The Secret Of The Overtone Synthesizer
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- A unit with no markings and a hearsay history found its way into my studio. It is unique and wonderful, but shrouded in mystery. I show what it can do, but can you help me uncover it's history? Featuring @HANGINGOUTWITHAUDIOPHILES aka Jamie Lidell
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AudioThing'd when??? 🙏🥺
I suspect it was an attempt at a stable, analogue Fourier synthesis generator. In principle, ANY repeating waveform can be made by mixing either sine or other simple waveforms with suitable frequencies, amplitude and phase. Early pioneers (I think including the "Cologne School") gave up because it was impossible to keep enough analogue oscillators in tune and in correct phase, and the idea was generally dropped until digital synthesis became possible. However, it sounds to me that this unit uses a series of phase-locked-loop VCOs to generate the necessary harmonic series, and it looks like a project of the early 1970s - a perfect topic of investigation for a University research student. Nice find, I envy you!
So theoretically you could "emulate" this beautiful machine by stacking phase-locked-loop VCOs in a modular environment, with the added bonus of flexible CV control and modulation. Awesome unit and sounds!
That's definetly what it was, an additive synthesizer. It gets it's fundamental frequency from the external sync input and then it can produce 16 overtones with the oscillators.
A more mordern equivalent would be the Kawai K5000.
Modal Synthesis, such as Mutable Instruments Element, is also based on some of the same principles, you have a bunch of resonators that creates the overtones when an exciting signal is input. And by carefully tuning all these resonators, you can produce all types of sounds.
I found this with a bit of looking, seems like it might apply based off what you all are saying:
What is Overtone?
When the human ear hears a single musical frequency or pitch, it also picks up a range of complementary pitches known as overtones.
The definition of overtone is when multiple tones are produced from one vibration source at different frequencies. Another term for overtone is a harmonic. In instrumental and choral music, overtones are an important acoustic part of creating harmonies and producing a fuller, richer sound.
Venues such as concert halls, churches, and cathedrals are constructed of stone and other hard surfaces to allow for reverberation, which enhances the ability of the human ear to hear overtones. The reverberation brings out the overtones because the reverberation enables the human brain the milliseconds it needs to distinguish overtone. This explains why someone singing in a tiled bathroom or shower sounds better than in a carpeted room.
@@Gin-toki I would say, beside the fact it's monophonic, it seems easier to program than a K5 or a K5000. I know, I have a K5 😁
@@FLH3official Given it's limitations, it's definetly easier to program, also from an educational perspective.
However it lacks a lot, such as envelope modulation of all parameters and much more :P
You should definitely make an AudioThing VST plugin out of this!
I would like it if you had the option of having a modelled version, but also had several gigs of samples. Would deffo be into that.
Please PLEASE publish high res photos of the PCB of one of those oscillator modules! Just seeing it should tell us a lot about the goals of the project. And likely we'll be able to reverse engineer it and maybe create something even more amazing based on it.
I have an idea for a YT with a circuit guy
Oh yes! That'd be great.
@@Hainbach plz!!
@@Hainbach hope its Moritz Klein ^^
yes I agree on PCB pictures please! It will probably reveal the units'principles!!
What a wild beast that is. Thanks for having me by to play with this crazy box. Real highlight of superbooth getting to spend some time in your amazing studio. Let’s do it again !
Absolutely my friend!
What a gem you've rescued, built for science but given a second life for art and art is where it shines! Beautiful machine!
Yeah there should be the temple of the overtone in Berlin. Even my dog perked up on this one.
This is the hainbachiest hainbachery that ever hainbached a hainbach. Seriously, I've been following you for years and this is the most perfect-for-your-particular-aesthetic-and-methodology device I've ever seen you play with. The fact that it's totally obscure - not some mass-produced commodity like a CCITT test generator or a Soviet wire recorder - is just the icing on the cake.
Also, it sounds _fantastic_.
Yeah it’s so beautiful- I could not have dreamed this up
Hainbach - the David Attenborough of lost electronic species
This would definitely look and sound like an early additive synthesiser ... if it were not for the pitch follower. You would expect an additive synth to simply have a base VCO with all those harmonics generators cascading up from it. The pitch follower definitely indicates that the core sound source was an external signal. But which ?
AN IDEA: This architecture sort of gives me an idea (although it may have nothing to do with the way it was used). I believe that by sending a live monophonic instrument in the input, you could produce a totally different but fully controlled timbre in the output in real time, that would follow all the expressive modulations of the input instrument (enveloppe, vibrato, and so on and so forth). So for instance, by carefully tuning the overtones to the harmonic series of, say, a clarinet (to give an easy example), you should be able to sing or whistle a tune in a mike plugged in the input, and the output would magically "convert" the sound of your voice into that of a clarinet.
I have no idea what the point of it could be, but it would be darn cool I feel ! 🙂
I now know that every synth manufacturer has deprived me of having Pi toggle switches. I need to sit down and ponder this betrayal.
The piece at the end of the video with the piano is absolutely haunting and beautiful. What a great find! 👏
Hi, I am more familiar with computational models, but this analog apparatus seems for vocal work and to understand our auditory sytem. it is meant to identify how many pitches throat singers can flter at once, and how does our brain pack clusters of harmonics into separate voices. The base sound (bourdon) it is produced by the vocal cords or the false vocal cords vibrating at a fundamental frequency (usually 1 single note which is comfortable for the register of the singer in the form of a drone), this sound is not sinusoidal but rich in harmonics and has a degree of roughness. then the sound is filtered at different locations of the vocal tract creating multiple resonances forming clusters of overtones, usually its biphonation, however, to the untrained ear can give the impression that the singer can do up to 4 simultaneous notes. The filtering process is similar to spectral filtering. The syrix of birds is capable of producing two notes harmonically unrelated, humans produce a single source but achieve biphonation, and the second formant is perceived as a separate pitch because our auditory system groups together concurrent harmonics into a single perceived pitch, so we perceive it as a separate sound. The purposes of the device are many, to produce a synthesized song, identify the overtone clusters, understand the relation between harmonics in both singing and our auditory system... Perhaps understand reinforced harmonics, formant melting... yabadabadoo. Lots of uses. Maybe we should look at old research papers to see what they used it for. Anyhow, if you are interested in the human voice as a synthesizer, drop me a message, it's a fascinating field.
Interesting... I have memories of an unfinished project in the late 70's, using multiple CMOS phase locked loop ics (CD4046 ?) and dividers to create various harmonics from an analogue input signal. I remember having it working sync'd to a Moog model D owned by a professional muso friend. Sadly lost in the mists of time. A related project was a PLL to sync the master 2MHz clock of my electric piano to an audio input. You and "Look Mum" are doing a great job keeping audio creativity alive.
I had almost exactly this idea for a synthesizer when I first found out what a PLL was (minus the phase stuff) and I have to say, as someone who knows almost nothing about EE or instrument design, it feels super cool to see that someone already did it and that it sounds amazing
When I grow up, I want to be an Overtone Researcher! This might be one of my favorite pieces of test gear you've found. So many possibilities. I bet something through and into an amp would be interesting to play with feedback and all those overtones.
5:01 High Plains Drifter meets Forbidden Planet!
What a beautiful and surreal instrument. Straight out of science fiction and strangely perfect for science fiction soundtracks!
I'd love to see you use a Vako Orchestron next. Some truly lo-fi sounds there!
Assuming this is based on a phase locked loop, throwing in transients and drums could be very weird and interesting. Feedback can also likely get you into gnarly territory. If you have a clock divider somewhere to drive the two sync inputs using different undertones of the same root note, you could get it to play various chords.
Whenever I see a piece of amazing unobtainium gear on your channel I start wondering if it would be possible to DIY it. I wonder if you could get similar results with a bunch of CD4046 ICs, decade counters, and sine shapers.
Went to grab a pair of headphones after the video recommended them, and wow! That machine produces amazing sounds!
I love the rhythm at 0:34, reminds me of the sound effect in the classic Ealing comedy, The Man in the White Suit.
Verbos makes something like this, the 262v harmonic oscillator. Very interesting sounds coming out of those things.
kudos to the tech who was able to fix this thing
is the secret that the overtones are actually undertones :O?
It shall be revealed in a few hours 🥸
@@Hainbach :O :O :O :O
That's what my perfect cousin says
Sam! No spoilers!
My guess would be that PLLs are trying to sync to a division of the input frequency, which means that their outputs will be multiples of it, and can thus be used as overtones. I think that the mysterious WMD Synchrodyne module does that, and I’ve heard that it’s possible with the Doepfer PLL plus some clock dividers, though I’ve never managed to get that to work myself. There’s definitely some distinctive PLL warbles (or dare I say, woggles?!) when it’s trying to sync.
I *love* that the phase shift control is in rad instead of degrees
We need a full version of the song at the end!!! Thank you H.
It’s on my Patreon 😃
The glide and bounce between notes when it tracks pitch reminds me of the Doepfer PLL
Would be interesting how they implemented that tracking. It's quite fast. Is there a setting for the tracking speed?
Do they track individually? I would for stability they share a single tracking.
Are they "just" synchronizing on the zero crossings?
This would be such a nice thing to reverse engineer!
Thanks for the beautiful sounds and sharing your experience with this one of a kind device!
Nice soma pipe vibes with the microphone!✨❤️ loving your explorations
This video is not only a beautiful piece of art and curious piece of music and science history. It's also a pretty darn good test for audio system! My monitor speakers appeared to be decent enough to reproduce the deep low notes in the beginning as well as the high pitches in the end. Now I believe they meet their specs
No it's good to have YOU back
Jamie, you name dropper, nah what an artist he is and what a voice.
Absolutely, was a pleasure hanging out for a few days and jam.
@@Hainbach Very Cool!
This was beautiful
Very beautiful, good gift!
Hello Hainbach! I could imagine it is a classroom demonstrator of waveform spectral analysis with Fourier Transforms. By playing around with the harmonics amplitude and phase in synthesis mode (so the opposite) and connecting the main signal output to an oscilloscope (and spectrum analyzer) one can effectively demonstrate the construction of waveforms. Looking at the scope screen you can clearly see the importance of the partials/harmonics phase! By ear it is not so much perceived. LG HK-WTS 🙂
yep. with the phase option, getting everything in sync due to its analog nature was basically a way to ensure the display of a proper waveform. I guess the teacher took some minutes before class to "tune it" and then to demonstrate uses the volume poti.
OOH, I really love this, I could play with this for hours and never get bored, awesome piece of kit.
Your skin actually starts to glow from delight when you demo a new treasure. So nice to see!
The Great Attractor is the gravitational centre of the Laniakea Supercluster, which contains the Milky Way and about 100,000 other galaxies. The attraction is observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated clusters over a region hundreds of millions of light-years across. Unfortunately, it is difficult to observe in visible wavelengths, because it is obscured by the Milky Way's dense galactic plane. Hainbach is similar, except that he greatly attracts weird, anonymous boxes with lots of knobs on them -- rather than galaxies -- to an obscure location somewhere in Germany.
This creature sounds great man . There is a spooky character inside it.
Yeah some notes go flat as they follow the overtone series - that adds a haunting quality
That’s killer! A real head scratcher though. Overtones has to be for audio/acoustic research so I would guess that you could use it to compare a direct or close mic signal, which would be the input, to a room signal/air, vibration through a liquid or a solid for example then use the device to match the overtones. Then mark and document the matched settings on the device for graphing the effect of different source signals on whatever matter you’re testing. Probably coupled with a oscilloscope or waveform analyzer for phase, etc… More to achieve unison but the opposite is what probably makes this more musical👍
Incredible! I bet we’ll be hearing more of this one
I’m sampling this entire freaking video
You have the craziest instruments! And that’s why we love you!!
So damn lush and scifi. Superb find!
Maybe you and Bram Bos should make an iOS version of this as your next project. It sounds incredibly good!
This is so exciting!
That last part was huge. Beauty of a machine.
This is incredible! It's like a coronation of all your searches!
5:05 Surprise Hatsune Miku!
Whoever created it should be proud. Now it's a beautiful musical instrument.
That you Hainbach, another lovely and inspiring video
I can hear those pet frequencies! Great video! This device seems to have a lot of potential. Like try feeding it the HP word generator? Or what does the Axel line simulator do with it? What does it do when plugged into itself or coupled with a delay/looper unit of varying capabilities? What you got was beautiful and this was big fun! Lovely! Thanks for sharing!
There is so much more to try, I agree!
That's such a fabulous machine... and (restoration aside) a very god price too.
I'd love to see the user manual, although part of the fun must be in exploring a thing that we have no idea what it's even for!
This reminds me of the Rayna interval synthesizer that La Monte Young uses to produce the sound for "The Base 9:7:4 Symmetry in Prime Time When Centered above and below The Lowest Term Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261 in Which The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288 Consists of The Powers of 2 Multiplied by The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64 and 36 to 32 Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms in The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224 within The Ranges 126 to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28 with The Addition of 119", which has been playing for decades in downtown Manhattan in his and Marian Zazeela's Dream House.
absolutely beautiful
What a beautiful sounding and unique unit
I postponed watching this for a few days just to be at my PC with headphones (I usually watch youtube on my phone all day). And it's likely a more than 47% improvement.
Good call! I only watch the sound related stuff in the studio too
That's blown my mind.
Really reminds me of italian dark ambient/electronic like Die Sonne Satan and Sigillum S. All the weird and slightly dissonant drones and foreboding sparseness of those records in this one device. Very cool.
Well, I guess you need to model this thing in software now ;D. Right? You can't just let a unique instrument like that fall into obscurity. Very fascinating!
I hate planned upload posts, I often don't get another notification when it's uploaded
It is up now! :-)
Reminiscent of the Buchla 148 Harmonic Generator, which used wavefolders -- although the sophisticated controls on this unit suggest it's doing something more complicated, likely some sort of phase-locked loops. You are now honor bound to reverse engineer the schematics of this amazing unit!
I have something planned in regards to that
Finally got a chance to watch this. What an odd box.
As you confirmed, I thought it sounded like the harmonic series that I remember studying with Mongolian throat singing as the example.
I would also love to know what on earth it was used to study!
Yeah still not much closer in unraveling it’s secret
Thats a damn cool Synth
Very interesting! I would guess, based on the sound and function, that it probably uses a series of filters on the input signal and Phase Locked Loop (PLL) circuits.
That quite an interesting and fascinating instrument. Glad it fell into the right hands.
Beautiful sounds!
I've used a crapload of oscillators to attempt a similar idea before, and it just did not work as cleanly and interestingly as this. To have these oscillators available in Eurorack form would be a dream.
The last sound. :) squeak skitter skitter. My mini aussies were certainly curious.
If this is what I think it is, I’m SO EXITED
Update: it is what I thought it was and I am very happy
2:01 My Trekkie ears perked up immediately. The Gerald Fried-composed fight music originally featured in “Amok Time.”
The sound at 0:45 - berlin church bell mode activated! 😬
5:10 sounds like the sound track to certain episodes of the Six Million dollar Man. Like the john Saxon episode with the fight at the end. I'm pretty sure they used an ARP 2600 though, but this sounds amazing!!! SOOOO lucky to have it!
I have a hypothesis: this device could be useful when designing or working with wind instruments, since they use the same overtone series. I was expecting someone to play “The Last Post” on it at one point!
that thing might be good, but the things you're doing with it, oh boy! heavenly!
Thank you 😃
Now THIS is something I’d love to have in AUM format 😮
That's cool, but when are we going to see a video on your koto synth? It looks awesome ❤
On the to do
0:44 you just invented modular breakcore almost
I do love a mystery
For what this was used for is certainly a head scratcher. My initial thought is to investigate wether this was used in hearing reasherch.
Being such a custom device did the engineer that made it leave there mark on it somewhere such as mark etched into the pcb traces that might be able to be traced back to them?
I will do a follow up with more on the inside
sounds way more interesting than depeche mode has produced in the last 15 years. love your channel...
😂
Awesome machine with awesome sounds. I would really like to see the schematic of it.
Wonderful machine.
sounds amazing!!!!
Wow! Kinda like a giant Dreadbox Antiphon, only BETTER.
"Karl, of audiothing"...
New VST in the works mayhaps? :)
I did find a website with German research on overtones and what parts of the brain they actavate. It is kind of wild to think a device like this could have been used in brain/vocal research.
Interesting piece of gear. It would make a neat eurorack module; only 160 hp.
That last jam was really nice. Hope that ends up on a album.
I have it planned for my next test equipment record
@@Hainbach I believe that is the correct answer 👍
Ooooooooo I LOVE THIS ONE!
whenever mr. lidell gets invlvd with things things seem to get somewhat funky.
“Somewhat funky” is my middle name :) lol
@@HANGINGOUTWITHAUDIOPHILES if you ever turn that into an album title i do demand a credit ;)
Haha ! As shown. - Shirt an knobs should fit together .
I couldn’t pay attention after hearing a university in Berlin had someone researching overtones. I’m stuck looking for the online application for a degree in overtone research.
Fascinating! If it really has been used in a Berlin University, probably Volkmar Hein or Martin Supper do know more about it...
Yeah that could be a good point to start
da haste ja nen echt schönes Stück Tech in die Finger bekommen
"That's so satisfying." 👍👍
Busted! I was charging the right headphone but I put it back in when you wrote "wear headphones", and it got about 3127% better, so you made that 47% number completely up, you bullshitter you!
holy wow!!!
Would be very cool to have a schematic for this thing, maybe someone can glean something from it. Even Pictures from the inside could give some insight.
i wanna test the head phone thing ... 0:17 ... but i want you to test tw0 Mackie powered loud speakers ... only like $1000 , easy money for Hianbach , cool vid , thanks for Noises app