ARP2600 - Fundamentals of Music Technology - Cyborgstudio.com

SECTION THREE: VCO-2 - 027beats are speeding up, then the frequencies are getting farther apart, and the slider is being moved thewrong direction. Eventually, if the slider is moved in the correct direction and the coarse tuning sliderwas set close to begin with, the beats will slow to an almost imperceptible speed. The oscillators arethen in tune.PHAT TUNINGIt is not always desirable to put the oscillators perfectly in tune, however. Many pop songs today useoscillators which are intentionally out of tune as this yields a wider, warmer sound that analog synthesizerslike the ARP 2600 are known for. The term for this detuned sound is taken from urban hip-hopculture and is mutated from an English word. The word is phat and is pronounced just like ‘fat.’ Thissound is the reason that old analog synthesizers like the ARP 2600 are highly sought after and areprized by synthesists everywhere. CD track 11Herein is the big advantage of using two oscillators to create a square and saw wave as opposed tousing one oscillator to create the same waveforms. Indeed, the more oscillators used to make a sound,the warmer, thicker, and more interesting the sound will be.Another great possibility available to the student at this time is tuning the oscillators in differentintervals. Great sounds can be achieved by tuning the oscillators in octaves, perfect fifths, and perfectfourths. Of course, there are lots of other interesting possibilities, and the general rule is that if a patchsounds good, then it is acceptable. Tuning in different intervals, combined with the phat tuningdiscussed earlier will yield some great new sounds.