So I was experimenting with LFOs recently. It started as an attempt to recreate a certain pad sound, but I got derailed in an interesting direction. Try this:
Open FM synth.
Choose Element as the LFO (or should I say modulation?).
Choose microphone as source.
Choose ‘note and dynamic’ thing as destination and set it to green channel.
This made one of the most “ambient” sounds I’ve gotten out of OP-1 so far. It’s like getting an entirely new synth engine. (Am I exaggerating? Try it, tell me what you think. Add Grid for additional awesomeness.)
Interestingly, I was not able to reproduce this on some of the other engines I tried. It seems like the effects of modulating the green channel are different for each engine… except I know that when using other mod sources it always changes pitch.
Another thing I found out is that “microphone” mod source does not necessarily get its sounds from the physical microphone. It is whatever you choose in the “microphone menu”. Maybe it is obvious for other people, but it really surprised me in a pleasant way. This means microphone is not just one mod source, but three. And radio is a really cool way to modulate, especially if you tune into some talking channel.
Now, I have two questions. What is sigma LFO source? What is “note with speaker” LFO destination, really? It behaves so differently in different contexts…
I’m guessing note&speaker is pitch & volume(amplitude) like on the tremelo. Only with audio input is follows the wave form so fast(fast envelope follower) that it sounds like the waveform it’s following. Then the different destinations vary mixes of original and mods signals(-still not fully familiar with all 4 settings).
The Sigma…now total speculation. Isn’t that everything summed together?or multiplied together…?
AFAIK Sigma is the output of the synth engine (i.e the level of the signal from the synth/drum section); if you play two notes, you get a higher LFO value than a single note, which can be an interesting/fun non-linear sort of modulation.
So if Sigma Element is synth output, maybe Ear could be a good source for Tape modulation of the synth voice.Maybe get some interesting pumping sounds on a pad ,with a drum tape track feeding Ear Elememt…? -Thinking out aloud here.
Sadly Ear is what you’re currently hearing, so AFAIK there’s no way to inject a second side-chain sound that modulates without being audible.
However, I’ve written before to ask TE to add a “duck/follow” LFO (like Element but the source is one of the tape tracks); I don’t think it would work to just add Tape 1-4 as sources in Element, nicer to have a dedicated LFO type since the additional parameters would be useful for setting the threshold/sensitivity (i.e tuning the ducking to the input material).
I bet if more people write to ask, they’ll consider it
It would be useful to be able to mod with Ear.It would be like Sigma plus Tape output ,so a loud bass drum,click track or metronome would be effecting our synth engine,but wouldn’t be recorded onto our new track.Sure the synth would be modulating itself,but if that’s a quiet pad compared to our bass drum there should be some good movement in our synth voice.
I just tried it.Ear has absolutely no effect in our Element LFO.Its disabled ,while mic and radio can switch in fine.I’m sure this would be a interesting option if it was enabled.Strange.
I suppose an input (set to Mic) feeding the OP with a beat source would be similar -jus set Mic to the off position.Not self contained though.
When controlled by G (gravity) ‘note and speaker’ affects: Blue channel - current envelope level. Green - frequency/pitch. Red - reverse of amplitude. Farther from zero means higher amplitude, which is added to the sound (or multiplies its own). White - normal amplitude, which is either subtracted or divides amplitude of sound.
When controlled by other things, including crank and bend they behave rather weirdly. I need to buy crank.
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It seems you can mod by ear. Choose microphone and set input to ear. It does something, but what it does makes no sense, given what I wrote above.
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Modding with radio is cool. Here is a track where I added a bunch of noises made that way:
Anything that sounds like breathing, screaming, moving cars, clanging metal - all of that was made via FM engine modulated by radio. The weird screeching part at the end as well.
Good stuff @Gambler for your researchin and this thread had me thinking .I’m liking/listening to your tune now aswell.Yes definately a nice track(-I’d buy it).
With the Ear as Mod source I had concluded it was doing zero.Totally disabled.I checked on a effect and envelope -Radio and Mic clearly moved the destination ,Ear didn’t and had no effect on the sound (switching off sounded the same).Check it for us if you get the chance.I did email TE but waiting reply.
When controlled by G (gravity) 'note and speaker' affects: Blue channel - current envelope level. Green - frequency/pitch. Red - reverse of amplitude. Farther from zero means higher amplitude, which is added to the sound (or multiplies its own). White - normal amplitude, which is either subtracted or divides amplitude of sound.
When controlled by other things, including crank and bend they behave rather weirdly. I need to buy crank.
...
It seems you can mod by ear. Choose microphone and set input to ear. It does something, but what it does makes no sense, given what I wrote above.
...
Modding with radio is cool. Here is a track where I added a bunch of noises made that way:
http://soundcloud.com/sjgambler/noises
Anything that sounds like breathing, screaming, moving cars, clanging metal - all of that was made via FM engine modulated by radio. The weird screeching part at the end as well.
Holy cow I just thought of something that blew my mind: what if an LFO could control tape functions like tape speed or loop start point? It’s probably been brought up before, but man would that rule.
Another tip: you can use crank LFO with “sound” (speaker icon) destination to do static effects. Just dial them in. I believe blue pram can make your synth a bit louder in certain positions, which can give it a much needed boost without messing with anything else. White has a position where it sort of amplifies the sound with weird distortion. It is quite different from what they do in Element.
Another tip: you can use crank LFO with "sound" (speaker icon) destination to do static effects. Just dial them in. I believe blue pram can make your synth a bit louder in certain positions, which can give it a much needed boost without messing with anything else. White has a position where is sort of amplifies the sound with weird distortion. It is quite different from what they do in Element.
Thanks, this is awesome. Definitely adds a fair bit of power to the sounds, I’ll be using this a lot I think.
Just tried it with the Bend LFO too and it appears to have to same effect on the sound with the blue and white, just applied in that sort of decaying pattern. Still yet to figure out a good use for Bend. Was playing around with it and noticed that shift + red encoder changes the side to which it bends. It doesn’t change the effect but you can twist the other way if you want haha.
At first I was disappointed with the results I got following the directions in your OP, because I was expecting “ambient” sounds like on Brian Eno’s Apollo album or something, but then I realized you were actually going for noise which is cool too.
Not a New Year’ resolution or anything, but I’ve been having fun trying to learn how to use the LFO slot to add more “life” to synth sounds.
At first I was disappointed with the results I got following the directions in your OP, because I was expecting “ambient” sounds like on Brian Eno’s Apollo album or something, but then I realized you were actually going for noise which is cool too.
Actually, there is another LFO trick you might find useful. I thought I mentioned it, but apparently the only thing I did was to post a now-broken link to a demo track.
You can take some pad sound, apply Tremolo to it and then adjust the frequency to go into the sonic range. Affecting volume and pitch with such LFO can give you a variety of effects: growling, screeching, metallic overtones and others that are difficult to describe. But the point is that you can take a static, bassy, mellow pad and add much needed higher frequencies and some movement to it.
Here is a messy demo where I switch between vanilla and modified sounds:
