The Eat at Joe's Kawai K5000 Message Board Digest
The 65th-128th Harmonics
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harmonics above 64
Thursday, 20-Nov-97 05:04:29
Message:
208.254.224.181 writes:
Has anyone ever found any use for the 65-128 harmonics that you can select for
ADD sounds? Only one of the preset patches seems to use them and they
barely seem make any difference in the sound. To tell the truth, I can't even
really hear alot of them. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Does anyone know
what they're for or has used them in a productive manner?
Why did they bother to put them in there?
kenjib@rocketmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Harmonics above 64
Thursday, 20-Nov-97 19:58:38
199.86.47.114 writes:
Because they make the synth twice as powerful. :>
Which patch uses 65-128?
My notes:
All of harmonics 65-128 fall within a single octave, the one beginning 6 octaves
above the fundamental. There's only one octave (128) and one fifth (96).
Most of the rest are microtonal; there are 5 or 6 harmonics for each semitone
(more at the top, fewer at the bottom). With semitone-wide bands, even the
formant filter might be a bit crude.
Becuase the harmonics are so close in frequency, there's a lot of "beating". This
goes away if you take out the odds or evens and leaves a much nicer, metal or
crystal bell-like tone.
For notes above A3, the A below middle C (C4), the K5k seems to cut out. I'm pretty
sure it isn't my ears or equipment, becuase the dropout is too sudden.
At that point, the lowest frequency is at about 14k, so there should be half an
octave left.
I think for most natural sounds, 65-128 are too low in amplitude to make much
difference. For an ideal sawtooth or square wave, the amplitude of harmonic n
is 1/n, so the 65th harmonic has 1/65th the amplitude of the fundamental, which
must be pretty hard to hear.
One of the things I wanted to do with it is play supper low notes, around C(-6),
so that the harmonics are just within hearing but suggest a note way, way
down. But--the machine stops at C(-1) and plays the same note if you go any lower.
I guess they might be good for a low gong. Any other suggestions?
leiter@skypoint.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frequency range stops at 10000 Hz
Tuesday, 01-Dec-98 15:23:36
130.67.68.47 writes:
Just want to hear if anyone else has a problem with poor treble sound. My own
K5000R seems to give up around 10000 Hz or slightly below. If I play a source with
only the 64th harmonic activated, there is no sound above D3 = 147 Hz, so
this means no sound above 147 Hz * 64 = 9408 Hz.
I bypass the DCF, bypass effects, and the bias of the formant filter is set to
-63. Any ideas about some other parameter that can be tweaked in order to awaken
the remaining frequencies up to 20000 Hz?
Tore
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Frequency range stops at 10000 Hz
Thursday, 03-Dec-98 00:42:34
153.35.138.172 writes:
Yeah, some of my sounds with a high frequency content start to "mellow" out around
E5. I also fiddled around with various parameters to try and get my harmonics
back, but with no success so far. Are the higher order harmonics just too
highly pitched for the K5000 to generate when the fundamental is oscillating
around E5?
jon
jonwest@vcu.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Re: Frequency range stops at 10000 Hz
Thursday, 03-Dec-98 21:12:35
209.214.60.64 writes:
Definitely yes.
Terry
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frequency range stops at 10000 Hz & more on phase....
Thursday, 03-Dec-98 21:51:19
153.35.138.96 writes:
That's too bad. I think that the oscillators should hold up at least over the
normal range of the keyboard. It makes me wonder what the use of having oscs
65~127 is when 1~64's upper harmonics start cutting out in the upper range of the
K5000S's keyboard.
I would much, much rather have the second set of oscillators available for cos
waves (so sines and cosines were available)to get the phase relationships right
than have the ultra high harmonics that will just cut out.
Speaking of phase, some of you may remember the discussion about that subject that
took place here awhile back.
Here's an update, I went to the library and read up on the subject. I found several
texts on aural perception and here's what I found:
1. The older the text, the less the effect of phase on perception of timbre. The
really old texts are the ones that say it doesn't matter at all.
2. The newer texts (last 5~10 years) really shift the focus from examining
situations where phase does matter (this used to be considered the unusual
situation) to situations where it doesn't matter (this is now the slightly odd
situation).
This really didn't come as a surprise to me. If anyone has doubts about this I
would suggest using the additive JAVA page leiter found
(http://www.nst.ing.tu-bs.de/schaukasten/fourier/en_idx.html) to test it out.
The applet gives you control over sines and cosines (& therefore phase). If you
replicate a waveform with the proper phase relationships you get one sound and if
you use only sine waves (adjusted with the proper spectral amplitudes like
we do with the K5k) you get a second differing sound. It's true that the second
sound has some of the flavor of the first but it's sort of like sugar vs
nutrasweet. Not the same.
I don't mean to sound too down on the K5k, all synths have their limitations
(usually having something to do with shortcuts taken in the design process to
save $). It's better to focus on what a synth can do, and the K5k can do alot.
It's just not the perfect additive machine....
jon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harmonics 64-127
Sunday, 06-Dec-98 23:59:45
166.55.9.59 writes:
I actually think that those upper harmonics are very important. Listen to my
ADDSaw patches. I it uses two sources to get the full range of harmonics. Actually
I think there are two of each for detuning purposes (two 0-63 and two 64-127).
Play the lower half of the keyboard. Now disable the two sources that are used for
the upper harmonics. The change in the sound is dramatic. I think that low notes
sound much much better with the full range of harmonics!!!
-Kenji
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------