Basic vocabulary

Can someone please explain what you mean by thin and fat sounds? I've read several posts where people are comparing boards and someone will write "That board has a lot of really fat sounds" or "The strings sound really thin to me." What makes a sound thin or fat?

Also, what makes a sound "organic?"

>>>returning to the shadows where good noobs belong...

Fat sounds make you're eardrums rumble, thin sounds are annoying most of the time, just not impressive sounding. Organic sounds are just alive somehow.

Bad explanation.

Google the word "timbre".

No, that is helpful. Thank you.

Synth Vocabulary 101

Fat: Good.

Thin: Bad (not the good bad, the bad bad).

Organic: No pesticides.

Smooth: Easy on the ears. Also see "organic".

Warm: Makes you go "ahhhh." Or, doubles as a space heater.

Cold: Brittle, prickly, unpleasant.

Also referred to as "phat" for the young-uns.

It's accurate in every respect - maybe some examples would help?

"Fat":

Polysynth

Pad

Synth Bass

"Thin":

Possibly this lead

"Organic":

One of my favourite pads ever

And again

Most of Jarre's Oxygene can be described as "organic" too.

(Thanks to Synthmania for samples!)

Thanks. The samples were very helpful, especially the organic ones - I totaly get what you mean about being alive.

The Second Tier of synth wisdom - the knowledge of fat and thin sounds is obsolete now. It harms creativity and limits your sound palette. Unlearn it while you can and move straight to Tier Three.

Is tier three where I snatch a Fantom X7 from Diametro's palm before he can close it?

The Second Tier of synth wisdom - the knowledge of fat and thin sounds is obsolete now. It harms creativity and limits your sound palette. Unlearn it while you can and move straight to Tier Three.

Let's move up another step then..

Fat synths sound better than thin synths most of the time (depends on the sound you're after of course) and therefore can make your music sound more interesting.

I can appreciate music that has good synth sounds. I wish Spock's Beard would redo "The Light" album with up to date sounds.

IMHO, a fat synth is what you want if you want it to occupy a large sonic space. Bold, confident, lots of interesting harmonics.

On the other hand, thin would be better if you want to layer several different timbres in a symphonic manner. A lot of fat synths at once usually leads to lots of EQ work, in which case you're thinning-out the fat. Could jsut start thin to begin with.

As in all things, what you need depends on your intent.

So if the whole board is thin (Walmart $97 special) its bad (the bad kind of bad) but if there are only fat sounds the board isn't good for much more than mixing between songs in a club?

A fat synth doesn't need to be layered most of the time though .

A synth that can do both thin and fat is a good synth.

A fat synth doesn't need to be layered most of the time though . A synth that can do both thin and fat is a good synth.

^ Thar ya go.

Nobody can. All the charm of fat is taken away by either converting it to low-quality mp3 files or because you're not actually playing the thing with headphones.

A thin synth is not bad; it might actually mean that it sits in the mix well. A "cold" synth isn't bad either; you'll sometimes need a contrast.

I mean, if red was the fattest, warmest color, photographs and paintings would pretty much suck.

When you can't hear or are left guessing whether the soundsource is what it is. For synthesizers, it may mean drifting in pitch, small inaccuracies and non-lineair behavior; anything acoustic instruments do just fine naturally.

"Fat" and "warm" can only be used to describe vintage analog synths, it is the law. If a softsynth sounds indentical to an analog, and can even fool people in a double-blind test, it still cant be "fat" or "warm". It's the law.

"Fat" and "warm" can only be used to describe vintage analog synths, it is the law. If a softsynth sounds indentical to an analog, and can even fool people in a double-blind test, it still cant be "fat" or "warm". It's the law.

that's true. similarly, you can't hear fat and warmth from a CD or ipod as they are both digital. i read that the iPod replaces all sounds with a DX7 emulator.

That's why I had Moog filters installed in mine.

Your iPod may sound cold and brittle today, but in another 20 years or so, it'll magically be the warmest, phattest thing EVER.

A couple weeks ago I went to hear the Dayton Philharmonic perform Mahler's 9th Symphony (Damn good job by the way. They're beginning to rival Cincy). As we were leaving, my father was already thinking about what he was going to write for the Dayton City Paper's review and he jokingly said something very interesting:

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

It's not his quote and he doesn't 100% agree. He was just repeating it but it got me thinking. So much of what you read here is subjective when comparing synths. Does it sound good to you? Will it get your vision across to your audience? If so, forget the "phats" and "colds" and follow your instincts.

Thin

Fat

When I saw this post on VSE today, I couldn't help it:

It is considered bad luck to snatch Diametro's Fantom.

It is considered even worse luck, if you are caught doing it!

Perhaps writing about writing is like dancing about dancing.