Members droolmaster0 Posted February 12, 2011 Members Share Posted February 12, 2011 The commonality in the usage is that 'organic' in this context is a metaphor for something being alive....but what exactly that constitutes from one person to the next can vary greatly, as seen by this thread. I wouldn't say that it's hyperbole, per se, but I think at this point it's just a cliche pretty much. But I'll tell ya - I'd rather hear 'organic' any day than 'beefy', or to hear someone refer for the 10,000,000th time to a synth as a 'beast'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members poserp Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 "Organic", "warm", "fat"... Man, I hate it when I read these words in marketing material. I get that people hear something and might not be able to describe what's actually going on (not that that's a bad thing -- for some stuff nobody really knows what's going on), so they default to fuzzy words like these. I certainly couldn't give a completely technical description of, say, Jimi Hendrix's guitar tone that didn't resort to using at least a few fuzzy words. But I think the people who make this stuff should at least make an effort to explain why thing A sounds different/the same as thing B, without resorting to marketing dreck. At this point in time there's a much better understanding generally about what, say, a transformer (depending on design of course) can do to a signal. I.e. some transformers add some non-linear elements to the sound, usually frequency-dependent and more audible in the low-mids/bass frequencies. They might also have a limited bandwidth and thus roll off a bit of high-end. Now, whether you get there with a transformer or some fancy coding isn't really all that important. But at least say something like "we model what this particular kind of transformer does to a signal -- adding some low-mid frequency distortion that sounds pleasing to many people". It's more informative (i.e. anti-audiofoolery) and more accurate. You don't have to whip out the wave equation or get into multivariable calculus, but at least make an effort to educate your customers about what they're hearing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Metrosonus Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 :wave: Nice camel toe ... !!! oh yea baby... thats the way you like it.. wait what? You seriously to answer the question, IMO, i'd say it's noise or distortion that creeps in with age into analog components. When you sold me your EX800, I changed my mind about software. The outputs and the chips were so clean, I actually though if someone had made an emulation of this, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Ergo, I think it's character that analog components pick up after time and use that makes the sound "organic". although I wouldn't use that term in relation to synths. I think in that case it's people that are referring to presets with lots of long modulated pads or a synth with really rich reverb that gives everything a kind of huge feel to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members McHale Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 http://www.vintagesynth.com/casio/sk1.php SK-1`s preset sounds are warm and unsynthetic. Brass is similar to MiniMoog primal sound Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 Organic - The chemistry of carbon... hmm methane is a nice simple and common example... Now for Synths... got it: Organic Performance, the sound and smell of breaking wind: Is that Organic enough for you Puppy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members lerber3 Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 I never really thought about organic or 'fat', but I suspect that it is not simply 'noise' added to the signal. My hypothesis... An audio signal passing through a series of analog circuits picks up some seemingly random noise (impurities) along the way. The impurities are chaotic, but harmonically and temporally related to different components of the audio signal the signal. Chaotic systems are highly structured, yet unpredictable. Nature is full of chaotic systems (weather, plants, currents, turbulence, animal behavior, etc). Over billions of years we've evolved to discern and exploit patterns within chaotic systems. The fact that we are wired to detect these pattern (as opposed to hearing noise) indicates that is probably an analogue in nature. When we subconsciously identify a chaotic patterns in a sound, we consider that sound to be more 'organic' or 'alive' without really knowing why. ... end of hypothesis This seems like a cool area of research... chaos can be emulated digitally, but which types of chaos tickle our phat-detection circuits? I want a PHAT knob on my next synth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Musicale Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 Organic as opposed to Inorganic refers to chips etc. that are naturally occurring. No pesticides or non-naturally occurring fertlizers are used in their production. Regards, Musicale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strngweaver Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 "Organic" synths are not enough for me. They need to be "free range" as well. Too bad these are such a rarity these days. Therefore I usually settle for just "free". Organic and free, that's what I would like :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Caligvla Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 Another important characteristic of synth design and superior tone is using discrete components, which also makes synths big, heavy and expensive ... When analog voices are on separate boards the overtones of each voice combine to create pleasing and complex sounds not so present -- or at all -- in synths (digital or even DCO/VCO analog) that put all voices on one board ... It may just be voodoo, but I can't believe that all that "stuff" in there doesn't make a difference, esp. relative to what's available now ... BTW ... That's Oldgearguy recalibrating my then recently purchased JP8 for VCA noise-bleed issue, voice tuning and fixing a couple of buttons ... Thank you sooo much again and always ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundwave106 Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 You seriously to answer the question, IMO, i'd say it's noise or distortion that creeps in with age into analog components. Distortion by design as well. The mixer stages of some synths have a bit of pleasing soft clipping when cranked. Minimoogs are like that for instance. IMHO this effect is harder to emulate in software than other aspects of analog synthesizers. I think this effect is part of what makes people think "fat" and "organic" but who knows? I do know that DCO analog in general no longer interests me, because most designs are pretty clean and similar enough to what you get in software.I do like my Pulse enough to not sell it, but that *does* have mixer stages that clip easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mildbill Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 People with an electronics background describe which components go into making sounds that are organic, warm, or fat. I don't have that background, but describe those terms into what goes into them acoustically. A perfect sine, square, triangle, etc. have specific partials at specific amplitudes. Organic sounding synths are incapable of producing those (and only those) frequencies without drifting, or producing lower amplitude frequency components that aren't specified. When used to describe digital synths, it usually means an emphasized low end, or reduced high end, but can also be combinations of those two areas in certain frequency ranges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mildbill Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 This is a super easy question. A synth is organic when you are playing an organ patch on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chando Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 What in the world could make an electronic gizmo sound organic? If it was made before 1987. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Analogholic Posted February 13, 2011 Members Share Posted February 13, 2011 ORGANIC Joe Zawinul + 10000000 And of course in addition to CS-80: Prophet 5 REV 2, Oberheim 4/8-voice which Zawinul played as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NuSkoolTone Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 To me the answer is kinda simple. It's something that sounds very natural that feels like extension of you. What gives digital away is that biting harsh sound and especially aliasing. Warmth is good, but there's nothing like a couple raw sawtooth waves slightly detuned with a hair of drift! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members poserp Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 I have a bit of a hypothesis about what makes most digital synths sound "digital". The first step was to eliminate aliasing. Digital synth makers are pretty good at this now, but generally speaking the process involves turning most waveforms into something approximating a sine wave at high frequencies since you want to eliminate partials that run afoul of the Nyquist frequency. This is true whether or not you use some sort of circuit modeling to produce the fundamental wave forms. Since an analog oscillator doesn't have that limitation in behavior, it sounds increasingly different as you increase pitch w.r.t. a roughly similar digital oscillator. IMO analog synths have more "presence" because their wave shapes don't change so drastically as you increase pitch. I'm sure someone else has thought of this by now, so somewhere somebody is/has figuring/figured out how to modify the wave shape of, say, a digital sawtooth wave at higher frequencies so that a.) the shape is largely the same w.r.t. an analog oscillator of similar design, and b.) there is minimal to no aliasing. I've always wondered, incidentally, if one could reduce/eliminate aliasing by mixing the aliased part of a signal (minus the fundamental wave shape) out-of-phase with the original signal that includes the aliasing artifacts. Maybe even have a separate digital oscillator whose job is to produce just the aliasing artifacts, I imagine those artifacts are not "chaotic" and computing them is probably reasonably tractable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strngweaver Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Those freq reflection artifacts can sound beautiful and organic too if u make them work towards your goal. Organic sound doesn't know digital or analogue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Those freq reflection artifacts can sound beautiful and organic too if u make them work towards your goal. Organic sound doesn't know digital or analogue. I mentioned this at the GS forum some time ago regarding why some may be getting mixed up on some synths... Companding noise is the original name and I suspect it can give some early VA's some extra atmosphere that a more perfected digital process may remove. Not better or worse just different... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members poserp Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 Companding noise is the original name and I suspect it can give some early VA's some extra atmosphere that a more perfected digital process may remove. Not better or worse just different... I think there's room for aliasing (I particularly like that the Kurzweil PC3 has both anti-aliasing and aliasing oscillators so I can choose the right tool for the job) as an extra dimension to a sound, but it should be something you add because you want it there. One example is FM -- you get different results if you use anti-aliased vs mathematically correct oscillators (assuming you're using anything besides sine waves for your operators). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 14, 2011 Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 I think there's room for aliasing (I particularly like that the Kurzweil PC3 has both anti-aliasing and aliasing oscillators so I can choose the right tool for the job) as an extra dimension to a sound, but it should be something you add because you want it there. One example is FM -- you get different results if you use anti-aliased vs mathematically correct oscillators (assuming you're using anything besides sine waves for your operators). Ha ha another plus for Kurzweil.... ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Lozada Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 Drawbars and a Leslie emulator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted February 14, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2011 I've decided that the best thing to do is just to give it to The Mexican. He can make any synth sound orgasmic-- ORGANIC! I meant organic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Lozada Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 I've decided that the best thing to do is just to give it to The Mexican. He can make any synth sound orgasmic-- ORGANIC! I meant organic. So, in the end, you liked my organ? I mean, my organ sound from Pro Tools? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 15, 2011 Members Share Posted February 15, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Caligvla Posted February 15, 2011 Members Share Posted February 15, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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