My Recording Problems: Hum and Interference Noises.

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I got an M-Audio Fast Track USB to record sounds, but I was getting some humming noise and some interference. It's been driving me crazy trying to figure out how to fix it. Is it the unit? Is it my computer? Is it the cords? Is it noise from the electrical system and power strip?

So I've been trying all sorts of things including a ton of Google searches to see if I can find out the problem. I think I've finally narrowed things down tonight.

First, the advice was to remove everything from the computer (printers, speakers, etc.) and then test for noise. I thought that didn't really apply to me because I was using a laptop which has no printers or external items plugged in--except the things that I need to record and run my computer, e.g. power cord, usb mouse, Fast Track device, MIDI device. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that I had four or five items (if I plugged headphones into the laptop) plugged into the computer that could all be making the noise.

I thought at first it was the patch chords. I even went and bought a new one since the ones I had were over a decade old. I think it helped, but it didn't solve the problem.

So I unplugged everything except the Fast Track. With no other items plugged in, I got wonderful, beautiful silence. I was able to record with no interference, hum, or noise. Plugging the power cord in, I got hiss and pops--but no hum. Plugging the MIDI cord back in, I get the source of the hum.

So I've got two problems now:

1. If I want to record, I have to record on battery. That or find a way to clean up whatever the electrical interference is causing that noise in the recording. At least there's a workaround even if I don't like it.
   
2. I can't use MIDI while recording audio. This is a fairly major problem. I want to be able to record MIDI notes, clean them up, and then play the MIDI and record the resulting audio. To do that and keep everything correctly synched, I need to have the MIDI and audio both coming into the computer.

So I'll experiment with the power noise. We've got one of those Monster clean power strip things that I got talked into buying when we got our HDTV. Maybe that can help the interference noise when running all my keyboards and electronics.

As for the hum, maybe get a better USB cable? I honestly don't know. I'll have to research deeper on this one.

Inside Synthesis

Inside Synthesis is a blog with quite a few video tutorials on synthesis as well as reviews for synthesizer products including the Korg DS-10 on the Nintendo DS. I believe the videos were made specifically for this site: Sonic State, another synthesizer/music gear site.

These videos are very well done, and the guy who hosts them really seems to know is stuff and is surprisingly clear in his delivery of some very complex material.

Sadly, the videos are in a format that I can't seem to embed, but here are some direct links to four of the "Inside Synthesis" tutorials:

• Episode One : Your Korg MS-2000 is a Drum Machine
• Episode Two : Using LFOs as Sequencers
• Episode Three : Modular Synthesis - The Basics
• Episode Four : FM Synthesis - Part 1

I have no idea if the Inside Synthesis series will continue or not, but there's a lot of great stuff just in these 4 short videos. Hopefully "FM Synthesis - Part 2" will eventually show up.

Classic Synths: Oberheim OB-X & SonicProjects OP-X

In my previous post, I talked about making the opening growl sound from Rush's "Tom Sawyer." In looking up information about how the sound was made, I learned that it specifically came from the Oberheim OB-X synthesizer.

Wikipedia article on the OB-X synthesizer.

Looking a bit more into this synthesizer, I learned that it and other Oberheim synths were used by quite a few classic rock bands, including Rush ("Tom Sawyer"), Queen (Who were vehemently against synthesizers until they started using this from the "Flash Gordon" soundtrack on), Van Halen ("Jump" and the prelude, "1984") and Styx ("Come Sail Away"), among others.

This classic synthesizer has been recreated in software form as the SonicProjects OP-X.

You can go to their site an hear many samples of the software synthesizer including many recreations of famous synth sounds.

Here's a quick Youtube video of someone playing around with the virtual synth:

Creating a Sound: Tom Sawyer

So I've been learning about how to make sounds. I've been listening to songs trying to pick apart the sounds in my mind and trying to figure out how I might recreate them on my synthesizers. I figured I'd start with one of the most famous synth sounds of all time, the opening growl sound at the beginning of Rush's "Tom Sawyer":


I had no idea how to make that noise despite all the different books and tutorials I'd seen so far. So I did some searching and found this page that talks about recreating the sound:
Tom Sawyer Growl Sound

There's quite a long discussion on what was used to make the original sound, and some discussion on how to re-create the sound. From there I made my first attempt to recreate the sound. It really sounded awful compared to the original sound.

TomSawyerTake1.mp3

I think I ended up passing the sound through both a high and low pass filter essentially removing most of the sound and getting nothing but the growling noise. I had to add a second sound to try to add the low E back into the sound.

After studying the write-up on the page again, I went back and started again. The page talked about modulating Oscillator 1 with Oscillator 2. I attempted that by using the R3's Cross Modulation feature.

TomSawyerTake2.mp3

This still ended up more of a hiss than a growl.

So I went back and looked some more. He talked about Rush using the Oberheim OB-X synthesizer. I found that there's a virtual version of the classic synthsizer here:
Sonic Projects OPX

I'll post more about that synth later, but using that plug-in I could see how they programmed that particular patch more carefully and attempt to recreate it on the R3. Here's the Tom Sawyer patch on the virtual Oberheim:

TomSawyerOPX.mp3


So once again I went back to start over. This time I tried to match the settings of the OP-X virtual synth with my R3 editor. The biggest difference this time was this time setting the patch to monophonic with 4 unison voices. The Oberheim has 6 which gives it a slightly more powerful sound, I believe. And then adding a slight LFO while holding out the sound.

TomSawyerTake3.mp3

It's still not completely right, but much closer to the original sound. It's amazing how just tweaking one or two little parameters can have a major effect on the sound which is why it's hard to get it completely accurate.

And just for fun, I tried to recreate it on my Korg DS-10 as well, this time just by ear.

TomSawyerDS.mp3

Yikes.

Korg DS-10

The Korg DS-10 is a virtual synthesizer for the Nintendo DS. It was something that seemed like a semi-interesting novelty when it was released last year, but beyond knowledge on what to do with it. Just look at the picture to the right with all the knobs and virtual wires. However, having now gained a basic understanding of how synthesizers work, those knobs actually made sense to me. I'd read about musicians using this as a sort of "sketch pad" to work on ideas while travelling with an extremely portable synthesizer. So I decided with my new-found knowledge of synthesizers, it might be a fun little tool to invest in. I don't have any songs to show off with it yet, but I've gathered a ton of information about it.

Demonstration trailer:


One general tutorial/overview:


Another general tutorial/overview from IGN:


And I couldn't embed it, but here's another great review from someone who really understands synthesizers:
http://insidesynthesis.blogspot.com/2008/09/korg-ds-10-review.html

The people who released the games have also been releasing a series of tutorials called "Synthesizer 101".

Lesson 1: Pitch


Lesson 2: VCO


Lesson 3: VCF


Lesson 4: EG (Envelope Generator)


Lesson 5: EG Part 2


Lesson 6: VCA


Advanced Lesson 7: Patch Mode


Advanced Lesson 8: Patch Mode 2

Programming Analog Synthesizers

Video on programming Analog Synthesizers


How to program analog synthesizers from Ethan Winer on Vimeo.

Some Musical Experiments

So here are a few quick musical kernels or experiments from playing with my new equipment. Most of these are 10 - 30 seconds at most. They are just me jotting down some ideas. So could be expanded to full songs later on, and some are just for me to try out some various tools and techniques.

Experiment 1: This was mainly to test setting up MIDI tracks, audio tracks, and multiple tracks in Sonar. So it's a lot of noise but uses the R3 for synth and vocoder, some microphone vocals, a drum track within Sonar, and some random effects. It also uses the R3's appegiator and making sure I can synth Sonar's MIDI clock with my synthesizer. So it's a lot for just 10 seconds of audio mess.


Experiment 2: 12-29-08 take 1. This is capturing a piano riff I was playing with a few days earlier. It's also an attempt and playing with some dials while recording MIDI playback and some reverb effects on the drum.


Experiment 3: 12-29-08 take 2. This is me playing with the vocodor through the arppegiator to use my voice as a rhythm track.


Experiment 4: 01-04-09. I honestly have no idea what I was doing here. It's only been a few weeks, but I barely remember doing this.


Experiment 5: 01-11-09. I had the rhythm and bass in my head before sitting down to do this. I couldn't find anything good for the melody, so I'm pretty sure I created the lead sound on my own to fill in until I flesh it out further.


Experiment 6: 01-18-09. Another one where I had the tune in my head before adding other things to it. I wasn't sure if I wanted the melody here to be a bass line or a melody line. So right now it's a deep sound that could go either way.


And here's the first full length track that I more-or-less completely finished. Other than the drums, it comes almost completely from factory setting sounds on the R3. I created one or two sounds to fill in a few gaps. This is a medley of the first three levels of the 80s arcade game, "Marble Madness," one of the first game soundtracks that I remember that used an analog synthesizer soundtrack.


Direct links to the files:
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Experiment 3
Experiment 4
Experiment 5
Experiment 6
Marble Madness Medley

Putting A Studio Together

So I've got a synthesizer. I'm beginning to learn how to use it. Now I need to find a way to capture what I'm doing. I need a few things:

1. A way to record MIDI. That is, to capture the notes I'm playing on the keyboard to clean and fix them before recording the audio.
   
2. A way to record audio.
   
3. A way to put multiple tracks together to make a song.

So I found the M-Audio Fast Track USB audio interface. It's got a direct line for things like keyboard or guitar, as well as a microphone port for voice and acoustic instruments. It works fairly well, other than I currently get a high-pitched hum when capturing audio that I haven't been able to filter out yet.

Then I got some software, Cakewalk Sonar, home studio for digital recording, sequencing, MIDI, and all sorts of things, including the ability to use Software Synthesizers (virtual synthesizers that only exist through software emulation) and other effects including virtual drums. When I was 17 I got one of the first versions of Cakewalk on our first PC. The product is nearly unrecognizable now from that early version, but I do have some history with it.

I'm still trying to figure out just the simplest options in Sonar, but I've figure out enough to start putting some music together.

Sounds of Analog Synthesizers

As a keyboard player, I've always been fond of any band that has keyboard and synthesizers. Whether it's strictly piano-based (Ben Folds, Tori Amos) or all synth (Thomas Dolby, Moog Cookbook). Usually I prefer a good mix of traditional instruments with keyboards (Jellyfish, Yes). I mentioned that I'd had many keyboards and synthesizers in the past. None of them, to my knowledge, were analog-based. Analog synthesizers have a different feel than any others. They sound more electronic, less "real" than other synthesizers that try (and often fail) to imitate natural sounds and instruments. For some reason I've always been drawn to the analog sound, without ever specifically realizing it.

Here's a few of my favorite examples of songs and music with analog synthesizers.

One of the earliest synthesizer hits, "Popcorn" by Hot Butter:


Moog Cookbook, a novelty band with one of my favorite artist, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., covered many Grunge and classic rock songs on vintage synthesizers:


Air is another really great band who's album "Moon Safari" is a great combination of analog sounds and acoustic instruments. Here's a couple of my favorites. "La Femme d'Argent":


"Kelly Watch The Stars" (which uses a vocoder. Seeing a live version of this song is where I first remember seeing a vocoder actually used for the first time.):


Something a little newer, Chateau Marmont "Anything & Everywhere":


One of the earliest completely electronic themes, "Dr. Who":


And just for fun, here's Moog Cookbook's remix of Air's "Kelly Watch The Stars." Someone has added an unrelated video to the song, but it makes it all the more fun and funny:

Book: Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook

When I finally got the R3, there were dozens of buttons and knobs on the top and a giant manual that talked about how all these knobs could control things like "Resonance" and "Filter cutoff" and "LFO frequency." I had no idea what any of that was. So I went online to search for something that could teach me. I was a bit surprised that I couldn't easily find much on-line, but I was able to find several books on the subject.

I started with "Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook" ordered from Amazon. It actually came signed directly from the author himself which was pretty cool. His specific site can be found here. With this book I was able to learn the basic fundamentals of what's called "subtractive synthesis" which is how most analog synthesizers from way back in the 60 & 70s (e.g. Moog synths) work.

It also has a large section of "recipes" for common sounds which you can use to create your own patches on most analog-style synthesizers. I've programmed in quite a few at this point, and it's been very helpful learning how to create and shape sounds. The only problem is that all synthesizers label and measure things slightly differently and there is no audio reference with the included CD to know if the sound you are creating has turned out correctly or not.

Still, it's a great reference and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to get started in the world of analog synthesizers.

Korg R3 Resources

Here's some stuff I've found for the Korg R3:

• Korg's Official Site
  - All the marketing stuff as well as support. Also links to manual and sound library software.
  
• Korg R-3 Yahoo Group - A little slow, but there's a great library of patches contributed from the group.
• YouTube official overview video:
  
• Some audio clips showing off the R3

Blog Introduction

Hello everyone. I'm a keyboard player. I've been playing piano since the age of 6 or 7, taking formal lessons until I was 16. At that time I got my first keyboard, an awful Casio thing that I didn't know wasn't very good. Since then I've had many other better synthesizers and keyboards that I've used to create music. Eventually I sold most of them and until recently only owned a digital piano.

One thing I've never done in over 18 years of playing with synthesizers is actually learn about the fundamentals of electronic music and synthesis. I've never learned how to create my own sounds or how those sounds are produced.

In late 2008, my family and I casually stopped into a music store/guitar center while we were waiting for a particularly long haircut queue. I found a cool little keyboard with a built in microphone/vocoder. It was the Korg R3 (pictured above). That few minutes of playtime I had with it inspired my wife to find one for me for Christmas. In anticipation of receiving the synthesizer, I started to look more into it by reading reviews and watching YouTube clips. I realized that this synth was actually a lot cooler than just a keyboard with a microphone. And suddenly I realized that if I was going to get any real use out of it, I'd better learn as much as I can.

That has currently opened a Pandora's Box for me as I've recently begun learning more about things like subtractive synthesis, LFOs, Oscillators, and other elements of classic analog synthesizers. It's captured my attention and I decided to create this blog as a sort of journal as well as a gathering place for me to put all the great information I'm learning about synthesizers. So this blog is mainly for me, but maybe it will help others who are looking for similar information to assist them in learning about synthesizers.