Pseudo Formant Synthesis 4 Fun and Profit

[Luca_Capozzi]

Hi guys.
Here are some tips to use basics of formant synthesis for our filthy fun purposes :twisted:
First of all, here are an introduction to formant synthesis from Sound On Sound
Read it carefully to understand how basically Formant Synthesis works.

Now, we can try with a little experiment on our little synth :)

Note: this kind of synthesis can be made usually on any synths that lets you to put more than a bandpass filter in series. For the rest of this tutorial I'll explain how to do that on a Kurzweil using VAST Engine.

The experiment is: Creating a Dirty&Nasty Organish Sound

Create a new patch and select ALG #5. This seems to be the closer one for our purposes. Now put down Bandpass filters in the two modules. The algo now looks like that:

[PITCH]-[BANDPASS FILT]-[BAND2]-[AMP]

Now go on KEYMAP page and select waveform 151 Sawtooth. I've used this waveform because Saw have full harmonics, but this choise aren't mandatory. You can use any waveform you like, but for this test I suggest to use this one.

Leave the KEYMAP page and return to ALG page. Now lets edit parameters of first Bandpass filter.
What we're going to made is to take control over filter cutoff with our sliders. Leave CutOff on C-2, set SRC1 on Data (you can use quick selection simply pressing Cancel+Enter and, without leave'em, moving the slider), then set the Depth about 3 octave above (3600ct).

Now press F2 WID soft button to set the wideness of our first filter. Leave Adjust to default value and, then, change SRC1 to same slider we've used previously. Now set Depth to a reasonable value. I've used 0.60ct.

Now go to our second Bandpass filter and perform the same settings as for first filter. For our second BPF we don't have a WID page.

Finally, you can save your patch.

Try to play some notes moving the data slider. You can see how the sound changes.

Now, simply copy this layer until you'll get eight layers. For each one, set the correct slider so you can modify filters cutooff for each layer.

Ex.:
- Layer 1 -> Slider A
- Layer 2 -> Slider B
...
- Layer 8 -> Slider H

Ok. Now we can save our patch. Try to joke around with sliders.. pretty cute, but.. the sound seems too plane.

How to give it more harmonics?
The simplest way is to set pitches of our layers from Layer 1 = -48ST to Layer 8 = +36ST. In this way we obtain that Layer 1 is four octave down standard sound lasts to Layer 8 that will be 3 octave upper. Is a "dirt" way to emulate organ harmonics. To do so, open the KEYMAP page of each layer and modify Xpose value.

Save your patch and lets play :)
Now you have your Dirty&Nasty Organish Sound.

Try this sliders setting playing first Erotomania chords ;):

A: 9 - B: 6 - C: 8 - D: 6 - E: 5 - F: 7 - G: 8 - H: 6

Patch File: AxPseudoFormant - Dirty&Nasty Organish Sound

Sample File performed by Enigma

See ya

[Tusker]

\m/