| Bad_Mister
Total Posts: 36620
Joined 07-30-2002
status: Legend
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Re: auto synth insert effect
The AUTO SYNTH effect is in the Techno Modulation category of effects and is used to create other worldly electronic sounds no matter what the input source.
The “ticking” or “clicking” is what happens to sound when you create a very low frequency. Low frequencies break down to individual events. The AUTO SYNTH effect does this with Amplitude Modulation (varying the loudness) and Pitch Modulation applied to the source sound. It takes the incoming signal and creates a Pitch (vibrato) and Amplitude (tremolo) effect using that signal as the source. Here’s what is going on:
The human ear is said to have a frequency range of about 20 cycles per second up to about 20,000 cycles per second. We all know that dogs, for example, can hear much higher than we can. But what about down at the low end of the frequency spectrum...? The orchestra tunes (or used to tune) to A440 - a quick look at your piano and some basic math and you realize that the lowest note on the piano is A27.5. That’s right 27 and a half cycles per second… Do you actually feel that you can only hear down 7 and a half cycles from there...?
What happens to sound as you get lower and lower is it starts to break down to individual events… ticks or clicks.
You can certainly snap your finger once per second (that’s 1 cycle per second) and it is very audible… the thing is it is audible as a separate event - a separate click. If you take that finger snap and repeat it over and over, faster and faster, at about 20 times per second you no longer hear separate events you hear a blur of sound that if it is consistent in speed (consistent frequency), it becomes a musical tone.
Much like if you took a pencil and placed a series of individual dots on a page - the closer and closer these dots got to each other at some point your eye could no longer see them as separate, it becomes a line.
That is what is happening with sound. So the AUTO SYNTH effect you will see parameters for Mod Speed and Mod Depth (which are modulating “pitch") and also for Amplitude Modulation Speed (AM Speed) and Amplitude Modulation Depth
It is the AM Speed and AM Depth that are the source of the ticks/clicks.
As you increase the Amplitude Modulation speed the ticks or clicks become closer together and become a blur of sound.
You can independently hear the effect of these two sets of parameters by making the DEPTH parameter of one of them 0… (Once the depth is 0 the Speed setting is negated). Set the (pitch) MOD DEPTH to 0 and work with the AM Speed and AM Depth and the wave shape.
Amplitude Modulation Speed extends from 0.00Hz through 39.7Hz. (Hertz or Hz = cycles per second)
You are more likely to get clicks and ticks from sawtooth waves than you are from the sine or triangle wave… The Saw Up and Saw Down have an aburpt change in direction, resulting in an audible click, while the sine and the triangle wave have a more rounded change in modulation direction (so you are not as aware of the point of change.)
With MOD SPEED and MOD DEPTH at 0
working with the AM Speed and AM Depth:
Set AM Speed = 0.00Hz
Set AM Wave = sine
Set the AM Depth = 127
As you increase the AM Speed, slowly up from 0.00Hz, you will start to hear the Amplitude Modulation warp the sound… initially it will sound like Tremolo (the musical effect of varying loudness) but there is a point where it goes beyond what a human could do and as soon as the AM Speed reaches around 2.02Hz you no longer hear it as musical tremolo, because it is beyond the capability of a human to adjust the sound… You start to hear it become a pitch of its own as you approach 20Hz (the dots are now too close together to identify). And by the time you reach 39.7Hz it is into the realm of ‘ring modulation’
But the clicks when overdriven are what give the AUTO SYNTH sound its techno edge (it is an acquired taste, to be sure)… It is the saw up and saw down TYPES that click…
The Mod Speed/Mod Depth (pitch modulation) is non-linear and goes out into the stratusphere… And the MOD WAVE TYPE are preset rapid changes in pitch modulation (some, like TYPE B, emulate rapid changes in direction like on a turntable)… but when you take type B into high speed modulation it becomes something unworldly.
Next: eliminate the AM DEPTH (and experiment with the MOD SPEED and DEPTH parameters):
With MOD SPEED set = 5
Set MOD WAVE TYPE = TYPE B
and Set MOD DPETH = 109
As you increase MOD SPEED - you will hear the effect take off… at a MOD SPEED of 5 it sounds like a turntable scratch, by the time you reach 40 it is already on another planet, and at 127 you are in another universe.
Hope that helps.
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