sawswoop

saw-swoop part

Figure 38 summary

long saw sweeps

This type of sound features in some Pink Floyd songs and became popular again in 90s chillout/ambient music of artists like Namlook and Morris. It is a resonant saw pitch sweep going right beyond the normal range and used at the start or end of several bars to add new energy or a lead in to a new section.

Figure 38: L1-sawswoop

L1-sawswoop.pd

saw sequence

Figure 39 summary

• non root notes
• random slice
• two possible patches

non root notes

All the notes above 1 and 2 are unpacked from the chord. This composition originally had 10 and 12 note chords and there are two redundant values unpacked. Sometimes as a piece evolves, not every part of stays consistent and interesting "features" may be happened upon by accident. The result here should to get an extra two rests, but in fact we occasionally get a zero value note since the redundant floats are set to 0. I decided to keep this "bug" as part of the composition because when the note dives to zero it makes a very nice effect.

selection

Two cycles of time are used here, a 16 beat bar and a 64 beat one. This is to add an extra few beats on 57, 61 and the last beat of each 4 regular bars. There are two synth patches selected in the sequencer. Notice parameter substitution occurs here in the sequencer this time, not in the synth, so we can choose different sounds on different beats.

Figure 39: L2-saw-seq

L2-saw-seq.pd

sawslider

Figure 40 summary

• detutned phasors
• filtered
• clipped

detuned saws and filter

There's quite a lot to see in this synth and it's layout is not easy to read. Basically, two phasors are at the core of the sound, detuned from each other so that one lags behind the other when they move but they eventually reach the same value. The summed phasors are filtered with bandpass [bp~ 100 1] and clipped [clip~ -0.9 0.9]. The filter resonance is set quite high by an incoming parameter.

Figure 40: L3-saw-synth

L3-saw-synth.pd

play the saw swoops

Figure 41 summary

occasional swoops

Few occurances of this sparse part occur in the composition. It also varies quite a lot as the last state of of the oscillators makes a difference to how the next note will play out. Sometimes you hear it sweep right up to the limits of the keyboard and then back to zero where it makes a clicking noise as the phasor frequency gets very low.

Figure 41: L4-saw

L4-saw-play.pd L4-saw-play.ogg