Sky Diver Lead on R3

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:01 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXRBUgZBpLM

Meh. I'm having a really hard time picking out the waveforms for the lead right at the beginning here.

I think it may be a saw because it has some brassy overtones. Sorta saxophone like

I think it may be a sine, because it has some basic undertones

I think it may be a square, for the same reason it may be saw; it sounds like a sax which is also a woodwind

I don't think it's a triangle because I don't know what triangles are used for >.> maybe it is

I think it may be DWGS because it was made on a microkorg

:-/ Any ideas?

The part I've been using to play it is this, it's probably wrong because of the portamento but it sortof works (^ meaning up an octave)
D B D B A ^G ^A, ^G ^B-^C-^B G

Also, just a question; on some notes my speaker buzzes, could this mean that certain same harmonics are being hit together from both the song and my keyboard? it only happens when i set my board to the right octave.
For example, I can tune a guitar if I have one note in tune- If my low string is tune , I'll hit an A on it and tune my next string up to an A- When the next string up is almost there but slightly off tune there's a vibrato sound, and when I get them syncd perfectly the vibrato goes away, and when they're completely out of tune there is no vibrato.
Is this what could be happening to make my speaker buzz, the sounds are similar at some harmonics but not just perfect yet, so they buzz?
I'm definitely not a sound engineer.

Finally, what effects do you think are on the sound? I think there's just a high damped stereo delay, but it may be reverb... idk

kanthos · Post by **kanthos** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:16 pm

A classic example of a triangle wave is the synth solo in Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

I'm no synth expert, but what makes you think that it's only one type of waveform? It sounds to me like it's a mix of saw and sine.

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:35 pm

kanthos wrote:A classic example of a triangle wave is the synth solo in Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

I'm no synth expert, but what makes you think that it's only one type of waveform? It sounds to me like it's a mix of saw and sine.

yes, it does sound like a mix, I'm just trying to decide which 2 it is...

like, it's sine or dwgs with a saw or square, not sure

it also doesn't help that he probably waveshaped it >.<

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:51 pm

A saw or square through a low pass filter = sine.

You can view a filter as a way to eliminate harmonics until all that's left is the root sine wave note - and if you keep filtering it disappears too.

Because a saw and square become the exact same sine wave when all the harmonics are filtered out - then you need to listen for when the filter opens up to hear the harmonics that are released.

Harmonics can also be changed with distortion - because it can add square wave harmonics to non-square wave source tones.

Based on a bit of experimentation with the DS-10plus, it sounds like a Saw wave with an LFO on the filter center point and a good amount of reasonance to emphasize the filter sweep.

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:52 pm

xmlguy wrote:A saw or square through a low pass filter = sine.

You can view a filter as a way to eliminate harmonics until all that's left is the root sine wave note - and if you keep filtering it disappears too.

Because a saw and square become the exact same sine wave when all the harmonics are filtered out - then you need to listen for when the filter opens up to hear the harmonics that are released.

Harmonics can also be changed with distortion - because it can add square wave harmonics to non-square wave source tones.

Based on a bit of experimentation with the DS-10plus, it sounds like a Saw wave with an LFO on the filter center point and a good amount of reasonance to emphasize the filter sweep.

filter center point? I'm guessing thats the filter balance, or is the cutoff?

I'm experimenting with the center point, it's giving me an annoying buzzing sound, probably because it's tipping into the HPF... what do you suggest for LFO freq, patch amount, defaul cutoff/reso/center etc.? Even starting at an LPF24, it seems to tap a little into the HPF giving the buzzing...

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:14 pm

filter center=cutoff, depending on the filter mode. It's center for bandpass, or the cutoff start point for lowpass or highpass.

You probably have too much resonance if you get any buzzing from the filter. Turn resonance to 0 while the LFO is shifting the filter cutoff, then gradually increase resonance until you hear the right amount of enhancement to the harmonics as it goes through the range. Adjust the Filter Balance to increase the width of the harmonics (known as the filter Q), LPF12 is a wide Q while LPF24 is a narrow Q. Use the V patch intensity to set the range of the LFO effect - in this case a very small range - low intensity - because you are only giving some shimmer to the high frequencies - not doing deep filter cuts.

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:19 am

xmlguy wrote:filter center=cutoff, depending on the filter mode. It's center for bandpass, or the cutoff start point for lowpass or highpass.

You probably have too much resonance if you get any buzzing from the filter. Turn resonance to 0 while the LFO is shifting the filter cutoff, then gradually increase resonance until you hear the right amount of enhancement to the harmonics as it goes through the range. Adjust the Filter Balance to increase the width of the harmonics (known as the filter Q), LPF12 is a wide Q while LPF24 is a narrow Q. Use the V patch intensity to set the range of the LFO effect - in this case a very small range - low intensity - because you are only giving some shimmer to the high frequencies - not doing deep filter cuts.

Thanks, helped a lot! It's almost there.
I'm not sure if there's any effects, I think there may be a bit of delay or reverb, but that may just be the other sounds... IDK.
Maybe an EQ as well, and I think maybe 30ish drive waveshaping.

axxim · Post by **axxim** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:30 am

Hi,

xmlguy is right, that lead is a saw with the filter as low pass, cutoff near the middle and resonance set to the upper half.

Going a bit deeper on his explanation, and based on the Fourier theory, each wave can be formed by the sum of a fundamental sine (with the fundamental frequency F) and all its harmonics (sines with 2*F or second harmonic, 3*F or third harmonic, 4*F or fourth harmonic and so forth...) with different amplitudes.

For example, the square wave (with the frequency F) is formed by the sum of the waves A*Sin(F) + 1/3A*Sin(3F) + 1/5A*Sin(5F).... being A the Amplitude. In other words a square wave is formed by the sum of the odd harmonics of the fundamental with proportional decreasing Amplitudes.

The Saw by the other side is formed by all harmonics (even and odd) equally with proportional decreasing Amplitudes or expressed in the form A*Sin(F) + 1/2A*Sin(2F) + 1/3A*Sin(3F) + 1/4*Sin(4F) etc.

In this way, depending on the amount of Amplitude for each harmonic, it is possible to create every waveform. There is another factor besides the Amplitude called "Phase" which must be also involved to get the exact reproduction, but for simplicity I will not mention it here!

Using part of this method is called additive synthesis which is known best on the drawbar organs and other synthesizers. They have (a limited number of) draw bars to set the ammount for each harmonic to reproduce (synthesize) the desired sound.

The R3/Radias and most of the analog Synths do it the inverse way: They have Saws, Squares/Pulse, Triangle and Noise as a palette rich in harmonics which are passed thru filters to substract or eliminate the "undesired" harmonics. This, as you can figure out, is the substractive synthesis.

Its like if you want to draw a portrait: You can use different techniques, being one to use a pencil to draw a sketch, the other is to use an eraser (etching).

The substractive synthesis was the most common in analog synths because it was easier (and cheaper) to create Saw, Square and Tringle wave generators, filters and amplifiers (with a modulator and envelope generators) circuits than 8 to 16 Sine oscillators (each with its own modulator/envelope generator) per voice.

That is why a simple sine wave wont change its characteristic (only its amplitude) if passed thru a filter, because the sine wave is the fundament of each waveform

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:02 am

Thanks axxim, the math and theory provide a useful perspective to understand the signal processing concepts behind the synthesis.

There is also the empirical approach - one technique being side-by-side comparison of two different sounds - the example and the model. The example is what you want to produce. The model is the representation you're working on to emulate the example. So for this situation, you can set up a loop with the sound you want to reproduce, while simultaneously listening to the synth output that your editing, and then compare them by ear. After you do this long enough, you may be able to instantly know the difference between square, saw, sine, triangle, and various pulse widths by ear. They all sound distinctive - so it a matter of building up your personal "wave" memory. You can do this with frequency ranges too, by listening to reference samples so that you can quickly identify note ranges.

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:03 am

Well, this is what I have so far, it definitely sounds similar, but isn't perfect yet.

Any ideas on what to change?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/skydiver.r3p

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:23 am

also, as for coming up for exact duplicates of sounds, will it ever be possible? or will all the post production EQing and Compressing get in the way of getting close enough for an audiophile to be satisfied?