INSTRUMENTS / GENERATORS Harmless TutorialsAttention class! Miss Harmless is ready to start 'Subtractive-Additive Synthesis 101'. TutorialsIf you open the Harmless presets you will notice a 'Tutorial' category. Here we will explain what's happening with each of these presets. Filter decayWhat you hear: Play a note (C5) and notice the sound becoming 'darker' over time. This is caused by the loss of high frequencies as a low-pass filter cutoff frequency is swept down from high to low as shown by the Wave Candy spectrum analysis below.
How it's done: The filter type has been set to 'Crude low pass', low pass filters allow frequencies through lower than the filter cutoff frequency (freq). In this instance the starting frequency is set by the amt knob, the decay time is set by the dec knob and the final frequency is (largely) set by the filter cutoff frequency (freq). Keyboard tracking, kb.t, is adding an offset depending on note pitch. This can be useful to make higher notes relatively brighter than lower notes. Harmless fun:
Key to pulse saw morphingWhat you hear: This patch morphs the wave-shape (timbre) from a square-wave at the lowest notes to a saw-wave at the highest notes. It is a fairly subtle difference so you may want to set Wave Candy to Oscilloscope mode.
How it's done: The LFO section has been set to a special pitch mode, that is a modulation value that tracks note pitch (small for low notes, large for high notes). The harmonic mask mix is being varied as a function of note pitch. This is caused by the LFO modulation of the Harmonic mask mix value. In this case the low notes receive more masking and the high notes less masking. You will have to trust us that you can turn a saw-wave into a square wave by masking the even harmonics and sounding the odd harmonics, as set by the mask. Harmless morphing fun:
LFO on phaserWhat you hear: A pulsing sound 'rippling' through the note. This is caused by a shifting band of frequencies that are removed from the sound. In other words, similar to sweeping a 'cut' setting on a parametric equalizer. Traditionally the phasing frequency loss is caused by 'phase cancellation' when two identical or very similar sounds are delayed slightly and mixed together. By varying the delay by an LFO the phase cancellation frequencies ripple through the sound. Harmless, with its 'subtractive-additive' architecture can dispense with all that mucking about and simply work directly on the harmonics and remove them as follows:
How it's done: Phasing in Harmless is simulated by a harmonic 'mask', essentially a harmonic cut template, that removes a few bands of harmonics. On the spectrograph, (1) shows the original sound prior to any phaser effect. This was achieved by turning the amount control to minimum. (2) shows the static harmonic mask (no movement). This was achieved by turning the lfo control associated with the offset to minimum (12 o'clock). (3) shows the original 'LFO on phaser' patch. The LFO is varying the mask (phaser) offset ofs. The offset just controls where in the frequency spectrum the cut bands appear. Looking now at the LFO section, note the shape is set to Saw, this describes the repeating LFO modulation pattern. The global switch is off, this means that the phaser lfo 'resets' and start from the same position for each new note. Harmless phaser fun:
Local voice random + unisonWhat you hear: Each time a note is played the pan position of the voice changes.
How it's done: The LFO section has a special Voice random mode that selects a new random value for each new note played AND global mode has been switched off, this allows the LFO randomization value to be different for all voices. While the purpose of the pan setting on the Unison is to spread the pan position of the unison voice copies, this isn't what is causing the panning effect. pan only affects the maximum possible pan position in this patch. Panning is caused by the lfo on the filter section causing a random cutoff freq setting for each note played as shown in the spectrograph (13 notes shown). The causes the high-frequency cutoff for each unison voice to differ and this is causing the apparent position of the notes to shift. Harmless random fun:
Voice randomWhat you hear: Subtle variations in brightness from note to note. How it's done: This patch is almost identical to the Velocity to filter frequency example, however, the LFO has been set to Voice random that generates a new (random) values at each note-on. Masked pluckWhat you hear: A 'masked' pluck timbre. Notice the extra high harmonics when the masked option is on vs off as shown in the spectrograph.
How it's done: The masking function filters harmonics, and so can be thought of as a specialized 'cut' filter. By selecting masked to the right of the filter, it's actually the reverse of what you may expect, that is the mask is ignored during the 'pluck'. The length of the pluck is determined by the pluck knob setting, left is shorter. The pluck control is a specialized and fast low pass filter designed to create pluck effects (naturally enough). Harmless masked pluck fun:
PWMWhat you hear: Pulse Width Modulation sounds similar to 'phasing' with notes morphing from a full to a thin and brittle tone, and back again.
How it's done: This is similar to the Phasing effect as described above. A harmonic cut template (Eggs in this case) has its frequency width modulated by an LFO set to a Saw modulation shape and sync set to Global. This means all notes share the same phase for the LFO modulation. Note the Phaser scale is set to harm, harmonics. Harmless PWM fun:
Saw pulseWhat you hear: Is a sound changing tone in a cyclic pattern. This tutorial should some as no surprise if you have read the section on Key to pulse saw morphing.
How it's done: The LFO section has been set to Smooth pulse mode. This creates a cyclic modulation value that affects the harmonic mask mix value. You will have to trust us (again) that filtering a saw wave as set by the harmonic mask can cause a saw wave to become a square wave. Harmless morphing fun 2:
Unison variationWhat you hear: The sound pans left and right when a note is held. All notes are panned in sync, regardless of pitch and the time they are triggered.
How it's done: The Unison order (2 in this patch), generates two voices for each note. It's the subtle variations on these voices that creates interesting Unison effects. Here, the Unison pan spreads the unison voices in the stereo field but the pan control isn't causing the panning effect, only the maximum pan position. Eh? Notice the lfo on the filter section is activated and the LFO section has been set to a sine wave shape. The LFO causes a cyclic change in the high-frequency content of the two unison voices because the Unison var control is adding a unique LFO start offset to each voice. So, it's the cyclic and different loss of high-frequencies from the two Unison voices that causes the apparent position of the note to shift. You can see in the image above-right the Left channel is smooth and the Right channel is a saw shape (has higher harmonic frequencies) and so the pan would appear to be shifted to the Right. Harmless unison variation fun:
Velocity to filter frequencyWhat you hear: As note velocity increases the notes become brighter, as velocity decreases the notes become duller. In the spectrograph (below) the higher harmonics (frequencies) can be seen increasing as note velocity increases (8 notes spanning the velocity range are shown).
How it's done: This patch has a twist, rather than linking the filter envelope amt knob to velocity by switching VEL on, we have instead increased the lfo value on the filter and set the LFO to a special Velocity mode. This uses note-on velocity as a modulation value. So it is easy, just not what you were probably expecting. The good news here is that this patch shows there are several ways you can modulate targets in Harmless. Harmless velocity fun:
Graduation daySo you have completed 'Subtractive-Additive Synthesis 101', congratulations! |