Has Anyone Read This Book?

[GrooveNinja]

Originally Posted by fierlion

The Dance Music Manual is great--it gets you going, has several hands on synthesis tutorials, talks about the subtle differences between, say, Dub/House/DnB/French House etc. It's good for learning the fundamentals, and like you said above the Virus' included synthesis tutorial download isn't really for beginners.

Thanks! That's good to know. I am going to order that book this afternoon.

Originally Posted by fierlion

'Modulation' means invisible hands turning knobs. You grab the filter cutoff knob and sweep it. *Cool* But when your hands are busy you need some extra hands to do the sweeping/tweaking. Here come the envelopes and LFOs. Both are like invisible hands that twist the knobs for you while you play.

I re-read the sections in the manuals about the envelops, and with the information from the people here and a bit of experimentation, I understand the envelopes now. The filter envelope simply adds a bit to the cutoff of the filter for a short period of time after a key is struck. The amount added, the 'shape' of the envelope, is controlled by the various attack, decay, etc. parameters, as displayed in the "Cheese" section of the manual. The envelope controls only the cutoff, and it is a fixed, time based function that is tied to the key stroke. By the way, is there any way to make the envelope negative, i.e. subtract a bit from the cutoff frequency of a low-pass filter when the key is struck?