Quick Update: It seems that I, infact, have at least some sort of life.

I’ve been a little busy this week due to a lot of (all is relative ) school work. I try to write a longer post some time next week. I have a couple of topics I want to talk about, but I’m not sure yet of which I’m going to be discussing. I also try to fix the pressing isuess with Rawk, which mainly are the GUI graphics and the naming of the controls in the MIDI-automation list and hiding unnecessary controls from the said list.

Anyway, have a nice weekend.

-Tomi L

P.S.

Forgot to mention that I’ve been wanting to sample my best patches from my SH-201 so expect a free samplepack soonish

Rawk Beta – A Free Virtual Drawbar Organ From Yours Truly

*I took away the “like Disorder Audio in Facebook to download” thing. That was an experiment, which went like I expected, absolutely no one downloaded. The download link is now at the end of this post.*

Rawk?

Rawk is a virtual drawbar organ in a Vst-format (registered trademark of Steinberg GmBH). Although you may find some similarities to an existing instrument, Rawk is not meant to be an exact model or emulation of any physical instrument, but it is designed to have it’s own character. I decided to but the beta version available for download, because I thought it would be easier to implement suggested features when it’s still at a design stage. Although it’s still in beta, I haven’t had any instability issues and it’s actually very usable in my opinion, even if it still lacks a few features.

Features to come:

- First of all, I need to name all the knobs and drawbars accordingly, so they appear correctly in your midi automation list, although there isn’t too many parameters you would actually need to automate.

- At least some sort of equalizer

- Master limiter to prevent clipping

- Separate rotary control for high and low frequencies

- Filtering to reduce aliasing, which isn’t really a problem if you don’t use overdrive

- Whatever features you suggest and I would like to add, so feel free to request anything

As for bug reports, leave a comment here, send me a message in Facebook or send me email at disorderaudioblog@gmail.com

The current GUI

A little example I put together rather quickly. No external effects used, except a limiter in the master channel.

And another one without any external processing

How To Download And Install:

Download by clicking the download link below. To install you just have to extract all of the files included in the .rar file into your Vst-folder. Rawk should work on any DAW supporting Vst-plugins. If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll try my best to help.

All the feedback is appreciated! If you have used this in any piece of music, let me hear what you have come up with, if possible.

DOWNLOAD

Share your creations!

If you use this plugin in your music, feel free to share it by using the DropBox above. I may also feature it in this blog.

QUICK UPDATE: Disorder Audio Can Now Be Found In Facebook.

What the title says. Head over to facebook.com/disorderaudioblog to get notified when I post something new. I will also post there links I find interesting, but don’t feel like writing a long story about. I would also like to know if anyone reading this would be interested in a tutorial on how to make your own synths and effects using SynthEdit, so leave a comment on this post or to Disorder Audios wall in facebook. I will most likely be writing something early next week so have a nice weekend

Also, give some feedback about the appearance of this blog, as I think this is what it’ll look like for now.

P.S. I also updated the previous post so check that out!

Useful Articles On How To Create Sounds

TIME FOR SOME ACTUAL CONTENT

If you are like me and you enjoy the process of creating and exploring new sound more than making an actual piece of music from those sounds, you should read through these articles originally written by Gordon Reid for Sound On Sound Magazine. The Articles descripe different synthesis methods and how to use them to emulate a “real” instrument, like a piano, a violin or a brass instrument. The articles have a practical approach to explaining things without going too much into detail with the mathemathics and physics of how sounds are created, so don’t be afraid to take a look at the articles even if you don’t know anything about the subject.

THE ARTICLES:
What’s In A Sound?
The Physics Of Percussion
Modifiers & Controllers
Of Filters & Phase Relationships
Further With Filters
Of Responses And Resonance
Envelopes, Gates & Triggers
More About Envelopes
An Intorduction To VCAs
Modulation
Amplitude Modulation
An Introduction To Frequency Modulation
More On Frequency Modulation
An Intorduction To Additive Synthesis
An Intorduction To ESPS And Vocoders
From Sample And Hold To Sample-Rate Converters (part 1)
From Sample And Hold To Sample-Rate Converters (part 2)
Priorities & Triggers
Duophony
Introducing Polyphony
From Polyphony To Digital Synths
From Springs, Plates & Buckets To Physical Modelling
Formant Synthesis
Synthesizing Wind Instruments
Synthesizing Brass Instruments
Brass Synthesis On A Minimoog
Roland SH101/ARP Axxe Brass Synthesis
Synthesizing Plucked Strings
The Theoretical Acoustic Guitar Patch
A Final Attempt To Synthesize Guitars
Synthesizing Percussion
Practical Percussion Synthesis
Synthesizing Drums: The Bass Drum
Practical Bass Drum Synthesis
Synthesizing Drums: The Snare Drum
Practical Snare Drum Synthesis
Analysing Metallic Percussion
Synthesizing Realistic Cymbals
Practical Cymbal Synthesis
Synthesizing Bells
Synthesizing Cowbells & Claves
Synthesizing Pianos
Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10 (part 1)
Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10 (part 2)
Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10 (part 3)
Synthesizing Strings: String Machines
Synthesizing Strings – PWM & String Sounds
Synthesizing Bowed Strings: The Violin Family
Practical Bowed-String Synthesis (part 1)
Practical Bowed-String Synthesis (part 2)
Articulation & Bowed-String Synthesis
Synthesizing Pan Pipes
Synthesizing Simple Flutes
Practical Flute Synthesis
Synthesizing Tonewheel Organs
Synthesizing Tonewheel Organs: Part2
Synthesizing Hammond Organ Effects: Part1
Synthesizing The Rest Of The Hammond Organ: Part 2
Synthesizing The Rest Of The Hammond Organ: Part 3
From Analogue To Digital Effects
Creative Synthesis With Delays
More Creative Synthesis With Delays
The Secret Of The Big Red Button

THERE’S WAY TOO MANY ARTICLES TO READ

Well yes, there are a lot of articles to read at one go, but no one is forcing you to read all of them one after another. Also, you probably know some of these things already, so you don’t really have to read everything, if you don’t want to. You can pick just the topics you are interested in and leave the rest, unless you feel like you need to know more of one topic to understand another. The point is, read only what you think would be useful for you to know. As far as I’m concerned, there should be a whole lot more.

MY THOUGHTS ON THESE ARTICLES

I have read most, if not all of the articles above. Some more thoroughly than others. What I’ve got from reading them, is a lot better understanding of what kind of sounds different differen’t synthesis methods are good for, and what kind of sounds they are not. That is all I got from the first few articles, but I already knew most of the things discussed in them, because of the fact that I have been fiddling around with creating sounds for years now and as I mentioned earlier, I like a lot more of the knob tweaking than actually making music. I believe that people who don’t know much about synthesis will find the first articles beneficial, because I think they are really easy to understand.

The real fun starts when you start using different synthesis methods to make complex sounds. That is something I have always in mind when I make virtual synthesizers. For example, now I have been toying with an idea to make a hybrid synthesizer, which combines phase distortion and additive synthesis (Actually, I have already started testing some ideas in practice and I already know how I’m going to make it). So go ahead and steal the idea. First of all there’s so many ways how you can realize the combination and doing that requires a lot of time.

The rest of the articles have been a lot of help in making different virtual synthesizers. The articles about synthesizing a hammond organ have been really helpful for making a sort of hammond emulation. I say sort of, because the final product is a lot different than a hammond even though there’s a lot of the same as well. Yes, I said the final product, you will be able to download it soon for free. Why I didn’t make as exact emulation as I can, is because I wanted it to have it’s own character and in the end I most likely wouldn’t have been able to make a decent emulation anyway. If you are interested in making your own synthesizer, I highly recommend making an electric organ as your first bigger project, as it isn’t too complicated and doesn’t require too many features.

At the moment I am really interested in physical modelling techniques, which I don’t really know much about. Also, they are so advanced techniques, that you really have to know how sound is formed before you can make a model representing the process. Here’s a little teaser picture to end this post.

You will be able to download this as soon as I can finish the graphical user interface (GUI). The sound engine is more or less done.

Disorder Audio

WHAT IS DISORDER AUDIO?

What exactly is this thing called Disorder Audio? Well at the moment it is this blog you are currently reading. In this blog I will be adressing topics revolving around music and how to make music or just about anything I feel like talking about. I am also making virtual synths for my own use, but have decided to also make them available for the public, so here is where you can find out more about them in the future.

I am also what you could call a self taught musician. I make all kinds of electronic music, but not so much the kind of music you would expect to hear in the clubs, although my music have taken a shift into that direction recently, still remaining more or less experimental. Anyway, because of the fact that I have learned everything mostly by my self  and haven’t actually studied the theory behind music (not completely true, as I have spent countless hours scouring through different tutorials and videos about how to do various things, but still reasonable to say so), I wan’t to help out people who wan’t to create music, but don’t know actually how to play any instrument (not necessarily a needed skill in electronic music). That goal in mind, I will be posting links to tutorials or other sources of information I have found useful on the way to where I am now, but also may make my own tutorials.

Hopefully you will find this blog useful and entertaining. Also, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or add me on skype (DisorderAudio). If you would like to listen to my music, head over to my Soundcloud page