Chord Machine sounds dull

It lacks the basic waves with upper harmonics (saw, square). But you can get there by layering other tracks that provide those harmonics. 12 tracks is plenty, you could make all the chords you want with all the harmonics you want using just 2 tracks with the sybit.

If I had to guess they’ve designed the chord machine so that it can easily sit in a mix - big polyphonic sounds can occupy a lot of the spectrum and as most people won’t be multitracking Syntakt they could have easily given users a tool that ruined all their tracks.

Just a guess…

Either way would be good to have options!

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It doesn’t lack those basic waves: you can select saw or square, but the upper harmonics are indeed lacking (see my example above).

It’s up to us to ruin our mixes right :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Anywho, an option to have more harmonics would be nice!

that’s literaly what I wrote :smirk:

It lacks the basic waves with upper harmonics (saw, square).

this is a sybit saw:

this is my best effort chord machine saw:

and it’s not even really a saw, more like an offset filtered triangle… hence what I say: it lacks the basic waves, “basic” as in all their glory, unfiltered, unaltered.

Anyway it is what it is, and we’ve been using for two years in the model:cycles for what it’s good at: soft pads, organ-like chords, wavetable scan stuff…

Maybe obvious, but the chord machine shines with a little bit of lfo on the tune param.

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Sorry, I misinterpreted your sentence, we are on the same team here! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Thanks for the graphs, it ‘proves’ what we are hearing. Would you suspect that the “wannabe saw filtered triangle” is a result of how the wave is literaly implemented the CHORD machine or a result of a filter in the CHORD machine (which we can’t alter yet) ?

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@Ess who was in charge of the machine back then said this:

Also, the Chord for example has a very different world of sound, it’s inherently much softer due to the wavetables being made with additive synthesis

If you know a bit about additive synthesis you know it’s not that easy (but not impossible) to get a basic, clean saw out of it. For this very reason, the Digitone has a one-knob “harmonics” param that makes it simple.

see Model:Cycles - #1565 by Ess

I still like the chord machine:

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I might be missing something obvious, but the unison modes seem to always be out of tune on mine.

Turn the F encoder to add “out of tune” to taste :wink:

Maybe it’s time for a “One machine Syntakt challenge: CHORDS” hehe. I will be on holidays soon, good timing to try to do some tracks only using this machine.
But I agree the machine has a too pronounced character, very hard get rid of.

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It’s quite (theoretically) easy to get a saw-wave from additive synthesis actually, you add up each harmonic (whole ratios of the base frequency) with an amplitude of 1/harmonic.

The main problem is however how many partials you need in order to replicate a sharp-sounding saw-wave. Naturally this isn’t a problem when you’re just creating the data for a wavetable, but another thing to consider is that the more harmonics you have the playback will be more prone to aliasing. For example if you have geometric waveforms with sharp transitions (e.g a digital square or saw-wave) you typically need to bandlimit the oscillator itself which is very computationally expensive.

For example the Synthesis Technology Morphing Terrarium etc do some pre-bandlimiting in order to avoid aliasing at higher frequencies. In this case they do this in their Wave Edit software by intentionally reducing the harmonic resolution of the wavetables.

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Me too :wink:

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Now that’s the kind of input I was expecting ! :heart_eyes:

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I have mostly used the unison mode of the Chord machine actually, I find that great for sound design. Layer a few detuned sinewaves and then add some LFO modulation (with noise preferably) to make it sound a bit rougher.

For example this track from the M:C demos/factory uses the chord machine with a random LFO on panning to achieve a sort of pseudo-reverb:

I belive the “snare/clap” sound is also a Chord machine with some LFO noise modulating pitch. It’s a cool trick for weird percussion sounds.

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Interesting as I think my favorite “clap” on the MC was a Chord machine doing just that!
It was called Golf, I think.

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Yeah, chord machine claps were great on M:C

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I wouldn’t have thought of that by myself. Thanks @Fin25 & @Ess.

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Syntakt is monophonic

And chord machine makes chords.

The Chord machine sorely lacks a good Chorus effect IMO.

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Has the chord machine lost focus as a company?

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