as high as possible, then stay there lowest pitch as low as possible ...
The basic premise is that everything is happening between the power supply and the speaker…
A
Changing the pitch of the oscillator
1 2
as high as possible, then stay there
60 sec!
lowest pitch
high pitch 30 sec
as low as possible, until there are only clicks left….
What can we do with low pitches?
3
Play fast clicks
4
Play clicks slowly
Note: Try to locate the point when the oscillator shifts from “clicks” to a discernible “pitch”
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
An oscillator just “oscillates” around a certain voltage fast enough to make the speaker vibrate, so that we hear the vibrations as pitch. How fast it oscillates depends on the voltage we are sending into it. We can use a second oscillator to send rapid voltage changes into the first one… SQUARE just switches between 0 and maximum voltage, SAW ramps from the top to the bottom, then switches back up. That makes all the difference….
1 2 3 4 5
SAW / Play low
B
SQUARE / on high
Play with the settings until you have a nice pulse going on
SQUARE / Play middle
SAW / on high
Move the pitch of the left oscillator around a small are so you get a rapid changing pulse going. Sounds like morse code.
SQUARE / set high
SAW / set low
Get a periodic “bell” sound going.
SQUARE / play high
SQUARE / play high
Move both pitches rapidly so you can make the synth “speak”! SQUARE / set low
SQUARE / play medium low
Move the right oscillator’s pitch to get a nice bassline.
Note: The left oscillator “modulates” the frequency of the other one, so we call that “frequency modulation”, “FM”.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The keyboard supplies the same voltage to the oscillator, except not as fast as on the previous page. Each key provides a different voltage, if they all lined up it provides us with a diatonic scale. The delay does what it says, plus echo! We can use it to fatten the sound,
1 2 3 4 5
Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator high
C
time: 0, feedback 0
Play rapid melodies with short notes, best with two hands Keymode: Hold Octave: medium low
SQUARE / medium low
time: 0, feedback 0
Get a nice ostinato bassline going
Keymode: Hold Octave: high
Oscillator high
feedback high (full)
Press a few notes, then play with delay time to create overlapping drones Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator medium
feedback medium time: medium
Play short notes, create echo pattern Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator high
feedback full up time: full down
Play a note or two, then let the feedback take over… occasionally add another note
Note: you can leave the delay pretty much always at the end of the signal chain, right before the speaker. The delay allows you to mess with any of the sounds we are creating with all the combinations here.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The sequencer supplies 4 different voltages to the oscillator, set by the 4 knobs. They go from left to right, 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-etc.
1 2
Clock: Speed
D
Oscillator high
Get a nice fast pattern going
Clock: Speed
SQUARE / low
Play a low bassline pattern
Note: If you turn one or more of the knobs all the way down, there will be no sound. Means, you can make rhythmic pattern that way, albeit simple ones!
Note: Try to set all 4 knobs to the same pitch. Since they are most likely slightly apart from each other, you can get a nice microtonal bass pattern going.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Now we can also drive the sequencer with an oscillator, so we have more control over the speed. With every pulse (“trigger”) from the oscillator the sequencer goes one step ahead. We can also drive the sequencer with speeds that are in the range of audio, which gives us some new ways of shaping the sound.
1
SQUARE / low
Clock: Step
60 sec!
3
Oscillator high
Set up a pattern, then speed it up over 60 seconds until it becomes a high frequency lowest pitch left osc
2
E
SQUARE / high
Clock: Step
as high as possible, then stay there
SQUARE / high
Move the 4 knobs rapidly for constant change of the sound of the drone.
SQUARE / low
Clock: Speed
SAW / medium
Set it in a way so an overlapping rhythm appears.
Note: We have talked about SQUARE waves and SAW waves. Imagine now the sequencer going through the 4 voltages at high speed, so the resulting “wave” that drives the right oscillator is not as symmetrical as in SQUARE or SAW. It depends on the settings of the 4 knobs and would look pretty arbitrary. This is called “wavetable synthesis”, and the resulting sound depends a lot on the shape of the wave you pull from the table - in this case the (albeit simple) “table” is our sequencer.
SQUARE
SEQUENCER “WAVETABLE” with 4 different knob settings
SAW (c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
My favorite module is noise/random. In the “noise” setting it sends out, well, noise, and would not need an oscillator to drive it. In the “random” setting it needs an oscillator, and with each pulse (“trigger”) that it receives, it sends out a random voltage that we can use to drive another oscillator. The range of the random voltage is actually determined by the voltage at the input, so with an oscillator on SAW we are getting interesting results.
1 2 3
SAW
Noise
F SAW
Play with both oscillators and imagine you’d doing the sound for some war movie… SQUARE / low
Random
SQUARE / high
Random
SQUARE / medium
Rapid pitch shifting melodies!
SAW / low Rapid pitch shifting rhythm!
Note: The sequencer needs a voltage above a certain threshold to receive a “trigger” that lets it advance one step forward. The random voltages from the random module will sometimes be above, sometimes below that threshold. By using a random module before the sequencer, we can get it to go “a-rhyhmically”, because only when the voltage is high enough the sequencer goes to the next step.
SQUARE / low
4
Random
Clock: Step
Rapid non-rhythmic random pitches
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
SQUARE / high
Let’s look at filters now.
G 1 2 3
4
SQUARE / middle
peak: low
Move the cutoff between zero and middle to make the synth “wah”
SAW / low
cutoff: medium low
Adjust filter peak to find the perfect setting between pulse and resonant pulse. The pulse “resonates” when every click seems to trigger a high pitch as well. SQUARE / play high peak: high Play with pitch and cutoff, you may be able to get the synth to “speak”, similar to some of the “vowel generators” you can see in other synthesizers.
SAW / low
random
cutoff: medium
Get a fast pulse pattern going, and use peak to find the spot where the patterns slightly resonates.
Note: The filter is a so-called “self-oscillating” one, means when it is set a certain way it can even produce a sound by itself. In fact, it is feeding the output back to the input, and what happens when you hear feedback I am sure you know. The filter can serve as an additional oscillator. Try it out, with only the filter between power supply and speaker! Crank up the peak, and move cutoff…
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Let’s look at filters, but what is that “trigger in” on the side? Well, depending on the voltage that is put there, the filter opens and closes (the same as if you’d move the cutoff). Please note that now we need the SPLIT cables to provide power to our second line.
H
1 Split
clock: speed (medium)
SAW / low
cutoff: medium / peak: high
Get a medium bassline - same pitch, but different filter settings
2
Change in the above image the sequencer into OSCILLATOR->RANDOM
Get a fast bassline - same pitch, but random filter settings Note: Through the “trigger in” the filter can be controlled not only by your fingers, but by the keyboard,
sequencer, another oscillator, random and so forth…
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Let’s look at the envelope! With every trigger the envelope opens and closes, but it does so depending on the “attack” and “decay” settings. Attack ramps up, decay ramps down - that way we can decide whether it fades in slowly and rapidly fades out, or the other way around, or any combination thereof.
I
1 Split
SQUARE / low
medium
attack: medium / decay: medium
Make a sound slowly fade in and out
2
In the above image, put a random between the oscillator on the top and the filter trigger input
If you play it fast, you get an ever-changing rhythmic pulse.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The envelope can also be applied to the filter cutoff!
J 1 Split
attack: low decay: low
cutoff: medium peak: full Make a sound slowly go up and down in pitch
2
In the above image, put a sequencer and oscillator before the filter.
Clock: speed
SQUARE / low
cutoff: medium peak: full
Get two independent rhythms going: one from the (bass) sequencer, one from the filter. Note: by turning the bottom oscillator down, you may even be able to get a third rhythm going. Also, it should
be clear now where it would be fun to insert the random module.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Oscillator in SAW setting plus random allows us to get a few different “saws” going.
K 1 Split SAW / low
Random
clock: speed
SQUARE / low
cutoff: medium peak: medium
Get a medium bassline - and the filter goes down in various steps
2
In the above image, add an envelope between random and filter
Have the filter randomly mumbling above the line
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The last thing I want to cover is the mixer: that way you can set up two small lines of sound, and mix them together at will. With so many options this is actually an instrument!
L
1 Mix Split
clock: speed
pitch: medium
random
cutoff: medium peak: full
pitch: medium
time: medium feedback: medium
Create an instrument with a bassline (upper row), and a solo line (lower row), play the controls of the solo line at will, and mix both lines in and out.
Notes:
You can replace the oscillator/random combination with the keyboard, if you want it to be more “fingerplayable”. The delay can also be at the very end of the lines, however, in the above combination it allows you to be more flexible on the solo line. You can also add the envelope in between the sequencer and the filter, which gives you a little more flexibility in shaping the sound of the bass line. A little trick for your solo line: in the above combination you can easily create pauses between your lines by pulling the modules apart.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Another instrument using the mixer, this time the sequencer provides the timing for both lines. Bottom line with the filter is bass, but works also with higher frequencies. The rest is the solo line, which works well with percussive/short sounds.
M
1 Split
clock: speed
random
SQUARE / low
pitch: high
attack: low decay: low
time: medium feedback: medium
Mix
cutoff: medium peak: full
Create an instrument with two lines, play the controls at will, and mix both lines in and out.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Remember the range of the random voltage is determined by the voltage supplied at the input, so we’re using the sequencer for doing that.
1
N
Split SQUARE / low
clock: speed speed: low
attack: low decay: medium low
random
pitch: high
Set the tempi of sequencer and top oscillator to low, so you get many changing melodies going. Notes: Each sequencer knob controls a different melody produced by the envelope/random combination. We call that a “self-running” instrument, when you can let it going by itself without the need for touching it.
2
Umm… nasty! Move every knob!
Split
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
A
Changing the pitch of the oscillator
1 2
as high as possible, then stay there
60 sec!
lowest pitch
high pitch 30 sec
as low as possible, until there are only clicks left….
What can we do with low pitches?
3
Play fast clicks
4
Play clicks slowly
Note: Try to locate the point when the oscillator shifts from “clicks” to a discernible “pitch”
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
An oscillator just “oscillates” around a certain voltage fast enough to make the speaker vibrate, so that we hear the vibrations as pitch. How fast it oscillates depends on the voltage we are sending into it. We can use a second oscillator to send rapid voltage changes into the first one… SQUARE just switches between 0 and maximum voltage, SAW ramps from the top to the bottom, then switches back up. That makes all the difference….
1 2 3 4 5
SAW / Play low
B
SQUARE / on high
Play with the settings until you have a nice pulse going on
SQUARE / Play middle
SAW / on high
Move the pitch of the left oscillator around a small are so you get a rapid changing pulse going. Sounds like morse code.
SQUARE / set high
SAW / set low
Get a periodic “bell” sound going.
SQUARE / play high
SQUARE / play high
Move both pitches rapidly so you can make the synth “speak”! SQUARE / set low
SQUARE / play medium low
Move the right oscillator’s pitch to get a nice bassline.
Note: The left oscillator “modulates” the frequency of the other one, so we call that “frequency modulation”, “FM”.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The keyboard supplies the same voltage to the oscillator, except not as fast as on the previous page. Each key provides a different voltage, if they all lined up it provides us with a diatonic scale. The delay does what it says, plus echo! We can use it to fatten the sound,
1 2 3 4 5
Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator high
C
time: 0, feedback 0
Play rapid melodies with short notes, best with two hands Keymode: Hold Octave: medium low
SQUARE / medium low
time: 0, feedback 0
Get a nice ostinato bassline going
Keymode: Hold Octave: high
Oscillator high
feedback high (full)
Press a few notes, then play with delay time to create overlapping drones Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator medium
feedback medium time: medium
Play short notes, create echo pattern Keymode: Press Octave: high
Oscillator high
feedback full up time: full down
Play a note or two, then let the feedback take over… occasionally add another note
Note: you can leave the delay pretty much always at the end of the signal chain, right before the speaker. The delay allows you to mess with any of the sounds we are creating with all the combinations here.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The sequencer supplies 4 different voltages to the oscillator, set by the 4 knobs. They go from left to right, 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-etc.
1 2
Clock: Speed
D
Oscillator high
Get a nice fast pattern going
Clock: Speed
SQUARE / low
Play a low bassline pattern
Note: If you turn one or more of the knobs all the way down, there will be no sound. Means, you can make rhythmic pattern that way, albeit simple ones!
Note: Try to set all 4 knobs to the same pitch. Since they are most likely slightly apart from each other, you can get a nice microtonal bass pattern going.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Now we can also drive the sequencer with an oscillator, so we have more control over the speed. With every pulse (“trigger”) from the oscillator the sequencer goes one step ahead. We can also drive the sequencer with speeds that are in the range of audio, which gives us some new ways of shaping the sound.
1
SQUARE / low
Clock: Step
60 sec!
3
Oscillator high
Set up a pattern, then speed it up over 60 seconds until it becomes a high frequency lowest pitch left osc
2
E
SQUARE / high
Clock: Step
as high as possible, then stay there
SQUARE / high
Move the 4 knobs rapidly for constant change of the sound of the drone.
SQUARE / low
Clock: Speed
SAW / medium
Set it in a way so an overlapping rhythm appears.
Note: We have talked about SQUARE waves and SAW waves. Imagine now the sequencer going through the 4 voltages at high speed, so the resulting “wave” that drives the right oscillator is not as symmetrical as in SQUARE or SAW. It depends on the settings of the 4 knobs and would look pretty arbitrary. This is called “wavetable synthesis”, and the resulting sound depends a lot on the shape of the wave you pull from the table - in this case the (albeit simple) “table” is our sequencer.
SQUARE
SEQUENCER “WAVETABLE” with 4 different knob settings
SAW (c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
My favorite module is noise/random. In the “noise” setting it sends out, well, noise, and would not need an oscillator to drive it. In the “random” setting it needs an oscillator, and with each pulse (“trigger”) that it receives, it sends out a random voltage that we can use to drive another oscillator. The range of the random voltage is actually determined by the voltage at the input, so with an oscillator on SAW we are getting interesting results.
1 2 3
SAW
Noise
F SAW
Play with both oscillators and imagine you’d doing the sound for some war movie… SQUARE / low
Random
SQUARE / high
Random
SQUARE / medium
Rapid pitch shifting melodies!
SAW / low Rapid pitch shifting rhythm!
Note: The sequencer needs a voltage above a certain threshold to receive a “trigger” that lets it advance one step forward. The random voltages from the random module will sometimes be above, sometimes below that threshold. By using a random module before the sequencer, we can get it to go “a-rhyhmically”, because only when the voltage is high enough the sequencer goes to the next step.
SQUARE / low
4
Random
Clock: Step
Rapid non-rhythmic random pitches
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
SQUARE / high
Let’s look at filters now.
G 1 2 3
4
SQUARE / middle
peak: low
Move the cutoff between zero and middle to make the synth “wah”
SAW / low
cutoff: medium low
Adjust filter peak to find the perfect setting between pulse and resonant pulse. The pulse “resonates” when every click seems to trigger a high pitch as well. SQUARE / play high peak: high Play with pitch and cutoff, you may be able to get the synth to “speak”, similar to some of the “vowel generators” you can see in other synthesizers.
SAW / low
random
cutoff: medium
Get a fast pulse pattern going, and use peak to find the spot where the patterns slightly resonates.
Note: The filter is a so-called “self-oscillating” one, means when it is set a certain way it can even produce a sound by itself. In fact, it is feeding the output back to the input, and what happens when you hear feedback I am sure you know. The filter can serve as an additional oscillator. Try it out, with only the filter between power supply and speaker! Crank up the peak, and move cutoff…
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Let’s look at filters, but what is that “trigger in” on the side? Well, depending on the voltage that is put there, the filter opens and closes (the same as if you’d move the cutoff). Please note that now we need the SPLIT cables to provide power to our second line.
H
1 Split
clock: speed (medium)
SAW / low
cutoff: medium / peak: high
Get a medium bassline - same pitch, but different filter settings
2
Change in the above image the sequencer into OSCILLATOR->RANDOM
Get a fast bassline - same pitch, but random filter settings Note: Through the “trigger in” the filter can be controlled not only by your fingers, but by the keyboard,
sequencer, another oscillator, random and so forth…
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Let’s look at the envelope! With every trigger the envelope opens and closes, but it does so depending on the “attack” and “decay” settings. Attack ramps up, decay ramps down - that way we can decide whether it fades in slowly and rapidly fades out, or the other way around, or any combination thereof.
I
1 Split
SQUARE / low
medium
attack: medium / decay: medium
Make a sound slowly fade in and out
2
In the above image, put a random between the oscillator on the top and the filter trigger input
If you play it fast, you get an ever-changing rhythmic pulse.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The envelope can also be applied to the filter cutoff!
J 1 Split
attack: low decay: low
cutoff: medium peak: full Make a sound slowly go up and down in pitch
2
In the above image, put a sequencer and oscillator before the filter.
Clock: speed
SQUARE / low
cutoff: medium peak: full
Get two independent rhythms going: one from the (bass) sequencer, one from the filter. Note: by turning the bottom oscillator down, you may even be able to get a third rhythm going. Also, it should
be clear now where it would be fun to insert the random module.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Oscillator in SAW setting plus random allows us to get a few different “saws” going.
K 1 Split SAW / low
Random
clock: speed
SQUARE / low
cutoff: medium peak: medium
Get a medium bassline - and the filter goes down in various steps
2
In the above image, add an envelope between random and filter
Have the filter randomly mumbling above the line
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
The last thing I want to cover is the mixer: that way you can set up two small lines of sound, and mix them together at will. With so many options this is actually an instrument!
L
1 Mix Split
clock: speed
pitch: medium
random
cutoff: medium peak: full
pitch: medium
time: medium feedback: medium
Create an instrument with a bassline (upper row), and a solo line (lower row), play the controls of the solo line at will, and mix both lines in and out.
Notes:
You can replace the oscillator/random combination with the keyboard, if you want it to be more “fingerplayable”. The delay can also be at the very end of the lines, however, in the above combination it allows you to be more flexible on the solo line. You can also add the envelope in between the sequencer and the filter, which gives you a little more flexibility in shaping the sound of the bass line. A little trick for your solo line: in the above combination you can easily create pauses between your lines by pulling the modules apart.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Another instrument using the mixer, this time the sequencer provides the timing for both lines. Bottom line with the filter is bass, but works also with higher frequencies. The rest is the solo line, which works well with percussive/short sounds.
M
1 Split
clock: speed
random
SQUARE / low
pitch: high
attack: low decay: low
time: medium feedback: medium
Mix
cutoff: medium peak: full
Create an instrument with two lines, play the controls at will, and mix both lines in and out.
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
Remember the range of the random voltage is determined by the voltage supplied at the input, so we’re using the sequencer for doing that.
1
N
Split SQUARE / low
clock: speed speed: low
attack: low decay: medium low
random
pitch: high
Set the tempi of sequencer and top oscillator to low, so you get many changing melodies going. Notes: Each sequencer knob controls a different melody produced by the envelope/random combination. We call that a “self-running” instrument, when you can let it going by itself without the need for touching it.
2
Umm… nasty! Move every knob!
Split
(c) 2015 Hans Tammen / littleBits MassAppeal
