Sunday, August 6, 2017

Creating your own analog synth sounds on iPad GarageBand


It would be nice doing this connecting a nice low noise, state of the art Pleiades K117 pre amplifier cable to iPad. It is powered directly by the headphone mic iPad's connector just like electret condenser mics.


Then connecting to Pleiades K117 a world class (dynamic) moving coil mic which is not nessasarily expensive such as the Beyer M55.


A very simple one transistor or one electron tube Pleiades oscillator can be made. A centered taped at the primary output transformer can be used to produce oscillation by feeding back to input. One capacitor and resistor in the other parts of the circuit can adjust the frequency. A high Megohm resistor from anode to grid can make the electron tube operative at even less than 6 volts. A suitable tube is a triode connected EF183. An ECC82 can be used too.


A photo resistor can be used to easily create any frequency by adjusting the light intensity falling to it by the shadow of your hand. (It can also play like a Theremin).


A tiny loudspeaker may be connected to the secondary of the output transformer.


This extremely live, pure but not nessasarily clean acoustic wave can be close miked by the microphone.


The microphone angle can be used as a high cut filter.


A glass or hand can be used to create a adjustable cutoff reasonant filter.


The interesting sound is sampled by the GarageBand's sampler.


Then chords or melody can be played.


Make sure you use the pitch bender for the high notes as our brain requires that octaves are higher than x2 in frequency for exact and satisfying double pitch perception by our brain. Otherwise they sound cheap and flat. See the references by the founder and director of the Harvard Psycho Physics laboratory, Stanley Stevens Smith.


The frequency has to be greater, not much, so you can use the pitch bender wheel creatively especially for the very high notes.


Reference: Hearing - S.S. Stevens, H. Davies or Sound and Heating - S.S. Stevens, F. Warshofsky


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