00:00:11 I am not talking about that moment
in a boring song where
the composer is forced
to take the whole song a whole tone,
to prevent you from falling asleep.
00:00:18 I'm talking about
modulation in synthesizers.
00:00:21 Much more interesting.
Check it out.
00:00:23 The question that's on your mind
and everybody's mind,
worldwide on the daily basis, is:
How do you get from this...
00:00:29 to a usable sound for your song?
The answer is modulation.
00:00:33 Let's not forget that
originally synthesizers
were kind of designed
to replace real instruments.
00:00:38 They actually kind of thought that this
sort of sounds like a bassoon
and so they've spent a lot of time
to analyze what a bassoon sounds like
and why and apply those
parameters to the synthesizers.
00:00:50 Let's take a concrete
example of modulation
and apply it to our purpose.
00:00:53 Here's the accessory I need.
00:00:55 This is a semi-modular synth
so it's perfect to explain to you
what I'm talking about.
00:01:00 Every modulation has to have a source
and a destination.
00:01:04 Something is being
modulated by something.
00:01:06 So, you know this guy. It's a wheel.
00:01:08 On this synthesizer, it does nothing
because it's not connected.
00:01:13 On modern synths,
everything's been chewed up for you
and everything is pre-connected,
but not here.
00:01:18 Which is great to explain my principle.
00:01:20 So, this wheel here
actually has an output.
It generates voltage.
00:01:25 It has an output, it's right here.
It says out.
00:01:27 Must be an output.
00:01:28 And there's a little cute
little logo to "wheel" right here.
00:01:31 I think I'm in the right territory.
00:01:32 I'm gonna take my cable
and take the output of the wheel
and then I'm gonna modulate something.
00:01:39 So a lot of people know
this wheel for pitch, right?
So, why don't I connect
the output of the wheel
to the input of the VCO,
which is what generates my pitch?
What happens...
00:01:54 The first thing that the Founding
Fathers came up with
is to try to imitate with synthesizers
the kind of shapes of sound over time
that real instruments have.
00:02:01 For example, the piano will go:
"diiing".
00:02:05 Or if you let it go: "ding".
00:02:08 So they tried to do that.
00:02:10 Violins or big sections will go
on slowly with a slow attack time
that stay for a while and
then decay or not decay.
00:02:17 So, what they did is
they gave us control
for that to happen.
It is modulation.
00:02:22 It is a modulation generator
that is modulating the envelope,
or the amplitude, or
the volume of the sound.
00:02:28 Let me show you.
00:02:30 This one is hard-wired.
00:02:31 No matter what you do,
the envelope generator
goes to the volume control.
00:02:36 The controls are: attack,
decay, sustain, release.
00:02:41 Korg calls it envelope generator,
Moog calls it contour,
Roland calls it something else.
I don't know.
00:02:47 It doesn't matter, it's
all the same thing. ADSR
You'll see it everywhere. It all does
one thing: shape the sound
over time, like so.
00:02:55 The attack time decides how long
is gonna take for the sound to raise.
00:02:59 With a short attack time
it goes like this.
00:03:04 With a longer attack time
it goes like this.
00:03:13 Decay is a little more
tricky to understand.
00:03:16 Decay decides how long it takes for the
sound to go from the peak of the attack
to the sustain level.
(Because every sound has a sustain)
In my sound right now,
my sustain is on stun
because I wanted
to sustain for a long time.
00:03:27 So, I'm gonna lower the sustain
like this, so that my sustain
is lower in level than the peak
that the attack was,
and the decay time
is how long is gonna
take to go from here
to there.
00:03:40 With a longer decay
time it goes like this.
00:03:48 Alright, so what happens
if I have no sustain level?
Well, it just dies.
00:03:54 As long as I have the key pressed.
00:03:58 So we've seen the attack,
we've seen decay.
00:04:01 By the way, attack plus decay
does something like this.
00:04:07 Fair enough.
00:04:08 Obviously if your sustain
level is on stun, all the way up
it's at the same level
as the peak of the attack.
00:04:13 Consequently, decay serves no purpose.
00:04:15 Yeah? Think about it.
00:04:17 OK, now,
what happens
when you release the key?
Well, right now since
there's no release time,
very little.
00:04:26 The sound stops. But if I increase
the release time,
takes a while.
00:04:36 What the difference between release time
and decay time might you ask.
00:04:39 They sound similar. Well,
release time only happens when you lift
your fingers of the keyboard.
00:04:45 Decay time, your finger
has to be down on the key
and it's traveling between the attack
and the sustain.
00:04:52 It's a lot simpler
than it seems or sounds,
you just have to try it for yourself.
00:04:56 The reason why this may be confusing
is because there's a certain
mixing of metaphors here.
00:05:00 Sustain is a level
and it hangs out together
with attack which is a time.
00:05:05 Decay, which is a time,
and release, which is a time.
00:05:08 As long as you remember
that, you're good.
00:05:11 Some twisted synth designers
might try and sneak
a few extra controls by it
but the reality is as such.
00:05:18 The sound starts from zero
then you press the key
and it raises to a certain
point at certain speed
then decays to the sustain
level at a certain speed
and then, once you release the key,
fades down to nothing
at another speed and that's it.
00:05:34 Let's compare the Korg
envelope generator
to the Moog loudness contour.
00:05:39 The Moog is a lot more basic.
00:05:41 It's got an attack, it's got
a shared button for decay and release
and a sustain.
00:05:46 Right now is there.
00:05:49 Attack.
00:05:52 Decay.
00:05:56 The fun thing here is there's
a switch here for release.
00:05:59 The release is either on or off.
00:06:01 And the time is shared with the decay.
00:06:09 Super basic.
00:06:10 When I press a key you'll hear it
shoot straight up to the top
because the attack time is the shortest,
then decay at a certain speed,
all the way to the sustain.
00:06:18 And then when I leave the key
release all the way to
nothing at the same speed
that it decayed from
the attack to the sustain.
00:06:27 The difference between this two
is I have a special dedicated
decay time here.
00:06:32 Here the time is shared. So this is
actually more basic than this guy.
00:06:36 So this envelope generator or contour
is a modulation source.
00:06:40 In this particular case is hard-wired
to the volume but
I can use it for something else.
00:06:46 It's a modulation source
just like the wheel was.
00:06:49 What could I use it for?
Well, that's the fun part.
Anything you'd like
So, I can take this envelope generator,
which is automatically applied
to the volume in this synth,
and then apply it to something else,
like for example
the filter. So...
00:07:03 then I say use this and apply it
to the filter and it sounds like this.
00:07:09 Again, without.
00:07:13 With.
00:07:16 Pretty cool, right?
And you can go crazy with it.
00:07:23 What I just did is
raise the peak or the resonance
to dramatize the effect of the filter.
00:07:32 Without, as a reminder.
00:07:36 So, what's going on is
the MS-10 is slowing
the attack for the volume
but it's also slowing the attack
for the filter, so
the filter doesn't sit
where it's at. It moves,
it changes frequencies
according to the modulation.
00:07:48 Source is envelope-generated
and the target is both
the volume and the filter.
00:07:54 As you can see on the control panel,
the envelope generator
is automatically applied
to the VCA, that is the volume.
(Voltage control amplifier)
The volume of the sound.
00:08:04 You can see here is a direct thing.
00:08:07 But I can also decide
to assign it to anything else
and so, because this is
hard-wired in this synth
in addition to it modulating
the VCA (the volume),
I can force it to modulate
other stuff, like for example
the filter, which is down here.
00:08:22 See, it says cut-off frequency,
which is filter modulation.
00:08:26 You could decide what modulates that.
00:08:28 In this case EG, envelope generator.
00:08:31 Turn it on and yoo-hoo!
As opposed to..
00:08:40 With.
00:08:44 And of course it's not all or nothing.
00:08:46 This is a lot.
00:08:49 The modulation's on stun.
00:08:50 But I can make a half way point.
00:08:56 So, what's happening to the filter here
is that the cut-off frequency
of the filter
is being modulated by
the envelope generator, meaning
it's gonna start at one point,
use the attack time parameter
to decide how long is gonna take
for it to get to the cut-off frequency
that you decided on the front panel.
00:09:12 Then decay back to whatever
the sustain level is
and then release down to zero.
00:09:16 Meaning the filter cut-off frequency
will go back onto zero
at that rate.
00:09:20 As opposed to just
being there at the setting you've set
is now animated
following the parameters
of the envelope generator
which by the way, as a reminder,
are also assigned
to the volume at the same time,
because in this synth
it's hard-wired.
00:09:35 On newest synth, you can probably
dissociate the two of them.
00:09:39 In contrast over there
with Bob (Bob Moog)
you have separate filter
and envelope contour.
00:09:45 Meaning that you have
two ADSR modulation generator
that are assigned separately,
one to the amplitude on the volume
and one to the filter
as opposed to the Korg
which is stuck with one
envelope generator,
that you have to use for everybody.
00:10:02 So for example I can build
a sound that it's fast
because the attack time
on the volume is short.
00:10:09 No decay time, full sustain.
00:10:13 And here because it's a Moog
I can open the contour
amount on the filter,
meaning I'm gonna
apply this to this
by this amount.
00:10:22 And I'm gonna slow the attack
down, just on the filter.
00:10:25 Right now is very fast,
northing's changed.
00:10:32 And then, if I slow the attack down,
you can hear it raise over time.
00:10:47 So, I have a fast attack for the volume
but a slow attack for the filter.
00:10:52 That's not possible on the Korg,
it's possible here.
00:10:59 Pretty cool.
00:11:00 Also, if you've been paying attention,
this synth, when you
modulate the filter,
goes from all the way closed
to wherever you are on the panel
for the open frequency.
00:11:11 This guy, when you modulate the filter
goes from the panel frequency
all the way to wide open.
00:11:20 Fun, right? There're a couple more
things that I'd like to touch on.
00:11:24 Most synth have another oscillator
on top of their oscillator.
00:11:28 For example, this is a
one oscillator synth,
but not really.
It's a two oscillator synth.
00:11:34 Only, one it's use to make some sound
and one is used for modulation.
00:11:38 It's a modulation oscillator.
00:11:40 Also know as a modulation generator
or a LFO
or mod, or whatever.
00:11:47 They all do the same thing.
00:11:48 It's a low-frequency oscillator
that you use
to screw things up
on a different oscillator.
00:11:54 For example here, on this synth
it lives here, it has two settings.
00:11:58 A frequency setting, which is
the speed at which is gonna operate
and then a wave form setting,
so you can have different shapes
to modulate your other shape.
00:12:07 If we wanna use it on a frequency we
have to use the modulation generator
MG on
the cut-off frequency.
It sounds like this.
00:12:21 What is doing is it's supplying
this wave form to the filter,
starting from here and going all the way
down. I can do this by hand.
00:12:34 Or you can have it be automated.
00:12:43 Speed it up.
00:12:48 Or I can change the wave form.
00:12:57 If you use less of it, you can make
a nice vibrato for it.
00:13:10 So, what's going on is this
oscillator is going like this.
00:13:13 And that wave form is being
applied to the filters
so the filter is going like this.
00:13:16 So, you're hearing the
"wah-wah" thing is going.
00:13:19 That's it.
00:13:21 You can also apply it to pitch.
00:13:22 Modulation generator at this
speed with this wave form.
00:13:25 This is the modulation generator
for the frequency modulation.
I'm applying this oscillator
to this oscillator like this.
00:13:37 Great for ambulances.
00:13:39 So the MS-10
has a pretty advanced system
with multiple wave forms and everything.
00:13:43 The Moog doesn't.
00:13:45 First, the modulation generator
is called Mod.
00:13:48 Second, I only have
speed and two different wave forms.
00:13:53 But it's subjected to the
level of the Mod-wheel.
00:13:57 So, if I have modulation on like this
and no mod-wheel
nothing happens.
00:14:04 If I add some mod-wheel
then I can decide how much
of the modulation
goes to my destination.
00:14:09 And to keep it tricky
I can decide for the modulation
to effect the oscillator
or the filter
or both.
00:14:26 But the amount is fixed, by this.
00:14:28 So, again same principle,
different spirits.
00:14:31 You're gonna find that on all synths.
00:14:33 That's why is cool to have
different kinds of synths
for different kinds of sound.
00:14:37 Modern synths are trying
to do everything
for everybody, all the way across.
00:14:42 And that's what makes them
more complicated to understand.
00:14:45 One more source of modulation
you'll see in just about any keyboard
is called Portamento.
00:14:50 It decides how long is gonna
take between notes.
00:14:53 How long is gonna take for the VCO
to reach one note to the other.
00:14:56 It sounds like this. No Portamento.
00:14:59 With Portamento.
00:15:03 Simple. Over here is called glide.
00:15:05 Of course, not Portamento.
00:15:06 but we will not hold
that against them.
00:15:16 In the spirit of anything
can modulate anything
and because I love this sound
and I'd like to share,
who said that we can't use
the modulation generator
to modulate the pulse width?
Let me translate.
00:15:28 Modulation generator is just
an oscillator that does
it's thing on its own
and then the pulse width
is the shape of the square wave
when you select the square wave
as your sound source.
00:15:38 So, I wanna take the output
of the modulation generator,
which happens to be here
on this patchbay,
(cush)
and feed it to the pulse
width modulation input.
00:15:48 It sounds like this.
00:15:50 Without.
00:15:53 With.
00:15:58 So, I can confirm the nagging
feeling you've had
inside your belly since you've been
watching this video series.
00:16:03 Synthesizers are wonderful
and they're also the biggest time-suck
in the history of the universe.
00:16:10 A parting thought...
00:16:20 Et voilà.
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Fab Dupont is a award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
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I fell in love with synths in audio school and I've began my patching adventures on my first synth the Moog Grandmother!
Thanks Fab for the helpful refreshers ^^
mike.p
2018 Jan 14
Great for ambulances, or great pacman emulation xD
CCHorton
2016 Jun 24
Any Second Now, I'll tell you I Just Can't Get Enough- and soon I'll be Dreaming Of Me watching 103 and learning even more synth lore. ;)
Thank you Mr. DuPont this was very educational as usual.
