The topic of this SSL is to explore the SY Chord machine. Since we’re back to digital machines, we have a maximum of eight tracks to play with. Personally I found SY Chord to be one of the most flexible machines in the ST, very receptive to modulation, filtering and randomization. I think we will experience a very wide range of sounds in this SSL
Here’s a description of the parameters, taken from the manual:
Does anyone know any deets regarding the FENV parameter? Sure it controls the filter envelope, but what filter is that exactly? Is it waveshaping based on the wavetable used, a generic digital lopass and the control is just for its decay phase, or something else? It always puzzled me…
I don’t know for sure, but it feels like a generic digital low pass with a decay control. Seems kind of redundant maybe, although it’s nice having it there because of control-all and page randomization.
Yes, it the FENV is as @nils says, its own simple digital low pass filter. Its timing is controlled by the DEC parameter (convenient for ctrl all). You can use it alongside fhe EQ filter or high pass.
As for BAL, I immediately saw Pac-Man ghosts (with and without powerup) and Mario ghosts, right? Right??.
For me a love-hate relationship with SY Chord developed into love eventually. I was going to make a video about it at one point. The short version: double, detune, pan for chorus, stereo filtering; modulate Wav, Bal; distortion way better when you send chords through reverb instead of Main (via audio routing); Unison!!; and:
I once posted, can’t find, about a rootless voicings trick for turning melodies into chords: play in the melody as root-5 (5ths), then turn into first inversion of maj6 (balance 17) or minb6 (balance 25), ie, C G to ACEG or AbCEbG—learned this from a sample pack where all the chords were this, Amin7 and Abmaj7—depending on the bass, they voice different chords Fmaj9/Fmin9, Dm11, Bbsus13, C6, etc etc, for almost every bass note one of the 2 will sound good, makes modal interchanges etc a lot easier than most chord systems…
Easy come easy go (c)
Sy chord is not my fav machine, so i make a fast pattern with strange electro beat from 7 tracks of Chords. Kicks are good, but bass with this machine is strange and weak (so track is without it). Drums go to FX block for a little saturation.
This is A07 pattern in included PRJ file.
This will be interesting, cause if you dont put effort and/or tricks in it, the Chord-machine tends to be always like itself. It can be done, coming from M:C and upgaded to Syntakt i know that the tools the Syntakt offers you can take this machine to another level. Iam totaly looking forward to the results in here.
Oh, there’s lots of fun things you can coax from a chord machine, provided you do 2 things:
1: Use the unison modes with 0 detune and pick your wavetable de jour - suddenly its a synth voice (127 waveforms to choose from)
2: Use the 2 LFOs for modulating your base osc in cool ways
I’m currently only having probs coming up with decent hh/cymbal sounds, everything else I can manage… research continues…
No bass, you say?
(Ok, I cheated a lil with the Bébé channel EQ boost)
Thank u, after reading your words i have change kick patch to bass sound and add 8th track sequence. Try to record new version later and update my post. =)
Mostly everything went through the fx track with drive turned up.
Snare and pseudo hi-hat were the only ones that didn’t. Snare had reverb at 100% and it was the reverb that went through the same fx track.
No trigs in the fx track. This was pretty bare bones. Almost no p-locks except the 3rd (or 4th pattern) where I changed tune +/- 12 at different sections - and that was not a good move. I need to remember to change the note on Trig page instead.
The biggest change for me over earlier contributions was turning it all down to allow for more headroom. This made it easier to balance out the sounds.
I love the fact that we have several entries already! I haven’t had the time to listen to them properly yet, looking forward to doing that tomorrow. I think (and hope) we will see a lot of entries this time. So much to explore
8x SY CHORD, single pattern. used randomness with high speed LFOs in order to modulate the tune parameters, so it would result in more noise distribution which could then be turned into clap and shaker like sounds. other than that, it’s a straight forward 4-on-the-floor arrangement ;p
The idea was to create noise using the frequency information from the SY CHORD’s FM operators with the help of an LFO. I’ve picked a SYN setting that by itself carried lots of noise in it already.
We can get even more noise by applying randomness to the frequency information using an LFO that modulates the synth engine’s tune for example - so we spread frequency content across the spectrum.
As soon as we’ve got noise, we can create a clap-like sound by applying another LFO that modulates its AMP volume. I admit I could/should have picked a different wave form / LFO trigger for the result to sound a bit more consistent but please feel free to play with it and make it better
