WolframAlpha FM Synthesizer | Hacker News Reader

WolframAlpha FM Synthesizer

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61 pointsmgunes22 comments

While we're in the vein of FM Synthesizers, if anyone has MAX/MSP, it should come with an example patch called "X-FM~". If you modify things right you can get usable and interesting sounds.

In terms of other similar things to MAX/MSP (a visual audio programming interface, among other things), here's one for unix-likes, I believe (never used it, anyone know how good it is?)

http://puredata.info/

To answer your question, PureData is excellent.

It's good fun, but its tcl interface makes me want to cry.

The audio engine imparts a very specific sound upon everything that comes out of it, much like Max/MSP.

It was developed by one of the original Max/MSP authors. I think it was released after they left cycling74 amidst some sort of drama, but don't quote me on that.

Miller Puckette is the primary author of pure-data (pd)and the original author (while at IRCAM) of Max. In Max/MSP/Jitter, MSP is the DSP portion of the code, named in homage to Puckette. (Max itself is named in honor of Max Mathews.)

David Zicarelli's Cycling74 maintains the original Max tree, though their contribution far exceeds "maintenance". Puckette's pd is a rewrite of Max intended to transcend some architectural limitations; as its name suggests, its conception of "data" is more fully abstracted away from the C underpinnings still visible in Max/MSP. In my opinion, pd is a more mature architecture while Max is a more mature product.

As far as I know, the only drama in the timeline revolves around Opcode (particularly its sale to Gibson), which led Zicarelli to start Cycling74. Beyond that, my impression is of mutual respect.

The tradeoff between maturity and elegance is sometimes maddening, but both are worth exploring. Max has a 30-day trial and pd is gratis/libre.

Some development history, including detail possibly of interest to hackers: http://xavier.amatriain.net/Thesis/html/node77.html Miller Puckette: http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/ Max Mathews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mathews pure-data: http://puredata.info/ Max/MSP/Jitter: http://cycling74.com/

Yep. A lot of sounds tend to get that FM-synthesis flavor. I've found MAX/MSP to be useful when processing audio in realtime or using some pre-recorded stuff (some funky custom flanger on some piano recordings, for instance).

You can do really nasty things to samples with it as well.

Synthmaker is a good one too. http://synthmaker.co.uk/

Unfortunately it's windows only. It does have a lot of advanced capabilities you don't see in similar tools though, such as proper GUI elements and one-click VST export.

Have you tried Supercollider? It's an awesome DSL for doing all things audio.

http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/

vvvv is great ... there are some other graphical media interfaces out there as well, but PD and vvvv are the most er... popular? edit: oh yeah and supercollider!

Beware! I have the volume on my soundcard turned down (windows xp), but the 'Play sound' button didn't seem to honour that, and blasted out the synthesized sound extremely loudly into my headphones.

My trigonometry is lacking, but here's a challenge: Try and get some of the classic 808 noises out of wolfram alpha.

808 doesn't use FM, but VCOs with low pass filters (aka "analog synthesis"). Yamaha synths from the 80s, OTOH, were running on FM (the DX7 being the best known member of this large family). The most "interesting" FM synth probably was the original NED Synclavier, but it's rarer than the white tiger and was as expensive, back then (probably still costs an arm and a leg nowadays).

>808 doesn't use FM, but VCOs with low pass filters (aka "analog synthesis").

There are actually two ideas at play here. Manipulating a signal from a VCO, or any other 'analog' signal is called analog synthesis. These analog signals can be used as the source in other types of synthesis, including FM synthesis. FM synthesis tends to be done using digital signals because they are more stable, however.

Using high/low/band pass filters to filter your signal is called "subtractive synthesis" because you are subtracting frequencies from the original waveform.

> These analog signals can be used as the source in other types of synthesis, including FM synthesis. FM synthesis tends to be done using digital signals because they are more stable, however.

Yes, some analog synths of lore (EMS gear IIRC) could actually create FM sounds, but the oscillators limited stability made it unusable for musical sounds.

AFAIK The latest generation of Yamaha FM synths (SY/TG77, SY99) could apparently use any oscillators including audio samples for FM.

Unfortunately FM synth always were notoriously hard to program, because of the lack of intuitiveness of the sound behaviour (as opposed to oscillators and filters), that finally led to their demise.

> Using high/low/band pass filters to filter your signal is called "subtractive synthesis" because you are subtracting frequencies from the original waveform.

You're right, that's the proper term. By the way the Synclavier was altogether an FM, substractive and addditive synth :)

Side note, I'm wondering why additive synthesis never really get any significant foothold (who used a PPG? a Kawai K5?).

Additive synthesis is tedious, having to specify every harmonic and its relative strength. No surprises when doing additive, just lots of work. (I'm assuming you mean adding stacks of sine waves, rather than layering different patches on the same note)

The 808 has specialized synthesis circuits for every sound. Nowhere does it use a traditional VCO+Filter circuit AFAIK.

That's true, but on the other hand the principle of operation for these specialized circuits was actually a traditional (though of course simplified) bunch of oscillators or noise generators, with simple filters, all controlled by simple envelopes. There may have been a ring modulator (for the bell?) somewhere too :)

I was mainly thinking of the bass, which is simply a big fat sine wave with a lowpass, and then a short clicking noise at the start, which is basically just a sine as well.

You can replicate it well enough with just those two elements anyway.

The snare is just some white noise and a highpassed sinewave.

The bell definitely sounds like it has ring modulation. I seem to remember the cowbell being the hardest one to rip off. The toms were tricky as well.

On the other hand, my fake 808 had a dub siren built in, a tape delay, overdrive and it could do triplet beats. It was awesome. That whole lab class was most amusing.

The bassdrum is just an impulse exciting a lowpass filter at very high resonance. The clicking noise is generated by a specialized envelope that raises the pitch of the filter for the first few ms. The whole thing is then slightly overdriven to color the sound.

Filtering a sine wave makes little sense, as you'll only end up altering the volume (unless you take the phase respone of the filter into account but this should be barely audible).

That reminds me of the phase change synthesis of the Casio CZ :) I'm wondering if there's something (software or else) still able to do it?

Xoxos has a couple phase distortion synthesis VSTs. http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html

If you lack a VST plugin host, http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm is very bare-bones but does the trick for doodling away and http://reaper.fm/ by Justin Frankel (of Winamp fame) et al. is a more full-featured DAW that supports VSTs.

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