More on harmonics

[oblioblioblio]

Also, it does seem like that a few people did get intimidated by the knowledge of some people here.

the thing with the knowledge is that anyone can find their level.

i'm not much of a scientist. and i'm not much of an engineer.

but to dabble a little bit is interesting.

and most complicated things can make obvious sense to most people. Say, the Fourier Transform series... the wikipedia pages are geared towards complex mathemacians. But if someone says to you, 'the fourier series... that's basically the theory that any complex waveform can be broken down into individual sine waves'. That's not so hard to understand.

And that kind of knowledge can be very useful when using electronic compositional tools.

[Ingemar]

one of the many things I find fascinating with music is the amalgation between knowledge and feeling. Even if you know it all there is no guarantee that you will make good music, and vice versa. To me music is that wonderful land in-between.

If nothing else, nothing else sparks my imagination like reading up on a technical trick or a physical explanation and playing around with it. For instance today I was trying to implement something I read about synthesising cymbals and ended up with a killer synth instead.

[steevio]

its worth remembering that the principal of harmonics is really simple.

i dont understand how it could be intimidating to anyone with even a basic understanding of how music works.

i can see how knowledge like this is often overlooked in the rush to achieve instant results, but its fairly basic stuff and probably should be one of the first things you learn about as a musician.

i recommend this book ;

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Sounds-Ha ... 0892819936

its not overly scientific but is totally grounded in theory, and has some really interesting stuff about how human vowel sounds are based on the harmonic series, our languages are harmonic, harmonics permeate everything in the universe.

dont be put off by the new age style cover and vibe of the book, this is a goldmine if you want to understand sound and how it relates to us humans.

[AK]

I was trying to implement something I read about synthesising cymbals and ended up with a killer synth instead.

That's similar to me, only I ended up with some kind of metallic timpani/taiko type drum sound which was almost chord like in nature. I added a sine under it to give it a more obvious fundamental and have a nice sampler patch now.

Obviously there are times when it's just not practical, impossible even to break a particular sound down but for simple sound design purposes it's proving more and more useful, esp on some of my newer percussive patches. Just by knowing what I have read in this thread and the links posted has given me some results in certain sounds which totally eluded me before.

[AK]

its worth remembering that the principal of harmonics is really simple.

i dont understand how it could be intimidating to anyone with even a basic understanding of how music works.

i can see how knowledge like this is often overlooked in the rush to achieve instant results, but its fairly basic stuff and probably should be one of the first things you learn about as a musician.

i recommend this book ;

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Sounds-Ha ... 0892819936

its not overly scientific but is totally grounded in theory, and has some really interesting stuff about how human vowel sounds are based on the harmonic series, our languages are harmonic, harmonics permeate everything in the universe.

dont be put off by the new age style cover and vibe of the book, this is a goldmine if you want to understand sound and how it relates to us humans.

Looks interesting. I'd be up for reading something like that.

[AK]

For instance, a sawtooth waveform is made up of multiple sines of certain frequencies and amplitudes, what has that got to do with doing anything by ear?

becuase you don't need to know any mathematical details to feel how the wave is sounding.

No but if you were say creating it from an additive synthesis approach you would need to know.

I'm all for doing things by ear, it's instinctive. I'm also for learning and knowledge. In fact an amalgamation of the 2 is probably the best blend in any scenario.

[Roqqert]

just do your thing..

there will always be lazy people who try to look down on you because you are not lazy and have the desire to learn.. there will always be the "a kickdrum is a kickdrum is a kickdrum" and the "cant you just sample a shaker" attitudes.. oh, i forgot the "make tracks not tools" and the "why bother making it when it there ready for you to use"

theres a universe to be discovered, so little inventors nowadays

This is thinking functionally. Don't get me wrong i'm a big lover of good sounding tracks, so i will notice the difference in timbre of a shaker or noise, but harmonics and wavesyntheses are like facts.. those are at some place and will stay there. You can't really drasticly change something out of it when boosting harmonics or whatever. Harmonics are the tones that are above the 'sine' wave of a sound. Like the character of the whole sound.

[AK]

just do your thing..

there will always be lazy people who try to look down on you because you are not lazy and have the desire to learn.. there will always be the "a kickdrum is a kickdrum is a kickdrum" and the "cant you just sample a shaker" attitudes.. oh, i forgot the "make tracks not tools" and the "why bother making it when it there ready for you to use"

theres a universe to be discovered, so little inventors nowadays

This is thinking functionally. Don't get me wrong i'm a big lover of good sounding tracks, so i will notice the difference in timbre of a shaker or noise, but harmonics and wavesyntheses are like facts.. those are at some place and will stay there. You can't really drasticly change something out of it when boosting harmonics or whatever. Harmonics are the tones that are above the 'sine' wave of a sound. Like the character of the whole sound.

I'm confused by this, this isn't what anybody was even saying in this thread.

I think everybody knows what harmonics are, that was never the question. I initially asked what the formula was for various waveforms as I am experimenting with additive synthesis etc. Later we seem to be discussing whether there is any value in actually knowing or not. I know for a fact that what I'm doing requires that I do.

Very strange.