Topic: testing some new tricks...
Trying to tackle the good old "volume control" problem. Think I might have found something...
- garvalf
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Re: testing some new tricks...
Nice effects. Is it a new engine or you're working on an old one?
3 2015-07-07 08:23:44 (edited by Shiru 2015-07-07 08:37:55)
Re: testing some new tricks...
Haven't look into the code, but an idea for volume control I had and never tried to implement is an evolution of what has been used in Tritone: mix channels by interleaving them, but change amount of time each channel takes. Time the code in a way that it does few outputs of each channel per one loop (or maybe few copies of the loop), and force some of these outputs to zero to attenuate the channel. I.e. we have channels A and B:
ABABAB full volume
ABAB0B mid A volume
AB0B0B low A volume
and so on.
Judging by the carrier tone that is heard in the test50.sna, is it something similar to the idea?
- utz
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Re: testing some new tricks...
@garvalf: It's an entirely new engine. Or rather, it will be eventually, as it still needs quite a bit of improvement and I don't really have the time to work on it these days.
@Shiru: Hehe no, this is quite different. Imagine you have two output states per channel. Now, if you inverse the phases of those outputs, you will hear - nothing. Which is logical, because one of the outputs will always be low and the other will always be high, so in combination the output state for that channel doesn't change. Well, I guess you can already deduce where this is going 
Shift the phase for one of the ouputs (ie start counting not at 0, but at #4000 or whatever) and voila. It also works with duty cycles other than 50:50, though then volume control gets more limited.
Overall I think the method you propose might be better sounding, but I somehow like this little trick
Re: testing some new tricks...
Interesting, so it is in fact one of the particular cases of what Phaser engine could do (duty control when phase reset is enabled).
More tricks the better, as they tend to sound different.
6 2015-07-07 11:43:38 (edited by Shiru 2015-07-07 11:43:56)
Re: testing some new tricks...
I thought why not to actually put the idea I explained above to the test, so here is proof-of-concept. I wouldn't say it sounds better, but it gives somewhat different timbres.
- AtariTufty
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Re: testing some new tricks...
Hi Shiru
I think it's the first time I've make contact with you, great work with the Qchan engine btw, I use it all the time 
I wouldn't have a clue about making a sound engine but it's still very interesting reading the posts
Utz - are you thinking of including volume variation into anteater or one of your other engines?
- utz
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Re: testing some new tricks...
@Shiru, I'd say yours is less noisy at low volumes, though still more noisy than I expected. I'm also surprised that the timbre changes just as much as with the phase shifting approach. Seems with the right ratios, some very interesting timbre effects can be created.
@AtariTufty: I'd love to put it in ntropic, along with proper 16-bit frequency counters. However in order to do so I'd need to build a few new registers into the Z80... So it'll probably really just become a new engine eventually.