A single phasor~ object can serve to synchronize several different modulations. In this example, the phasor~ is scaled and applied in three different ways. On the left side of the patch, the output of the phasor~ is cubed (multiplied by itself, then multiplied by itself again) so that it's a gentle curve instead of a straight line; that curve is then scaled by a factor of 1760, offset by 220, and used as the central frequency of the cycle~ object.
This patch shows a simple method for mixing and viewing two sine tones generated by the cycle~ object.
Amplitude modulation is the use of one oscillator—usually but not obligatorily at a sub-audio frequency—to modify the amplitude of a sound. (Ring modulation, shown in Multiplication of Sine Tones, is one particular example of amplitude modulation.) The modulating oscillator is added to a main amplitude value to create an amplitude that fluctuates up and down from the central value. The result, at low modulation frequencies, is called "tremolo".
To play two tones, you need two oscillators: two cycle~ objects). To mix them together, simply add the two signals with a +~ object. (For digital signals, addition is mixing.) To control the amplitude, multiply it by some factor, using a *~ object. (Multiplication is amplification.)
This patch converts MIDI velocity values to create an amplitude envelope to control a *~. The Test MIDI velocity to amplitude (vtoa) abstraction patch shows how this abstraction can be used.
This patch uses the vtoa abstraction (found here) to convert MIDI velocity to amplitude which controls the volume of a saw~.
This patch is an example of a sampling synthesizer in Max. The kslider may be used to control the patch if a MIDI controller is not available. The gtrvoice patch used inside of the patcher guitar6strings may be found in the example Managing samples in Max. The guitar samples that are loaded into the buffer subpatch may be found in the file called guitarstrings.zip.
This patch shows how to mix detuned oscillators with modulation.
This is an example of a patch loaded in a poly~ which uses midi values to load and transpose samples of guitar strings in a groove~. This patch is used as an abstraction inside of the Sampling Synthesizer in Max patch which includes pitch bend and mod wheel functionality and contains the buffer~ objects that the groove~ in this patch refers to.
This patch demonstrates wave interference with two cycle~ objects, and offers two ways of visualizing the audio signal, with scope~ or by creating your own scope with Jitter.