How do you approach formant sounds?

I've been trying to up my formant game recently. I'm a software kinda guy, so I tend to use built in formant knobs in my synths. The Talkwah in FM8, or Harmor's fairly versatile filters to make my own formants (I suck at this). Harmor has given me so-so results, whereas the talkwah has given me the best (yet very constrained) results due to the fact that you turn two knobs: one for the vowel sound, and the other for how "open" the mouth is which would create other vowels. Thing is, the Talkwah only works one way, and I'd like much more versatility in sculpting the sound.

So I would like watmm's opinion on the subject as there doesn't seem to be much on the subject beyond merely explaining what a formant is and how to make it.

I use formant synthesis a lot for modulation. I used to just mic. record into cooledit, then map out and compare bandpass filter frequencies with different phonemes and words I would sample using the spectrograph view vs the instrument being modulated, but you can't really do tricks like overtone shifting as neatly. The vowel sequences are great for automation but you can do other things like bird calls and other animal models.

Totally agree that talkwah in FM8 is dope. FM8 in general is amazing.

Use a ton of bandpass filters in parallel

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I use formant synthesis a lot for modulation. I used to just mic. record into cooledit, then map out and compare bandpass filter frequencies with different phonemes and words I would sample using the spectrograph view vs the instrument being modulated, but you can't really do tricks like overtone shifting as neatly. The vowel sequences are great for automation but you can do other things like bird calls and other animal models.

Totally agree that talkwah in FM8 is dope. FM8 in general is amazing.

Thanks for the info! What do you mean by overtone shifting, and why can't you do it as neatly? I do have a few keywords for google now!

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Use a ton of bandpass filters in parallel

This was the very first thing I tried when I found out what formants were ^^

Sorry overtone shifting is a word i perverted. Its only a problem if you're manually drawing formants out from plots and they're different per pitch. In the recording-to-vector drawings, you can put different formant parameters into different frequency band partials that might mis-align with the overtone series when you go up and down the notes on the instrument and sound clunky. it can be annoying if you have lots of formant envelopes to assign to different keys and have their EQ's mess up glaringly.

In my tracks they end up manifesting as clicks between them and smoothing them out is not an option.

  On 3/16/2014 at 10:21 AM, Entorwellian said:

Sorry overtone shifting is a word i perverted. Its only a problem if you're manually drawing formants out from plots and they're different per pitch. In the recording-to-vector drawings, you can put different formant parameters into different frequency band partials that might mis-align with the overtone series when you go up and down the notes on the instrument and sound clunky. it can be annoying if you have lots of formant envelopes to assign to different keys and have their EQ's mess up glaringly.

 

In my tracks they end up manifesting as clicks between them and smoothing them out is not an option.

Oh yeah, that makes much more sense. I can definitely see that being a problem. What do you do now instead? If you've come up with a solution at all.

With suspicion.

I've been meaning to get fm8. tired of the massive interface and its ugliness.

I honestly don't use fm8 much (though I really should learn how to make metallic patches). I would suggest many things over Fm8. Maybe try out Reaktor, or Harmor.

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With suspicion.

You're a sound wave of some sort.

Razor, which is basically an insanely good additive synth in Reaktor (from Errorsmith/Native Instruments) gives you lots of formant-style goodness to play with. Many of the default patches provide excellent examples to start from, "Vox Vocis" (patch 16 in the Best of Razor bank, for example). Easiest way to get into formant synthesis.

Yamaha FS1R is the hardest, but most rewarding, if you don't mind using a good toothpick to edit the programs with.

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