Smearing sounds on ob-6

[Riptnine]

Hi everyone.  I’m pretty new to synthesis, learning on an ob-6 and using the syntorial program to get my groundings.  One of the syntorial lessons is on creating smearing sounds by detuning each oscillator in small increments of cents (eg +3 cents on oscillator one, -3 cents on oscillator two).  Is there any way to replicate this on an ob-6 since the frequency is adjusted in semi-tones and there is only a master and oscillating 2 detune?

[Frocktar]

Hey mate!!

The oscillator detune on #2 is how you do it here.  You don’t have an equivalent for osc 1 on the OB6.

[LPF83]

Hi everyone.  I’m pretty new to synthesis, learning on an ob-6 and using the syntorial program to get my groundings.  One of the syntorial lessons is on creating smearing sounds by detuning each oscillator in small increments of cents (eg +3 cents on oscillator one, -3 cents on oscillator two).  Is there any way to replicate this on an ob-6 since the frequency is adjusted in semi-tones and there is only a master and oscillating 2 detune?

Short answer -  the master detune knob is effectively a feature that does for you what the tutorial is teaching about detune.  Setting very specific detune offsets per oscillator is something that applies more to digital synths than analog; on analog you pretty much detune by ear and enjoy the natural variation that occurs.

Longer answer - On the OB6 you can also (theoretically) achieve similar results by simply detuning OSC2 to create a tuning offset from OSC1, especially on an analog synth where the actual tuning in cents is going to be less precise than digitally tuned OSCs.  The tutorial is simply illustrating how to thicken the tone with slight detuning variation.  With digital (or digitally tuned) oscillators, typically if you hold the A key, it's perfectly in the key of A (440hz), plus or minus zero cents, and at that point setting OSC1 or 2 specifically to +/-3 makes a lot of sense.  But with VCO based synths, particularly the OB-6 which has natural detuning baked in to the oscillators, if you analyze the tuning while holding down A on an init patch, you'll typically see some variation -- the oscillator is already fluctuating by a few cents in either direction.  So by using master detune (either in default mode or vintage mode) you are effectively varying the range of natural fluctuation, rather than specifying a precise amount of detuning in cents.

Most DAWs come with a tool that you can put on the track to see the specific tuning values of any given instrument (synth or anything else coming into the audio inputs).

Software synths in a DAW are great learning tools, because it can quickly expose you to all the various methods that different synths use to achieve similar goals.  This helps diversify your sound design habits a bit, so that you can adapt sound sculpting skills to new synths (hardware or software) easily.

Side note.... on the OB-6 or Prophet 6 make sure you know how to switch between Vintage mode on or off, because it affects how the master Detune knob behaves.

[Riptnine]

Thanks you! Perfect and helpful responses.  Yes, my approach is to learn through one software and one hardware synth simultaneously as I go to see how each adapts with each other (forcing me to think through the physics of how this is working and not just turning knobs) - these explanations are great.  Thank you very much. 

[RobustAmerican]

You can detune VCO 1 using the X-mod section and the filter envelope. It's not as easy as having a knob like VCO 2 offers but it can certainly be accomplished. This would most likely result in sacrificing the filter envelope for other duties as the settings required for a slight detune of VCO 1 would make the envelope almost useless for filter sculpting. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

[MPM]

Just use DETUNE.

From the manual:
Detune (next to the unison button) adds randomized detuning to the oscillators to emulate the tuning instability of vintage analog oscillators. This tuning instability is a big part of what made vintage instruments sound characteristically warm and fat.

Because the OB-6 oscillators are extremely stable, small amounts of detune can help impart a very vintage tone to what is otherwise a very stable, modern instrument. detune amount is adjustable from subtle to wildly out of tune.

When unison is enabled, detune detunes the unison voices by a fixed amount. Using the pan spread feature, if an odd number of voices is stacked, one of the voices is placed in the center of the stereo field with the other voices spread right and left. The higher the pan spread setting, the wider the stereo spread in unison.