 |
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
[additive synthesis] this is based on combining simple waveforms, like sinwaves, into more complex sounds it is in a way the opposite of subtractive synthesis, where you you start with a sound and remove parts, here instead you add parts to get the wanted sound [adsr] attack, decay, sustain, release used on synths to determine how the envelope of a sound is controlled over time [algorithm] a set of instructions designed to accomplish a certain task in synths this can be used mathematically to perform certain tasks such as effects [analog] all natural sounds are analog, such as guitars, pianos, violins analong synths are based on one or more tone generator (oscillator) playing a waveform resonating at a certain frequency to form a sound, the sound is later run through a chain of filters removing and amplifying frequencies to further form the sound analog synth sounds and analog effects are said to be warm, since they often have a "natural" noise created by the electronics - the opposite of analog is digital [analog synthesis] this is in it's most basic form a three step procedure oscillator - filter - amplifier the oscillator generates a waveform thus producing a sound, then various frequencies are removed from the sound by the filters, last but not least the signal is amplified - this is also called subtractive synthesis since you start off with a rich sound and then remove parts of it rather than add new ones as you do in the additive synthesis [asio]
[band pass filter] a filter that removes everything but a certain frequency range the opposite of the band reject filter [band reject filter] also known as notch filter a filter that removes everything within a certain frequency range the opposite of the band pass filter [bmw] buzz song format without ability to store samples in the song [bmx] buzz song format with ability to store samples in the song [bpm] beats per minute in buzz this setting controls the speed of the song along with tpb
[cakewalk] Midi/audio sequencer/composer, very similar to cubase vst and logic audio but more of a beginners program. As long as you only need to compose midi this is good enough, if you want to be able to control softsynths and effects however you should go for vst or logic [cent] [compression] [cubase vst] Midi/audio sequencer/composer, the most popular program of it's type. The new vst 2 instruments will allow you to use this as so much more than just an ordinary midi sequencer [cutoff frequency] this is the frequency the filter will use as a cut point, if it is a lowpass filter everything above this frequency will be removed, if it is a highpass filter everything beneath this frequency will be removed
[decay] [delay] [digital] digital sounds are "unnatural" sounds a sampled guitar stored in a computer could be called a digital sound since it is no longer a sound but rather a series of binary code - the synths using wavetable synthesis are the ones said to be digital, there are however newer synths called analog modeling synths, such as the nord lead 2 that virtually works like a classic analog synth - digital effects are said to be less warm than the analog ones thus making the analog effects more popular - there is no possiblity to listen to a digital sound, instead it is converted into the analog sound you get from your speakers or headphones - digital information is the only information a computer can handle and that's why it is used to store or modify music and sounds [directX] microsoft's standard interface for windows that provides instant access to hardware without going through the windows 95/98 inteface [distortion]
[emphasis] also known as resonance [equalizer]
[fast tracker] this tracker was made by the well known swedish demo group called triton, just like scream tracker and impulse tracker it uses ms dos [filter] a filter is used to remove certain parts of a sound signal, a filter can never add any new sound information, only remove all or some of the parts you have - by using a filter you can lift or hide certain frequencies in the sound making it more interesting see high pass low pass band pass and band reject filter [flanger] [fm synthesis] a chain of sinewaves modulating eachother to form a sound, each of the links in the chain can contain one or more sinewaves [frequency] frequency = Hz amount [fuzz]
[gain] [generator]
[hertz] hz = cycles/second (frequency) when speaking about analog synths this can be described as the number of waveforms played each second, where a lower number produces a bassy sound and a higher number produces a higher and clearer sound [hexadecimal] this is the number system tracking is based on, instead of using ten as it's base it uses 16 the normal system looks like this: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 the hexadecimal system looks like this: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10 where a,b,c,d,e,f = 11,12,13,14,15 so in the hexadecimal system 10 means 16 and 20 means 32, this is made to simplify the music making since most music is based on a 4/4 rythm, 16/4=4 while 10/4=2.5 - this means dividing a system based on ten into fourths would make unewen numbers, making it very difficult to work with [highpass filter] a filter that only lets frequencies exceeding a certain cutoff amount through this will produce a sharper and higher sound than the lowpass filter
[impulse tracker] this is the further development of screamtracker and is said to be slightly better than fast tracker although fast tracker seems to be the more popular one [inertia] [it] The impulse tracker music format, this is most likely the most advanced tracker file format. Just like xm files they can contain a high number of high quality samples, but impulse tracker files can also be compressed.
[latency] input-output delay, [lfo] low frequency oscillator [logic audio] Midi/audio sequencer/composer, this is similar to vst but more powerful. People often complain about the hard to understand interface, once you get the hang of it though nothing will let you control your midi equipment like this program. The newer versions also have support for logic, directX, vst and vst 2 plugins [loop] when a sound plays over and over again it's called a loop, the sample that is looped can either be looped from the beginning or contain loop points with values on when the loop start and loop end is - a loop can also be ping pong looped, which means the loop will play normally from the start to the end but then reverse itself and play backwards towards the beginning again [lowpass filter] a filter that only lets frequencies lower than a certain amount of cutoff through this will produce a bassy and lower sound than the highpass filter
[midi] [mixer] [mixing] [mod] The original 4 channel music format. They have many limitations, the samples are limited in quality, you cannot use more than 4 channels and so on. There is however still people making music in this format just to prove their skill. At demo parties there are often chipmod competitions, which are standard mod files that only use pure waveforms as samples. [modplug tracker] The first standard tracker for win95/98 to have any sucess, notre though that buzz was actually out before modplug tracker. [modulation] [mono] only uses one channel for audio information and will thus not allow effects such as panning [mp3] the new standard music compression format that allows you to download everything from samples to whole songs rather quickly - note that while compressing something in this format some sound information will be lost, losing some of the sound quality, compression rate is about 1/10 of the original size for more info : http://www.mp3.com [multisamples] when tracking you pitch samples up and down, pitching can lead to very short, long or unnatural sounds - let's say you have a piano sample and play two notes where one is two octaves higher than the other one, the higher note will sound very short and will feel rather pitched and unlike the first note - to avoid this you use multisamples, a multisample uses two or more samples to make a more realistic sound, a piano could be multisampled by sampling all c notes on the piano then linking them together - multisamples will of course use more memory, cpu and space but will on the other hand sound far less synthetic [multitracking]
[noise] [noise trekker] [normalize] [notch filter] see band reject filter
[oscillator] [overdrive]
[panning] the placement of the sound between the left & right stereo channels [pattern] A pattern is a row of text containing notes, parameter changes and other song information, the number of rows can differ from 1 to over 500. In buzz these patterns are made individually for each machine you want to include in the sequence editor, in older trackers this was not possible and the pattern had all instruments from that certain part of the song in them. A pattern is similar to a music score with the difference that it also contains all of the instruments parameters. [pitchbend] [phaser] [physical modeling] [polyphony] polyphony is the number of sounds a synth can play at once, newer synths are able to use more voices which gives a more full sound since that allows chords and more advanced melody structures - each sound played on an analog synth uses a minimum of 1 oscilltor, if a synth would have a 10 voice polyphony that would require a minimum of 10 oscillators which would make it expensive, that's the reason to why old analog synths have a low voice polyphony [preset] a buzz preset works just like a preset does on a synth, by storing parameter settings in the generators and effects as presets you can easily make favourite settings for later use - the presets are allowed to have names which you can use to describe your settings, this makes it very easy to combine and tryout new sounds by connecting various machines to eachother while using various presets [psycle] arguru, the man who made the guru synths for buzz and noisetrekker among many other things now has a new project, it's a tracker that very much resembles buzz in layout but will most likely host some other features - there is however no version of the program out yet
[Q] also known as resonance
[rar] standard compression format, unlike mp3 files these allow lostless compression of audio files - this makes it possible to compress an audio file for easier distribution on the internet without losing soundquality, this is recommended for sending samples to people, not for releasing full songs since the compression rate is rather low, about 50% for more info : http://www.winrar.com [reaktor] Reaktor is the closest thing to buzz on the market, it's slightly different however. In reaktor you use building blocks to create your own synths, i suppose some basic synthesis knowledge doesn't hurt if you want to give reaktor a try though. for more info : http://www.native-instruments.com [realaudio] This is a very popular internet music format, it's size makes it perfect for realtime streaming of audio. This means you can listen to music in realtime over the net in radio quality with a normal 56k modem connection. for more info : http://www.real.com [reality] One of the new popular analog software synths. [reason] Reason is the new software synth from propellerheads, the makers of rebirth. It resembles buzz in many ways and some people even claim it to be heavily inspired by buzz. There is no version out yet, however there are some sound examples of the synth on propellerheads site. for more info : http://www.propellerheads.com [remix] This is when you alter an existing song that's either yours or someone elses, the difference between a cover and a remix is that when you cover a song you build all sounds from scratch and try to get them to sound like the original. While remixing you start with a piece or the whole song and then remove and add parts as you go making it a new version of the existing song [rebirth] This is the very famous and well used software synth program made by some swedish people called the propellerheads. It's a package with software versions of rolands 303 bass synths and 808 and 909 drummachines. It's in a way what started the whole software synth market, they proved a computer could sound like some of rolands most popular boxes. Rebirth has been an inspiration for many softsynth programmers. for more info : http://www.propellerheads.com [resonance] also known as Q or emphasis boosts the amplitude, or volume of the frequencies around the cutoff frequency a high resonance in a lowpass filter with a low cutoff will add bass, a high resonance in a highpass filter with a high cutoff will often result in a screamy, nasty sound [reverb]
[s3m] Screamtracker music file format. [sample] a file containing audio information - in buzz these are the files you load from the wavetable window, the accepted formats are wav and xi files, they can vary in size and quality - while tracking these can be used for anything from drums & soundeffects to pianos and violins - other programs accept other files, some of the formats are mp3, wav, aif, xi, - note that all of these can be converted into each of the other audio formats, making all audio files useable in buzz as samples when correctly converted [sampling rate] the sampling rate is the limitation of the digital sound quality normally this is 16-bit 44.1kHz stereo just as cd's, this can however vary much when an analog sound is recorded a higher samplerate will be more true to the original sound, but contains more sound information thus making the sound file bigger - a lower samplerate will lead to a lower soundquality but will instead require less storage space and steal less cpu [scream tracker] this was the first tracker for pc and used the old ms dos operating system - the tracker was made by a well known finnish demo group called future crew, the layout of the tracker was later used for impulse tracker [sequencer] [soundfonts] files containing audio information in the form of an instrument, these files only respond to midi and work like just like the midi banks in a synth or on a soundcard the only way to use these files in buzz so far is with the rout soundfont loader [stereo] uses two channels for the audio information, one for each speaker - left & right stereo makes the music sound more alive and allows the use of panning [subtractive synthesis] see analog synthesis [synthesis] the creation of sound see subtractive synthesis, fm synthesis and additive synthesis
[templates] [themes] in buzz these are used to change the default color settings, many people claim this can add some ideas and creativity - if you are about to make a sad and dark song you choose a dark theme, if you are about to make a happy song you choose a colorful and happy theme - who knows perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn't, it's worth a shot anyway! - check my themes section for further information [threshold] [tick] this is the measurement standard used by trackers, instead of using seconds or beats you use ticks, a default pattern consists of 16 ticks, on each tick a note and parameter change is possible - the number of ticks played per second is set by two settings, one is bpm, beats per minute, the other is tpb, ticks per beat - so if you have a bpm setting of 120 and a tpb setting of 6 the number of ticks played each minute will be 120x6=720 ticks - the tpb and bpm you be set to match your song so you are able to get all notes and parameter changes in but still don't have to many empty spaces since that's wasting space [tpb] ticks per beat this controls the speed of the song along with bpm see tick [tracking] [tremolo]
[vibrato] [vocoder] [vst]
[wav] Standard windows audio format, this is uncompressed raw audio data. This is one of the two formats you are able to use as samples in buzz. Pretty much all music software is able to playback and record wav format files. [wavetable] a wavetable uses samples as sounds instead of creating them through synthesis, this has both good and bad sides - the good thing is that you are allowed to use sounds that you cannot create in buzz through synthesis, like guitars, vocals and such - the bad thing however is that using sampled instruments will very often sound synthetic and strange if you try to pitch them up and down too much to get to the desired notes [waveforms]
[xi] fasttracker instrument standard, these files are actually normal wave files with some extra info added - the xi files can contain multisamples with settings on which keys that will use which samples, they can also contain adsr envelopes and loop point information - buzz is able to load most of the xi features but multisamples will often not work properly - buzz can convert xi samples to wave samples if you perhaps wish to use or alter the sample in another audio program, this is easily done by pressing the arrow pointing right and choosing where to save it [xm] This is the music format used by fasttracker II, it works just like regular mod files but has some advantages such as more channels, more high quality samples and such.
[zip] standard compression format that does not allow a noticable compression of audio files, this is however a more common format than rar and is instead highly useable for compressing other files such as generators, effects and such for more info : http://www.winzip.com - back to index - ©2000 - newt |
