Music intervals

This is a discussion of basic knowledge in music theory here. In sound synthesis there’s a commonly used techniques known as octave separation. There’s also Tuning Oscillators from musical intervals, the king and the most used is probably +7 semitones which is in the “Perfect Fifth”. When scrolling through many synth presets you will see “Fifth …something…”

Observe this picture regarding intervals. Note that you have name from different intervals. Sometimes you see in a synth Fifth Bass or Fifth Pluck. The name came from the interval use for the separation of the oscillators in terms of pitch. Pitch is the fundamental frequency of the sound.

Little Exercice:

Set OSC1 on Pulse at octave -1, set OSC2 on Pulse and TUN: to each interval. Take notes on a piece of paper what are the most musical intervals to you and use this in your sound design. You will usually get results like:
+3, +5, +7 etc. Don’t forget to add 12 semitones (a full octave) and try those mathematical results then : +15, +17, +19.

Before you learn how to make “One Finger Chords”, or self played keys resulting of a chord. You should know your intervals because they are handy when designing sounds.

Built chords and scales won’t be discussed in this lesson. However, in the “One Finger Chords” post I will give you formula on how to make chords from your oscillators. I really advise you to learn how to make scales, triads, seventh and nineteenth chords on top of the triads. This will help you see how scale & chord progression work in music theory (“Harmony”) if you like those kind of sounds but who doesn’t like chords ?

Note: I remember when making my first steps towards progress in synthesis by analyzing what sounds I prefer. I usually leaned towards intervals or one finger chords. I’m not saying bass sounds are not interesting, but in this territory I felt more with very loud and energetic sub bass, vintage bass sounds, and intervals also in bass. I was also attracted to drifting in pitch like portamento (see Bodyrox bass sound, sure it’s club sound)

So if like me you are usually inspired by these sounds, one good way to make your own is going further into chords itself. Get familiar with playing those interesting chords when designing the initial Tone/Timbre. That’s the purpose of the next post : “One Finger Chords”