"sometimes i wish" — WIP?

[beefinator]

So I haven't used sunvox in a while; got bored a couple days ago and started this:

https://soundcloud.com/anguslocke/sometimes-i-wish

100% synthesized real-time. The only sound sources used are generators and analog generators (and one kicker, but not for percussion).

Thought I'd post it here because it includes some interesting methods and tricks.

First I'll mention the bass drum: I don't use any kickers. I prefer another alternative, because it offers more control. This trick takes advantage of the generator's P(itch) modulation parameter. One generator is the actual oscillator—sine waves, in this case. A secondary generator is set to a custom Dirty waveform—all 32 steps set to maximum. So that second generator, it's not really an oscillator, but a constant offset. Here's the trick: on the secondary generator, set sustain off, turn up the release some. Then route that into the other generator, and turn on the primary generator's P Modulation some. Make a multisynth trigger both simultaneously, and you effectively get a kicker, but one that allows for much more control over the sound.

The snare uses this trick as well. When synthesizing snares I always base it off of how a real snare drum works. A snare drum first has the actual drum part, which in synthesis can be modeled the same way as a small kick, just higher pitch. And then there's the wire snares of the drum, which provide the noisy rattle. So that's what I've done in the song: there's a generator that makes a burst of noise, and a pair of generators doing the manual-kicker technique. Then lots of distortion and filtering and stuff.

I think the hats turned out really nice on this one. For hats, the first instinct is to use noise generators. The works to an extent, especially with very resonant highpass filters thrown in. But I've done something different here. What I've done is based off of what's done in the TR-808 (among other drum machines). You just have a bunch of squarewave oscillators, all detuned to random frequencies—not at all harmonically related. It's random, so it's reminiscent of noise, but has a distinct metallic ringing quality. Set all those with a short release, and triggered by a multisynth, throw on a highpass filter, and there are some hats.

And now for the square wave arpeggiated line, which I think uses a very cool trick.
You might hear that there's some pulse width/duty cycle modulation going on. But this isn't done with parameter control commands. This is automatic, and smooth, not quantized to lines in the sequence.
The twist: the analog generator used for this squarewave synth is actually set to a sawtooth wave. One method to synthesize a square/pulse wave is to take a sawtooth wave, give it a phase shift, and then subtract it from itself. So what I did was take the sawtooth analog generator and branch it into an amplifier that inverts it, which is them mixed back with the original with a filter. How did I get the phase shift? One could use the delay module, but that would be a constant delay, and so a constant phase shift. Instead, I used a flanger on the inverted sawtooth. A flanger is essentially just a delay that varies over time. So if you set the flanger to 0% dry, 100% wet, and no feedback, you just get an time-varying offset on what you put into it. That's how I got the smooth, automatic PWM.

I guess I'll touch upon everything else in the song, while I'm at it.
The synth at the very beginning is nothing more than a squarewave.
The bassline that comes in near the middle is just a sawtooth wave mixed with a filtered squarewave—the sawtooth provides the bass, and the squarewave has a resonant lowpass filter with an envelope, running into a distortion to lower the sample rate and get the nice aliasing (the almost vocal quality) and then into a highpass filter, just for some upper-range content.
The shriek-y sort of sound that plays briefly at the beginning of a couple measures is a triangle wave P-modulated by noise, giving it the hissing quality. It's then filtered with lots of resonance and then run thru distortion, for even more shriek.
The chords at the end are just a reverb-y sawtooth wave, but also a kicker used harmonically. That's hardly ever done, as far as I know. But it works well here with the rapidly triggered chords—it stays somewhat in tune on the repeated triggers, and then gives the interesting pitch-dropping tail to the chords.


TL;DR, I've experimented with some (I think) unconventional techniques in this, perhaps you might find some of them useful.

[xaccrocheur]

Sounds like white magic Thanks for the tips, beefinator.

[nopcorp]

Any chance of uploading the Sunvox file?

[xaccrocheur]

Any chance of uploading the Sunvox file?

+1, I'd really like to look under the hood while it's running