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 Forum index » Clavia Nord Modular » G2 Building Blocks
Oscillator Warmth Circuit
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Tim Kleinert



Joined: Mar 12, 2004
Posts: 1148
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Audio files: 7
G2 patch files: 236

PostPosted: Fri May 22, 2009 6:14 pm    Post subject:  Oscillator Warmth Circuit
Subject description: Tone control for oscillators. Beef up the G2 sound!
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Hi,

Many folks have been complaining about the overall "cold" and "digital" sound of the G2 -and I've been one of the loudest. Laughing

The most well known remedy for this issue has always been Rob Hordijks "tilt filter" circuit. But as much as I appreciate this design, I always disliked the fact that it is a post-processing effect arbitrarily slapped onto the mix in the FX section, making it sound like a static sonic overlay to my ears. So I began wondering if there wouldn't be a method to warm up oscillators from within.

After hours of pondering and experimentation, I found a solution: a correctly tweaked PhasingFilter tuned to the oscillator, with it's spread and feedback parameters thus neatly acting as a tone control. It offers tweakability of the amount of processing applied, as well as the frequency bandwidth of this processing, thus giving complete control over boosting the lower and softening the higher "buzzy", "digital sounding" frequencies. With the appropriate setting, the oscillator thus just sounds warmer and seems to have more "pressure" behind it.

The PhasingFilter is rather costly DSP-wise, but imho the results are well worth the investment. After working with this technique for a few hours and building a simple "analogue-style" polysynth based on it, the basic G2 oscillators just sound like a joke to my ears.

This synth can be found here:
http://electro-music.com/forum/post-245901.html

Exclamation The oscillator and the tone control filter have to be in tune with each other. Only use the MasterOsc module for manual pitch adjustment and pitch modulation. Do not change osc or filter frequency separately, and make sure their KBT is kept turned off.

arrow Tweak Warmth amount and Warmth bandwidth to taste. Zero amount equals the original signal (obviously Laughing), so toggling the level button lets you A/B the processing.

Exclamation The osc shapes will look very warped on a scope. This is due to phase-shifting of partials caused by the PhasingFilter, and has no influence on the sound whatsoever, so it's nothing to worry about.


Have fun Smile

cheers,
tim

EDIT: The output seems rather low. I ran a DualOsc through it initially for testing, which has way more output, so I had to turn down the level knob of the PhasingFilter in order to prevent it from clipping. You can turn it back up to get more signal from a basic oscillator. Just make sure the filter doesn't go into clipping (like when using the DualOsc, as I did).


Osc-Warmth TK.pch2
 Description:
Tone control for oscillators. Beef up the G2 sound!

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 Filename:  Osc-Warmth TK.pch2
 Filesize:  1.54 KB
 Downloaded:  1924 Time(s)

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dorremifasol



Joined: Sep 28, 2006
Posts: 814
Location: Barcelona, Spain
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G2 patch files: 49

PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Does the band width have a well defined functionality? I'm not sure if it has to be tweaked as well.

It would be nice to have an "analog" oscillator module (or macro), with all the imperfections inherent to them, configurable. Clavia focused too much into delivering perfect oscillators. Maybe in the next modular (lol)?

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Albert
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Tim Kleinert



Joined: Mar 12, 2004
Posts: 1148
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Audio files: 7
G2 patch files: 236

PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

dorremifasol wrote:
Does the band width have a well defined functionality? I'm not sure if it has to be tweaked as well.


The effect of the bandwidth control is dependent on the amount control. The higher the amount, the more the bandwidth effect. It is most clearly noticeable on waveforms with a lot of harmonics. To my ears it has a clearly noticeable functionality, otherwise I wouldn't have included it. Smile However, feel free to leave it out if you don't need it. This is a modular synth. Smile

dorremifasol wrote:
It would be nice to have an "analog" oscillator module (or macro), with all the imperfections inherent to them, configurable. Clavia focused too much into delivering perfect oscillators. Maybe in the next modular (lol)?

Well, my strategy right now is to patch these things myself and make up for the increase in DSP demand by buying extra G2s. Laughing
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dorremifasol



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PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

tim wrote:
The effect of the bandwidth control is dependent on the amount control. The higher the amount, the more the bandwidth effect. It is most clearly noticeable on waveforms with a lot of harmonics.


I see, now I understand what's for. Thanks Smile

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dorremifasol



Joined: Sep 28, 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 5:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I'm still trying to understand this trick.

So, if I'm not mistaken, what you do here is to emphasize the fundamental frequency of the oscillator?

Wouldn't do almost the same adding a frequency synchronized bandpass filter to the signal?

Please see the attached file, it's only a test over a work in progress patch.


Mopho2b.pch2
 Description:
test

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 Filename:  Mopho2b.pch2
 Filesize:  2.29 KB
 Downloaded:  1557 Time(s)


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Tim Kleinert



Joined: Mar 12, 2004
Posts: 1148
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Audio files: 7
G2 patch files: 236

PostPosted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 6:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

dorremifasol wrote:
I'm still trying to understand this trick.

So, if I'm not mistaken, what you do here is to emphasize the fundamental frequency of the oscillator?

No, not just. It's like a frequency-dependent tilt-filter. The tilt filter is based on two 6dB fixed-frequency allpass filters with feed-forward to control the tilt slope.
In the phasing filter, you can select the number of notches. Each notch is also based on two 6dB allpass filters. When the feedback ("FB") parameter is in "notch" mode, it isn't a feedback but rather a feedforward control, just like the tilt filter. The "spread "parameter controls the then frequency spread between the allpass filter frequencies and thus the bandwidth of the attenuation.
Actually, you could also patch this with a 6dB lowpass filter, and some inverters and adders. It even would be more efficient cycles%-wise, but way more costly mem%-wise. Also, it wouldn't offer the opposite functionality (except with even more circuitry): to attenuate the lower spectrum of the oscillator and enhance the highs. Which this trick can do too. And sometimes I disconnect the phaser from KBT and use it as a fixed formant generator. Multi-purpose. Smile

Quote:
Wouldn't do almost the same adding a frequency synchronized bandpass filter to the signal?

This is also a good trick. However, this just adds, but does not attenuate.
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dasz



Joined: Oct 16, 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

tim,

I like this warming trick. hats off to you. salut
/Dasz
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