matching oscillator tones
 

Hi, this is a kinda stupid question but its one that has plagued me for years.
I have a couple of synths (1 being the indigo 2) and im able to make some nice sounding patches, but sometimes when i begin a track im unable to completely finish it, as im unable to produce more pads basses etc which match the tone of a patch ive already made..
i havent had any classical musical training and sometimes i think this would help..
but is there a way to gain more understanding of the oscillators within the virus? i mean, if you change the tone of 1 oscillator and detune it, is there a mathematical way to to work out how the other oscillators should be set? and then how these should match other patches that i add?

cheers for any advice on a stupid question..

I really don't know what you mean. What do you mean by tone? You're tuning your patches?

If you keep the oscillators at in tune there sohuldn't be any problems with detuning (unless you detune too much).

sorry, what i mean is the tone of each oscillator...
usually i start off focussing on 1 oscillator, then when i mix in the second oscillator with a totally different waveform i can find it difficult matching the tuning of each oscillator..

the same goes with matching 1 patch to say another on a different synth..
i usually spend hours tweaking the semitone and detuning for ages to try and get the same resultant 'tone' of each patch...
im still not making sense am i?

ehh.. what i mean is, is there a mathematical way to match semitones and detune levels of each oscillator if i have 1 osc set to say -7 and another set to 0, because 1 oscillator mixed with another will produce a different final tonality..

sometimes i have an image of a sound in my head to match something ive already made, and i find it difficult to get the tuning of that down..

hmm.. mibbe i should lay off the smokin eh :)

ill add an adendum to that...
i cant remember if it was you that posted the mp3 of the jean michell jarre tune equinox you made with a virus, but how were you able to say , 'ok i need this oscillator on this patch to be set at this level'

and btw, if it was you that made the jmj tune, respect !!!

I think I understand now what you mean. And now I'd like to ask do you even know what you're doing? Seems like there are serious problems in your patch programming logic.

When you program patches, don't tune your oscillators like a maniac. The patch is useless if its tuned to +0.5 or so. Always keep your oscillator settings so that they have a dominant frequency on the "base frequency" (like -24, -12, 0, +12 or +24). Otherwise you end up having a patch that has a transpose and thus is totally useless. For example if you want a detuned saw, just set one oscillator to zero and detune the other ones slightly. And again: Remember that always at least one oscillator at "base frequency".

It seems that you don't have even a faintest clue about basics of music. I'm not intentionally offending you (and I really don't mean to offend you). I may sound harsh but your lack of knowledge seems to be a serious issue here. I'd advice that you just study even the basics of music. Now you're like a blind man on a firing range - You just shoot around and wish that you'd hit. Also you should check out the programming tutorial on the Access site.

Nope. Wasn't me. It was an one-armed man... Or it also could have been Per Kristian.

I read that text again. Damn. I'm totally confused here now. Are you experiencing tuning problems (dissonances, etc)? Or are you just wondering waveform phasing and combination issues? It just seems weird that you're tuning patches.

man your fucking harsh..
no, im not tuning the patches.. the oscillators..

2 oscillators mixed with different pitches have a resultant pitch yeh?
this makes a patch, so i try and do the same with an other patch to match that final pitch, but using the same semi-tones and detuning, sounds out of tune..

and you dont have to be so fucking obnoxious.. i was asking a question, not asking for a fight

Juho and his charm strikes again! Hehehe.

I think the only sugestions I can offer on this subject would be;

1. Take a look at the programming tutorial on the Access site first of all.

2. Instead of making patches in the middle of the track you are working on, have big programming sessions before hand. Nothing kills inspiration more than having to fully programm new sounds while writing music. Minor tweaking is all I'll do.

3. Make varients of the sounds you like (eg: if have made a nice bass sound, copy it and tweak it 4 or 5 times). This gives you instant access to a good pallet of sound without tweaking or programming.

Hope this helps a little.

Sorry. I just misunderstood the whole question and got confused.

If you mix two oscillator signals the frequency isnt summed, only the components are summed. You'll have to think the mix result as a sum of the frequency components (in theory every signal can be represented as an infinite sum of sine waves of different frequencies in which one sine wave is one component).

So for example if you have two patches with followin osc settings:

Patch 1: Osc 1 = Saw +0, Osc 2 = Square +12
Patch 2: Osc 1 = PWM -12, Osc 2 = PWM + 7

There shouldn't be any problem in mixing those two patches. To say it in general: As long as the patches are in right tune (i.e. not transposed or heavily detuned), there shouldn't be anykind of problems.

Am I on the right track here?

As I said, just a misunderstanding. I'm not trying to start a fight here. As I wrote on my third posting I got confused and really had difficulties in understanding the whole issue. This means that the second post wasn't actually even pointed to you. People tend to make mistakes. No need to take everything very personally.

hehe...
sorry, and thanks to both of yous....

thats what i was after, but i didnt really explain well to start with :)

i do tend to start of with 1 sound at a time from scratch then shape the sound and use a lot of detuning too to get the noises im after.
but its when im creating new sounds to use in the song with it, that i find it difficult to match.
i make alot of idmish stuff and electro, so i need those melancholy sounds..

hollowcell.. i am starting to find now after a year of having the indigo that i'm building a library of sounds i can recall and work fairly well, its just that i like building sounds from scratch
btw, ure not the hollowcell that hosts the akai site?