Have you ever wondered what a synthesizer and a percolator have in common?

In my opinion, the answer is that the better the filter, the better the result.

… ok, I guess that unless you have some knowledge on synthesizers you´ll be raising an eyebrow right now. At least my friend Carlos did so, and when I told him that a good synthesizer filter should be bubbly and sparkling he answered, “what the h*** are you talking about??” I think that a good sound is better than a thousand words, so I recorded him a small example of an analog filter in action. The sound below shows a single note which is being played all the time while I use a low pass filter to control its harmonic content. I adjusted the resonance of the filter so that it emphasizes the filter´s cutoff frequency, which allows you to go over the different tones of the harmonic series (it really does, but I tweaked the filter´s knob by hand, so it´s not very precise). After this long sound I also included a short sample where the filter sweeps quickly, so that you can hear that luscious, bubbly quality I was talking about… which reminds me that my coffee is waiting!

Click here to listen to the sound

If you are interested in how a typical analog synthesizer works, this tutorial should be a good starting point.

ps. A thousand kudos for whoever can tell me which synthesizer I made the sound with.

Tags:self , sound synthesis

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