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Realtime Controller: It’s all about how you do what you do

When Keith Emerson started using the big Moog Modular Synthesizer live on stage at his ELP concerts, Bob Moog was quite surprised. Why? Well, he had designed these large boxes with their countless plug-in panels, knobs and switches primarily for broadcast purposes. They were also intended for use in recording studios. Construction and durability for the stage was not yet intended, and he was afraid that Keith Emerson would have problems with the Moog Modular. Even during transportation, he had doubts as to whether this could be handled properly at rock concerts. At an ELP concert near Bob’s hometown, he took the opportunity to see it in person. He was visibly impressed by Keith’s performance and how he used the Moog Modular. Perhaps he had also listened to audio recordings of the ELP concert at the now legendary Isle of Wight Open Air Festival. You can hear some of the Moog Modular’s operational problems. However, both Keith and the technical crew obviously mastered these problems quite well.

In any case, he remained in close contact with Keith in the following years. And since he was fascinated by the idea of being able to use synthesizers on stage, he developed several prototypes, together with Herb Deutsch, for a small portable keyboard instrument. This was inferior to the Moog Modular in terms of sonic possibilities, but at least it contained the most important components and functions of the Moog Modular – and was compact, portable and easy for musicians to understand and operate.

It was to become the famous Minimoog when he was finished with his concepts. The great advantages of the Minimoog combined with its great sound brought the desired success for everyone. The parameters were all pre-wired or accessible via switches. And the controls were dimensioned in such a way that they were easy to reach even on poorly lit stages and could also be operated while playing. Basically, this was the prototype of a controller keyboard. The only difference was that it also had sound generation.

Why a controller keyboard? Well, they are parameters that are operated with the knobs and switches, but they are the very important parameters of a synthesizer sound. Later, synthesizers became more and more packed with such controls and today they are often displays with a myriad of parameters that you have to operate via menu navigation if you want to make changes to the sounds. However, the abundance of these parameters made it difficult to use them for dynamic sound changes during a performance. And that was precisely the problem. Why was that? Well, the sound alone, such as a finished preset, is only half the battle. Only the intention of playing it dynamically and thus serving the musical idea was largely prevented. How could this situation be improved in favor of the artist?

This is how it worked: in the meantime, some synthesizer manufacturers thought that a handful of special controllers would be a good idea. They were to be assigned important parameters in the desired intensity and range so that they could be called up and used by hand and foot during a performance. The Yamaha DX7 was one of the first synthesizers to offer something like this. It was probably a case of necessity being made into a virtue. Because completely digital access to parameters is not useful as a dynamic tool during a performance. Today, there are keyboard instruments with a more extensive range of controllers, and with master keyboards this is sometimes too much of a good thing.

Now, when using a sound, it’s not the what that matters – it’s the pure sound itself – but the how and what you do while using it to play your music or composition. A need was recognized here and implemented as an example, initially as a Minimoog. Although this was probably not meant to be so specific at the time. Today, the controller arsenal of a keyboard can be fantastically adapted to your own purposes. For example, certain modulations of filter functions can be assigned to one controller, envelope parameters to another, effects and their intensity to another. To use them elegantly and conveniently for your own music during the performance without any fuss. As a dynamic tool to represent the viruosity, to enable interesting sound variations during an improvisation. With MIDI recording, this can also be done in a second step by recording controller data on an extra track after the music has been recorded.

If you are clever, then this happens with a certain standardization. You simply think about which sound category should be controlled in a particularly clever and targeted way. With a lead synth sound, for example, it makes sense to assign this quick and convenient access via controller to Filter Curoff and Resonance. And perhaps Attack Time to a different one, but with a very small range. So as not to have too coarse control steps at the start. Switching a second oscillator to another controller, the volume level of which can then be controlled using the controller. Or switch on the second oscillator using the On/Off button. Effects such as delay and reverb are also well suited to such a practical controller set. You can do the same with pads, or you can think of something else for them. For example, assign the release time to a controller. And add two or three more sounds via the controller to improve the dramaturgy options during the performance. Or control a bass in this way, for example by adding an octave. Switch on an extra attack sound or add it succesively using the controller or call up a fat unison sound. For pianos or percussive instruments such as guitars, you can also put together your own controller set, which you can use during performance. Operation is particularly easy if you standardize this and equip sounds of the same categories with identical controller assignments. Then you don’t have to memorize so many different controller assignments. If you have a synthesizer or a workstation in front of you where the presets are equipped with completely individual controller assignments, you can adjust them to your own needs. Otherwise you would have to memorize the settings of every single sound, but that is impossible.

So it depends on how you can use a sound for yourself. The sound alone is only half the battle. But with a great contriller assignm,ent it becomes the real fun and a signature sound full of character.

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FM Synthesis: It’s all about vibration

It was Dr. John M. Chowning who first discovered FM synthesis in the late 1960s. As a musician and composer, he was already working on his pieces with a computer system at Stanford University in Los Angeles. The sounds of the system were very sterile and he wanted to give them a bit of a boost and tried to do so with vibrato effects.

Although the computer available at the time was cutting-edge, it only offered simple sine waveforms, so Chowning experimented with two sine waves to which he assigned different pitches. The results were always a long time coming, as it took a while to calculate the result. This led to the magical moment when two sine waves connected together produced a completely different waveform, such as rectangles and bell-like inharmonics. So instead of continuing to use vibrato to make sterile sine sounds sound livelier, he shifted his experiments to generating different waveforms by means of linked sine waves and their tuning ratios to each other. The first results were reminiscent of the additive synthesis already known at the time, i.e. overtone spectra, but which could be produced far less expensively.

It quickly became clear that it was possible to create sounds that were reminiscent of conventional instruments, such as trumpets and flutes, instead of the typical synthetic sounds that analog synthesis was and is known for. At the beginning of the 70s, the matter was ready for patenting and not much later Yamaha became a licensee. The rest is history, because nothing has been the same since the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. And since then, musicians have been trying to create their own sounds with this FM synthesis. Most of them don’t succeed, having previously been told that this FM synthesis is difficult to understand. But that is not true.

FM synthesis is basically simple. And why do so many musicians fail to get to grips with it? Because you can’t learn FM synthesis, you have to experience it for yourself. Preferably in a playful way. But not completely without a plan. And you also need time. There’s a good chance that this will happen at some point, just like with chowning: Suddenly there it is, the magic moment. When the penny drops and you realize: Oops, that’s how it works?

Yes, that’s exactly how it works. However, it helps to have a little knowledge of acoustics, conventional musical instruments and, above all, patience and the drive to want to get to grips with FM synthesis in practice. Oh, so real work? Yes, but if you’re really serious about it and enjoy exploring things and just won’t rest, trusting that it will happen at some point. When will that be the case? They’ll know, guaranteed.

It’s about vibrations. Slow and fast, a combination of both. Carefully tuned and also randomly thrown in. Those that resonate with each other. And some that are brought to life through dynamics. The ear, with its highly sensitive ability to recognize the finest or coarsest movements and differences in temporal expansion, can show itself from its best side.

Chowning once said in an interview that you program an FM synthesizer with your ears. And that’s exactly what it is. You simply listen carefully to what you do with the parameters. Over time, you gain a wealth of experience that helps you to proceed in an increasingly targeted manner. The order in which you proceed is something you decide for yourself. FM is frequency modulation and that literally says it all. You are only dealing with frequencies that you can impose your own will on. You can determine their color, influence the duration of the sound development, whether any changes should take place over time and how dynamic control can influence it at any time.

So, we are talking about frequency modulation with only 2 operators. The operator with the carrier frequency is modulated by the second operator. So there is a relationship between these two, like two people having a dialog with each other. The tuning of the modulator therefore influences the sound of the operator that delivers the carrier frequency. Since the pitch of the modulator is normally set with the parameter Pitch or a similar parameter designation, you have a long list with which you can create almost any waveform. It doesn’t have to be an even value for Pitch, you can also use odd values.

All of this can also be found in nature. Ocean waves are created by deep trenches in the deep sea, plus winds above the water surface, both modulate each other and currents are created. Frequency modulation at its finest.

It doesn’t take long to realize that a large number of different waveforms can be generated with 2 operators alone. This does not include the frequencies of the carrier. Because this can also be tuned, just like the modulator. Given this multitude of possibilities, is it easy to lose track? Indeed, it is. FM synthesis instruments usually have more than just 2 operators, the DX7, for example, has 6 of them. So how do you keep an overview? Firstly, by getting a few empirical values. A ratio of 1:1 simply provides two sine waves, while 1:2 gives you a square wave. And so it goes on until it gets into the inaudible range.

Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll automatically remember the waveforms that you particularly like because you use them in your music. And others that somehow deliver the opposite, i.e. sound like they’ve been brushed against the grain. If you constantly play any phrase on the keyboard during these pitch experiments, you can immediately check what a currently set waveform is suitable for and which is less so. If you want to do more, try the carrier instead of the modulator and try out all possible ratios in relation to the modulator.

The bottom line is that theory and tangible practice work best together and are therefore easily memorized. A little trick here is to be decisive. No matter how many options there are with this tuning, you simply save a reasonably suitable waveform. This will definitely help at this point for later approaches. This way you create a pool of candidates. You can continue to work on them later when it comes to creating complete instruments.

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Copyright notice:

Sharing/reblogging is expressly desired. Reprinting, even in part, as well as any editing and commercial reuse are not permitted or require written permission from me.