Speaker 1: Get in tech with technology with tech stuff from stuff.
Speaker 1: Hey there, guys, it's Jonathan from text Stuff here. And
Speaker 1: in our previous episode, we covered the first half of
Speaker 1: the Mogue story, but the episode became so epically long
Speaker 1: we needed to divide it into two parts. And so
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's jump back into the conversation with
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick about the Mogue story. Here's part two. So
Speaker 1: then you have all the different modules that actually will
Speaker 1: alter the sound of whatever wave you are creating. And
Speaker 1: again I'll talk about the specific wave forms in just
Speaker 1: a bit. But so some of the modules would include
Speaker 1: things like filters. You probably heard about filters, right, you
Speaker 1: know you run this through a filter. What filters are
Speaker 1: are doing is there specifically changing the harmonic content of
Speaker 1: a signal, and it lets you narrow down the range
Speaker 1: of frequencies that are allowed in any produced sound, like
Speaker 1: you can specify which harmonics are allowed to go through,
Speaker 1: which ones are not allowed to go through, and that
Speaker 1: alters the quality, the tonal quality of any sound you make.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to start talking about some particular filters,
Speaker 1: and our producer Extraordinary Knowl is going to provide us
Speaker 1: with some examples of some of the stuff we talk about.
Speaker 1: So from this point forward, uh, Noel is really gonna
Speaker 1: have free rein to go crazy Broadway style. I encourage
Speaker 1: him highly to interrupt us as often as possible with
Speaker 1: strange noises. If he hasn't already, I expect him to
Speaker 1: do so from this point forward. As the wonderful thing
Speaker 1: about Noel not being in the room where we record,
Speaker 1: we have no way of knowing what he's going to
Speaker 1: add after this is done. But at any rate, Uh,
Speaker 1: so you can you can change the amplitude, which obviously
Speaker 1: changes the volume, and you can change the frequency, which
Speaker 1: changes the pitch. Those are very basic eight but beyond
Speaker 1: that you can start to really have fun with it.
Speaker 1: So filters are ways to change the timbre of the sound,
Speaker 1: even within a single note. So you can press a
Speaker 1: note with no filter, it's gonna sound one way, and
Speaker 1: then you apply a filter and press that same key
Speaker 1: to create that same note, but it's going to have
Speaker 1: a different quality. So one of the basic types of
Speaker 1: filters would be what's called a low pass filter or
Speaker 1: a high pass filter. Very simple concept. The name tells
Speaker 1: you what it lets it do. So a low pass
Speaker 1: filter and let's low frequencies pass through. It blocks high frequencies.
Speaker 1: Now you can define what where's your cut off, so
Speaker 1: you can say, like any frequency above this is not
Speaker 1: allowed through. Anything that's lower than that can go through.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna ask the question I think some listeners
Speaker 1: may be wondering, Hold on a second, why would there
Speaker 1: be multiple frequencies playing when you've got a single tone playing?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't that be one frequency? If you're playing one pitched note,
Speaker 1: you could be playing one pitch note if you're if
Speaker 1: your wave is just a sign wave, right, A sign
Speaker 1: wave is a pure tone. It means it's a fundamental frequency.
Speaker 1: There's no harmonic added to it. But that's the That's
Speaker 1: only one type of waveform you can play with a synthesizer.
Speaker 1: You can actually create different types of waveforms like saw
Speaker 1: tooth waves or square waves or triangular waves, and each
Speaker 1: of those contains harmonics. Harmonics being uh multiples of your
Speaker 1: fundamental frequency. Your fundamental frequency is always going to be
Speaker 1: the loudest, the one with the greatest amplitude. Right, So
Speaker 1: the note you're playing, there's a specific frequency associated with
Speaker 1: that note, its amplitude is going to be the greatest
Speaker 1: in the full sound wave, but with these other wave
Speaker 1: for triangular square and saw tooth, you get multiples of
Speaker 1: that particular frequency that also show up, and those are harmonics.
Speaker 1: But if you don't want to hear any of those
Speaker 1: high harmonics, you just want that deep, nasty, bassed rumble. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can do it a low pass filter. And what
Speaker 1: that does is it actually you would think it would
Speaker 1: be like a really base sound, but it really kind
Speaker 1: of makes it sound sort of muffled and dark. And
Speaker 1: then if you wanted instead to do the opposite, you
Speaker 1: could put a high pass filter. On high pass filter,
Speaker 1: obviously the higher frequencies are allowed to pass through and
Speaker 1: it blocks the lower frequencies. Sounds kind of bright and
Speaker 1: jangle exactly much much brighter sounds. So Noel, I'm sure
Speaker 1: can give us examples of what sounds like to listen
Speaker 1: to some tones played through a low pass filter and
Speaker 1: some tones played through a high pass filter. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of others that I want to mention that
Speaker 1: also are our pass filters, but they are a little
Speaker 1: different from low and high. Uh. There's the band pass filter,
Speaker 1: which allows a group of frequencies that are between the
Speaker 1: high and low ends. To pass through. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you're saying, alright, anything below this frequency, I want you
Speaker 1: to cut out. Anything above this frequency, I want you
Speaker 1: to cut out. Everything in between can pass and that
Speaker 1: gives you a different sound or band. Reject filters which
Speaker 1: specify a specific range of frequencies that are not allowed
Speaker 1: to go through, but everything else can. So it's essentially
Speaker 1: like bouncers. Okay, here's a list of people. They absolutely
Speaker 1: are not allowed in the club. My name is always
Speaker 1: on that list all the time. At least that's what
Speaker 1: they tell me. Um, but apparently my friend, uh, Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: he gets in all the time. Now, beyond those filters,
Speaker 1: you can do some other fun stuff. For one thing,
Speaker 1: you remember I said that an analog sound wave is
Speaker 1: continuous of course, right, so it doesn't have a quick,
Speaker 1: you know, a discrete value where there's a stop start.
Speaker 1: Partly because of that, cut offs like where you said,
Speaker 1: here's where I want the filter to begin are a
Speaker 1: little hazy. So uh, when you when you have your
Speaker 1: these uh these filters, you also have a transition band.
Speaker 1: The transition band is a small band of frequencies that
Speaker 1: will still play through where you've set your cut off. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you say you're cut off is
Speaker 1: five thousand hurts, anything below five thousand hurts, cut that off.
Speaker 1: It's not a hard stop at that frequency. There's actually
Speaker 1: it trails a little bit, which gives kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting effect. Right, So that's really cool. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: you can start to do things like adjust a filter
Speaker 1: while you're actually playing a tone. You can do this
Speaker 1: by hooking up different modules together. I'll talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other modules in the second. And that's where
Speaker 1: you get like, like the frequency of wah, well maybe
Speaker 1: because I mean it's the way it sounds like the pitch.
Speaker 1: The pitch remains the same, but the tone of the
Speaker 1: of the note is different, So the pitch doesn't change,
Speaker 1: but the the quality of the sound changes. Noel, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it could play for us the sound of a
Speaker 1: note where the filter is changed while the note is
Speaker 1: still playing, so that we can kind of get an
Speaker 1: idea of what that sounds like. And another thing you
Speaker 1: can do is play with resonance. Uh. And one way
Speaker 1: you can play with residents is you take the frequencies
Speaker 1: that are close to that cut off frequency where you
Speaker 1: know you've you've set the filter boundaries, and instead of
Speaker 1: just having them play out to a speaker, you feed
Speaker 1: them back into the filter. This creates a feedback loop
Speaker 1: and I believe it's called a lope. How many more
Speaker 1: times are we going to have that joke? All right?
Speaker 1: So it creates a feedback loop, and it also changes
Speaker 1: the timbre and volume of of the pitches that you're playing,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. Um. So that's all in just
Speaker 1: talking about filters. There are other modules that we can
Speaker 1: mention that. That's just one subset of modules. Another one
Speaker 1: is called the envelope generator. You know, there's a great
Speaker 1: scene in that documentary where I don't know if you
Speaker 1: saw this one because I think you so part of
Speaker 1: it where Bob mog himself is showing off one of
Speaker 1: his machines and he he sort of like rubs his
Speaker 1: hand luxuriously over the envelope while he speaks of it.
Speaker 1: Does it give uncomfortable? No? No, no, it's kind of suite.
Speaker 1: You can tell he you know, he has he has
Speaker 1: a love for this envelope. He has a relationship with
Speaker 1: this envelope. And you might wonder, well, what the heck
Speaker 1: is this thing? Anyway? Well, it's another section of the board. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it's as you might imagine, as we're talking
Speaker 1: about these different oscillators, these different waveforms, and these different filters,
Speaker 1: it's already starting to sound pretty complicated. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got all these different knobs and stuff to control things,
Speaker 1: and maybe you want to have various effects apply to
Speaker 1: your music, but you can't by hand constantly adjust this,
Speaker 1: or employ a second person too on the fly make
Speaker 1: these changes to filters so that the notes you produce
Speaker 1: have the quality that you want. Envelopes are kind of
Speaker 1: like macros in the software world, where you make shortcuts
Speaker 1: where you hit control and a letter and suddenly it
Speaker 1: creates like a a series of commands that otherwise would
Speaker 1: take you multiple mouse or key strokes to actually execute
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing. Except in this case we're
Speaker 1: talking about analog circuitry UM. So envelope generators can react
Speaker 1: to an incoming signal and then send out a new
Speaker 1: signal to a different module. And so it's another if
Speaker 1: then gates. So if signal X comes into the envelope generator,
Speaker 1: then send y signal to this other module so that
Speaker 1: you get the effect you want. And one type of
Speaker 1: envelope generator one common one is the A D S R,
Speaker 1: and that stands for attack, decay, sustain, and release, which
Speaker 1: are kind of like four phases in a note. So
Speaker 1: have you ever played with a synthesizer where you pressed
Speaker 1: down on a key and the sound kind of comes
Speaker 1: up to a level and then backs off just a
Speaker 1: little bit. Oh, yeah, that's the slow attack. That's the attack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the attack in decay actually, because the rise involvedvolume
Speaker 1: is the attack when it hits its peak and starts
Speaker 1: to come back down just a bit. Like let's say
Speaker 1: that there's a scale of zero to one. You press
Speaker 1: down the key, it goes from zero up to one,
Speaker 1: then it falls back to maybe point seven. That that
Speaker 1: fall back to point seven would be the decay phase.
Speaker 1: So the attack phases going from zero to one decay
Speaker 1: than one to point seven. That part happens usually pretty quickly, right,
Speaker 1: And then you still got the key held down. As
Speaker 1: long as you have the key held down, the note
Speaker 1: is playing, that's the sustain. When you release the key,
Speaker 1: you get to the release phase, which trails the note off.
Speaker 1: And you can adjust all of these things. You can
Speaker 1: adjust it so that the attack takes longer, so that
Speaker 1: the build up to the peak and then the decay
Speaker 1: is more you know, it's it's taking kind of the
Speaker 1: scenic route. Or you can make the release last a
Speaker 1: really long time so that the note trails off like
Speaker 1: you have a long, sort of sustaining note. Um. All
Speaker 1: of these are things you can adjust using this type
Speaker 1: of technology, which gives you an incredible amount of flexibility
Speaker 1: when you are trying to create a specific sound. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think really makes synthesizers
Speaker 1: in general, and the mogue in particular, incredibly special. It
Speaker 1: makes me wish that I were capable of playing one. UM.
Speaker 1: I only plink around on keyboards, so it's pretty pathetic.
Speaker 1: Noel is like a master Jonathan. What's the song you
Speaker 1: always play when you sit down at a piano. Everybody
Speaker 1: has that annoying thing. They do the one song they
Speaker 1: know how to play, and they sit down and they
Speaker 1: do it well. There are two songs that I tend
Speaker 1: to play. One is the theme to Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Arc. I mean, that's great triumphant music and it's
Speaker 1: Nazi killing music, it is. And then the other one
Speaker 1: is Jesu joy a Man's Desiring. That's that's kind of
Speaker 1: two that I do, but I also I've also been
Speaker 1: known to do, oh de joy. Okay, so that's a
Speaker 1: bit of the old lidig, that's right. I have been
Speaker 1: obviously the the actual de joy movement, which is from
Speaker 1: you know, a much longer symphony, the Ninth Symphony. It's
Speaker 1: only that one section that I do. I can't play
Speaker 1: the any of the rest of it. And I can't
Speaker 1: really play that one very well. It's like two finger typing.
Speaker 1: It's like that, except with keyboard. I'm sure you're an
Speaker 1: astonishing blinker. Yeah. Occasionally, you know, if I get want
Speaker 1: to get fancy, you know, chopsticks, that's where it's at.
Speaker 1: A big fan of the Jaws. Yeah, nice, nice. I've
Speaker 1: been known to to do the uh, the musical motif
Speaker 1: from Close Encounters of the third kind um, which you
Speaker 1: can play just on the black keys. There's one other
Speaker 1: thing I want to mention um. A couple other things actually.
Speaker 1: One is the low frequency oscillator low frequency office oscillators
Speaker 1: also known as lfos UH. They control other modules by
Speaker 1: sending a low frequency. It's so low that sub audio
Speaker 1: you can't you can't hear it. It's beneath it's below
Speaker 1: twenty hurts um and they send a signal to other
Speaker 1: modules to alter a set sound. So this is one
Speaker 1: of the ways you can make that uh that sort
Speaker 1: of vibrato sound in a sustained note is altering this
Speaker 1: by using a low frequency oscillator gives it that wave
Speaker 1: equality maybe Noel can demonstrate. And then you can always
Speaker 1: use a control signal to change the frequency of another module.
Speaker 1: That's called frequency modulation or f M. By the way,
Speaker 1: all these things I'm talking about about changing frequencies of
Speaker 1: electronic signals. It doesn't just apply to synthesizers like frequency
Speaker 1: modulation oscillators, changing these things. This is all basic electronics,
Speaker 1: whether you're making a sound or doing something else. It's
Speaker 1: not just in in creating music. But where of course
Speaker 1: specifically framing it in that because the topic is the mogue.
Speaker 1: Uh So these are all super cool elements that give
Speaker 1: the moge that that quality it possesses, that really unusual sound,
Speaker 1: that that unique sound maybe instead of unusual, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to say something that would have offended mog himself.
Speaker 1: By unusual, I mean unique, not bad um And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: you can these things could get monstrously huge, like I've
Speaker 1: seen synthesizers that didn't have any keyboard attached them at all.
Speaker 1: It was just the various modules to demonstrate what the
Speaker 1: modules do. So all you had were the various modules,
Speaker 1: cables to hook physically hook the modules together, pugging and
Speaker 1: unplugging cables and turning dials, and you would have have
Speaker 1: maybe in a scilloscope to see the wave form, so
Speaker 1: you had something visual there too, but it was all
Speaker 1: just plugging and unplugging cables, patching in the alters, taking
Speaker 1: filters out by directly connecting modules. You know, that's interesting
Speaker 1: because when when mog and Deutsch were originally designing the mode,
Speaker 1: the you know, the synthesizer that would maybe it was
Speaker 1: the Abomba Atron, I don't know the original model. They
Speaker 1: were talking about the idea and they were discussing whether
Speaker 1: or not it should have a keyboard. The keyboard is
Speaker 1: sort of the obvious way to control the variable of pitch.
Speaker 1: But the question is should we have gone with something else,
Speaker 1: because does the keyboard inherently suggest this is really just
Speaker 1: a different kind of piano, which modified piano. You should
Speaker 1: approach it like a piano, use it like a piano.
Speaker 1: You bring your piano playing behaviors to the machine, and
Speaker 1: they were they were torn on that because they were thinking, well,
Speaker 1: what if we didn't include the keyboard, might that help
Speaker 1: encourage people to use this to generate sounds in a
Speaker 1: way that's truly new and doesn't mimic the way we've
Speaker 1: used other instruments before. Of course, we know they did
Speaker 1: end up going with the keyboard, and that kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense because the keyboard is a very useful and
Speaker 1: intuitive way to control pitch, but especially when you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you're capable of producing more than
Speaker 1: one one tone by pressing more than one key at once, right,
Speaker 1: some early synthesizers were only capable of performing like you
Speaker 1: press one key and that's the sound you would get,
Speaker 1: but you would not be able to create harmonies with
Speaker 1: some early synthesizers where you know you were if you
Speaker 1: change from key to key, you change the pitch, but
Speaker 1: you couldn't hold down a chord and have all three
Speaker 1: notes play, and some early early synthesizers. I think that's
Speaker 1: the case with the mog and it I believe so,
Speaker 1: and that that would mean that you could change out
Speaker 1: the keyboard for something like a lever. Then you pull
Speaker 1: the lever, and maybe when you pull the lever in
Speaker 1: one direction the pitch increases, and when you put push
Speaker 1: the lever the other direction, the pitch lowers. That could
Speaker 1: have in the control device or anything else. Really it
Speaker 1: didn't have to be the keyboard, but they decided ultimately
Speaker 1: to have the keyboard because again it I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think it makes it easier to understand how to
Speaker 1: produce the sound you want to produce. It becomes less
Speaker 1: It slightly steps away from the element of performance art
Speaker 1: the way a theoreman kind of is like, you can
Speaker 1: get a really skilled theremin player to create particular sounds
Speaker 1: and even play particular pieces of music, but it is hard.
Speaker 1: It is is It is an art to learn how
Speaker 1: to do that, and even then it's very imprecise. I
Speaker 1: think they probably should have replaced the keyboard with a big,
Speaker 1: big row of holes filled with a putty like a
Speaker 1: google that you have to insert your fingers into to
Speaker 1: play the note. Starting to make me think of like
Speaker 1: some sort of combination of a musical instrument, and that
Speaker 1: the Tree of Death and Flash Cordon reach inside and
Speaker 1: discover the true tones of the future. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about waveforms because we mentioned them a little
Speaker 1: bit with sign waves, square waves, triangle waves, sawtooth waves.
Speaker 1: What what the heck to all of these mean? Um?
Speaker 1: And we've already talked about what a waves period is,
Speaker 1: We've talked about frequency and amplitude and uh. For for
Speaker 1: a lot of this, I'm going to be looking at
Speaker 1: using the example of a one hundred hurts um wave
Speaker 1: or frequency rather one hundred hurts frequency, so that it
Speaker 1: makes it easy for me to use the math to
Speaker 1: describe the different wave forms, because if I go with
Speaker 1: something that's not easy, then I would have to do
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different calculations of the So I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, sign waves are that pure wave, is that
Speaker 1: fundamental frequency? Uh? This would be the same as if
Speaker 1: you were to take a tuning fork and ring it.
Speaker 1: It's going to create a true tone with no harmonics.
Speaker 1: It's a single sound. Uh. And so at one hundred hurts,
Speaker 1: you would have a wave where it's period is being
Speaker 1: repeated one hundred times every second, and that's all you
Speaker 1: would get just that, and it would be at a
Speaker 1: steady amplitude unless you were adjusting the volume. So again,
Speaker 1: amplitude refers to how loud it is in this case
Speaker 1: for for sound. Uh. And also what's really neat is
Speaker 1: that you know, you we depict this with the the
Speaker 1: peaks and valleys on a on an X Y axis,
Speaker 1: whereas the like the x axis the horizontal axis that
Speaker 1: represents time, and the vertical axis represents the the amplitude
Speaker 1: the volume. Uh. If you were to match up two
Speaker 1: sound waves that are identical, but the peaks of one
Speaker 1: sound wave are matched with the troughs of the other
Speaker 1: sound wave perfectly, they cancel each other out. So you
Speaker 1: play these two sounds simultaneously, if they line up in
Speaker 1: that way, they cancel one another out. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like all the atoms can't move because they're pushing against
Speaker 1: each other and not actually creating the vibration required for
Speaker 1: you to hear a noise. Noise canceling headphones work on
Speaker 1: a pretty similar principle to this to some degree. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: saw tooth waves. If you look at these, it looks
Speaker 1: like a ramp and then it's like the ramp goes
Speaker 1: up into the right and then immediately drops off like
Speaker 1: has a vertical drop, and then moves up into the
Speaker 1: right again, and that's why it's called saw tooth. It
Speaker 1: looks like the teeth of a saw blade. Um These
Speaker 1: when you play them, have a buzzing sound that's really
Speaker 1: strong and clear. So this is what a saw tooth
Speaker 1: wave sounds like. Now, those are made by combining a
Speaker 1: series of sign waves at different frequencies and volume levels.
Speaker 1: The loudest sign wave defines the frequency of the overall
Speaker 1: saw tooth wave, and that is the fundamental frequency, and
Speaker 1: the other sign waves represent the harmonics, which are deally
Speaker 1: at a frequent that complements the fundamental one. So generally
Speaker 1: what we talk about are multiples of the fundamental frequency.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm going to start with a one hurts.
Speaker 1: So at a hundred hurts, your next multiple like harmonic harmonic.
Speaker 1: The first harmonic would be number two because number one
Speaker 1: is your fundamental that's one hurts. Number two would be
Speaker 1: two hundred hurts because it's the multiple that's the harmonic.
Speaker 1: Number three is three hurts, four is four hundred hurts,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Multiple and harmonic number are
Speaker 1: the same thing as what I'm trying to get across.
Speaker 1: All of those are playing at the same time. But
Speaker 1: the amplitude of the harmonics is lower than the amplitude
Speaker 1: of the fundamental frequency, meaning they're quieter, right, They're not overwhelming,
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would just have noise. So uh, it drops
Speaker 1: with each step further away from the fundamental frequency, and
Speaker 1: it stretches on effectively into infinity. Eventually it gets to
Speaker 1: a point where it's so low that it's impossible for
Speaker 1: us to understand. So yeah, while the wave effectively or
Speaker 1: the the harmonics effectively go on into infinity, eventually one
Speaker 1: you hit a frequency that humans cannot perceive and to
Speaker 1: its well, in general, humans have trouble perceiving, and it's
Speaker 1: at an amplitude that's so low that you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to hear it anyway. The volume is too low
Speaker 1: for you to be able to detect it. But that's
Speaker 1: the that's what gives the saw tooth wave that tonal character.
Speaker 1: Then you've got square waves, which look very square. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you were to look at they almost looked like
Speaker 1: like the the battlements you might see on the top
Speaker 1: of a castle wall or something. And uh, square waves
Speaker 1: contain harmonics like a saw tooth wave, but it only
Speaker 1: contains the odd numbered harmonics, So you don't have harmonic
Speaker 1: number two. If you start with one hundred hurts, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have two hundred hurts as a harmonic. It would
Speaker 1: be skipped. But you would have three hundred huh and
Speaker 1: five hundred and seven hundred and nine hundred. But you
Speaker 1: skip all the even numbered harmonics. You only include the
Speaker 1: odd ones. And there's an actual formula for how quiet
Speaker 1: those harmonics arery What you do is you take the
Speaker 1: harmonic number and then you do the inversion of that.
Speaker 1: You invert it. So harmonic three you would invert to
Speaker 1: one over three or point three three three three, it
Speaker 1: would have that. That would be its amplitude compared to
Speaker 1: the fundamental frequency. Five would be one five of the
Speaker 1: amplitude of the fundamental frequency. Seven would be one seven, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: all the way down the line. So a square wave
Speaker 1: is going to have a a tone that a lot
Speaker 1: of our listeners are going to recognize because it's the
Speaker 1: type of wave generated by classic video game console systems
Speaker 1: like the Nintendo Entertainment System would be a great example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you gotta stop, you gotta stop and tell me
Speaker 1: what's your favorite in nes eight bit video game music. Uh.
Speaker 1: I know it's kind of lame to go with such
Speaker 1: a popular answer, but I really like the Legend of Zelda.
Speaker 1: That's a great one, you know. I also really I
Speaker 1: really like Super Mario Brothers. It's great. I really remember
Speaker 1: liking the music that went with the old ne ne
Speaker 1: Nes Batman game, which the only movie based games for
Speaker 1: the NES that wasn't horrible. Yeah, it wasn't wasn't like
Speaker 1: a just a complete travesty of the franchise rights. It
Speaker 1: was pretty good game, you know. That's what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is that that's great music. You remember Do Do Do
Speaker 1: Do Do? And I never owned it in ne e S,
Speaker 1: but I have a friend who did, and he had
Speaker 1: that game, so I do remember that. But anyway, this
Speaker 1: is what those square wave forms sound like, in case
Speaker 1: you wanted to know. So, yeah, you could tell. They're
Speaker 1: a little a little less buzzy than the saw tooth waves.
Speaker 1: The square ones are slightly less buzzy, but they still
Speaker 1: have some character to them. And then we have triangle waves.
Speaker 1: Triangle waves hate person waves. They have a fight triangle wins. Also,
Speaker 1: they have a really more mellow sound than your square
Speaker 1: waves or sawtooth waves do, so they kind of sit
Speaker 1: between square waves and sign waves. They also have harmonics,
Speaker 1: and they also have only odd numbered harmonics like the
Speaker 1: square waves do, so just three, five, seven, nine, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You don't have any even numbered harmonics in the triangle waves.
Speaker 1: And in this case, the amplitude of the harmonics is
Speaker 1: the drops off faster than it does with the square waves.
Speaker 1: So in square remember it's the inversion of the harmonic number,
Speaker 1: so three is one third, five is one. Five with
Speaker 1: triangle waves is the inversion of the square of the harmonic.
Speaker 1: So it's one over three squared or one over nine
Speaker 1: or point one repeating. So that's it's that amplitude compared
Speaker 1: to the fundamental frequency. And then etcetera down the road,
Speaker 1: so it'd be one over five squared, one over seven squared,
Speaker 1: one over nine squared, etcetera. And that would be your
Speaker 1: amplitude of your harmonics to the fundamental frequency. Ah, so
Speaker 1: that that's your basic ones. Oh, in a triangle wave,
Speaker 1: we should definitely hear what that sounds like. It sounds
Speaker 1: like this, So those are your basics, like that's you know,
Speaker 1: those are your the basic qualities of sound you could use.
Speaker 1: You could you could choose which type of wave you
Speaker 1: wanted the oscillator to generate with your moge synthesizer, and
Speaker 1: then put that through the various filters and other modules
Speaker 1: that we talked about to create all sorts of interesting
Speaker 1: sounds and and really give your music a very interesting
Speaker 1: character before you even start playing a melody. So with
Speaker 1: all of the richness of a variety of electronic music
Speaker 1: that you can create with synthesizers, I mean, we're focusing
Speaker 1: on analog synthesizers today, but really with any kind of
Speaker 1: electronically gym rated in music, there's a lot you can do.
Speaker 1: Why do why does some people still regard it as
Speaker 1: fake music? Because some people just I think are narrow
Speaker 1: minded jerk faces. No, I don't want to, I don't
Speaker 1: want to really suggest that. I think I think though,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that historically we've seen repeated,
Speaker 1: you know, many times, even before the age of electronic
Speaker 1: music at all, we saw this, like just with composers
Speaker 1: styles and you you've heard stories of how after the
Speaker 1: performance of a particular symphony and audience might riot in
Speaker 1: reaction because it was so different from what came before it.
Speaker 1: And I think that's part of it. I think there's
Speaker 1: some people who just have trouble accepting the idea that
Speaker 1: something different from what has come before has any can
Speaker 1: add any value, and if it doesn't fit their definition
Speaker 1: of what is music, it therefore cannot be music. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in that. I mean, I will go
Speaker 1: so far as to say, like, there are there's definitely
Speaker 1: some experimental music out there that to me sounds indistinguishable
Speaker 1: from random noise. Like there are some performance aren't pieces,
Speaker 1: and some of them are meant to be like that,
Speaker 1: like dropping objects onto piano wires from like twenty feet
Speaker 1: up so that you could create these these loud noises.
Speaker 1: It's not like that's done with surgical precision to create
Speaker 1: a very specific sound, and that's not what the intent
Speaker 1: of the piece is. Uh, and it it's it gets
Speaker 1: tricky for me to refer to that as music because
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit my definition, my personal definition of what
Speaker 1: music is. So I'm even guilty too of that to
Speaker 1: some extent. You know, one example I think of that
Speaker 1: that comes up is, for example, drum machines. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: hear that criticized all the time. People are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, the music these days, any idiot with the
Speaker 1: drum machine can just make some loops and then and
Speaker 1: then there were a musician, and that's not real music,
Speaker 1: or or people who program music into like it's possible
Speaker 1: to program music into a computer file without ever touching
Speaker 1: any kind of musical instrument. Right, You could, in theory,
Speaker 1: create music just by manipulating numbers if you have a
Speaker 1: great enough affinity for that. I don't think that makes
Speaker 1: the music any less valid than anything else. I don't
Speaker 1: think that there should be a In fact, how different
Speaker 1: is that from being a composer who creates, who composes
Speaker 1: music for a symphony and doesn't play it him or herself. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would argue that is very similar. And and I
Speaker 1: also just think that that the creation of music goes
Speaker 1: beyond how skillful you are at tickling the ivories or
Speaker 1: being able to plug strings. What did you just say
Speaker 1: to tickle the ivories? Tickle the ivories? That's playing piano?
Speaker 1: Where on earth did you learn that expression? What are you?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Look, tickle them, tickle the ivories?
Speaker 1: You've never heard this phrase? Are you telling me that?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, well I am older than you are. Uh,
Speaker 1: tickle the ivories is a phrase that means play the piano. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess. I guess I'll just have to go home
Speaker 1: and beat up my guitar. Well, I'm just saying a
Speaker 1: phrase that doesn't matter at any rate, Like I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think that musical ability. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go roughly chop my drums. I don't think that. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm about tickling the ivories and you're going into abuse.
Speaker 1: I don't think of all the bizarre things you can
Speaker 1: do with your hands that are not playing a musical instrument. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well that's that's fair. So I'm sorry. Now I'm the
Speaker 1: one being judgmental. I apologize, Jonathan. I think you should
Speaker 1: feel free to tickle the ivories however you like, and
Speaker 1: and I won't judge you for it. I just can't
Speaker 1: believe you've never heard that phrase before I heard. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty common down my way. Um. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, we had a lot of ivory ticklers when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. Um. So at the point being that,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's any particular skill that you
Speaker 1: have to possess in order to be someone who makes
Speaker 1: music other than the ability to create a melody or
Speaker 1: or you know, to actually create the music in whatever
Speaker 1: whatever mode you use to do it doesn't matter well,
Speaker 1: I mean regardless, Like why would we even consider ourselves
Speaker 1: in the business of certifying what counts as being a
Speaker 1: musician or not? This? Like, why is that our job
Speaker 1: to tell people, no, that's not real music. This honestly
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of the debate of whether or
Speaker 1: not video games or art or video games just contain art.
Speaker 1: So in other words, like, yeah, the graphics in a
Speaker 1: video game can be considered art, the music accompanying a
Speaker 1: video game can be considered art. But is a video
Speaker 1: game itself art? And there's people who very violently say
Speaker 1: absolutely not, there is no way a video game itself
Speaker 1: could be art. Do they have some kind of like
Speaker 1: philosophical principle in forming this opinion? I think they just
Speaker 1: have some sort of ridiculous narrow definition of what they
Speaker 1: think art has to fall in. Yeah, so I would
Speaker 1: say that this that the electronic music has fallen into
Speaker 1: that same thing that some people. For them, they have
Speaker 1: a very narrow definition of what music is. An electronic
Speaker 1: music falls outside of that definition, so therefore it cannot
Speaker 1: be music by by definition. Problem is that's not everyone's definition.
Speaker 1: I have a much broader opinion of what is music,
Speaker 1: maybe not as broad as other people. In fact, certainly
Speaker 1: not as broad as other people. I know there are
Speaker 1: folks who like music that I just find uh baffling,
Speaker 1: like there's no appeal to me. So I know that
Speaker 1: I'm also guilty of that, but I'm at least aware
Speaker 1: of it. So that's the story of the Moag synthesizer,
Speaker 1: what it did, the the actual wave forms that are produced,
Speaker 1: and how those come together to make various sounds. I
Speaker 1: gotta thank you, Joe for being on the show and
Speaker 1: joining me to have this discussion. It's been like you
Speaker 1: for inviting me. And I have to thank Noel for
Speaker 1: all the amazing work he will be doing on this
Speaker 1: episode that I have not yet heard because obviously he'll
Speaker 1: be adding it in later, but I can't wait. He
Speaker 1: was very eager to do it, Joe. You know, Noel
Speaker 1: is like he's crazy talented when it comes to music.
Speaker 1: Killer He he composed created the new music that the
Speaker 1: new theme music we have on over on stuff to
Speaker 1: build your mind, which I much preferred to the old
Speaker 1: theme music. He also did the music for tech stuff,
Speaker 1: which I much prefer to the old music. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Noel is a is a kind of a amazing and
Speaker 1: he's always working on something. Um Actually, one thing I
Speaker 1: would love Noel to do at some point, I'll have
Speaker 1: to do another episode about music so that Nol can
Speaker 1: play some of his mouth noise symphony for listeners, because
Speaker 1: he's created musical pieces where all of the all of
Speaker 1: the sounds come from various mouth noises. They's cut out
Speaker 1: of podcasts and then manipulated in some way to make
Speaker 1: the musical and you would not necessarily know that it
Speaker 1: was a series of mouth sounds if you listen to
Speaker 1: it without being told first. It's kind of cool as
Speaker 1: the sort of thing he does him he can really
Speaker 1: tickle the mouth sound. You really can. I can't believe
Speaker 1: you're giving me crap about this very valid phrase that
Speaker 1: when you google it you are going to be shocked
Speaker 1: that there are other people who have used it. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: and that we're going to wrap this up. This has
Speaker 1: been an epic episode about Mode. It's been fun and guys,
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know if
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for other topics or suggestions for people
Speaker 1: I should get on the show, either as a guest
Speaker 1: or an interview subject. I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Send me an email that address is tech stuff at
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Speaker 1: on Facebook, Tumbler, or Twitter. To handle it all three,
Speaker 1: it's tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to you again.
Speaker 1: Really sat. For more on this and bathans of other hathics,
Speaker 1: visit has stuff works dot com.