments, enjoy the journey at: