Formant/Scream Synthesis

James Corley's icon

Hi,
I was looking into synthesis of vocal sounds when I came across this video:
https://vimeo.com/98406385
It demonstrates the use of modular synthesiser gear to create horrifying scream sounds.
I was wondering if anyone had any insight into how I might be able to create these sounds in Max, as I don't fully understand how the modules used in the video work in order to replicate the sounds.

Any help would be appreciated,

Many thanks,
James.

Christopher Overstreet's icon

that is cool! Have no idea how to help.

Gregory Taylor's icon

Well, the video's um... pretty straight ahead. Instead of showing you the patch as a done deal, you get to watch what's connected to what, where, and in what order. If you're knowledgable as to what the modules do, reverse engineering it will require a little time, but it's all there (perhaps there is a particularly dodgy bit of analog module non-reproducability, but I can't really see anything offhand that would fall into that category)....

James Corley's icon

Thank you for the reply,
Indeed the video is pretty straight forward, and having looked further into the patch I've found that for the most part it is self explanatory on how to recreate in Max.
However, the MMG module seems like the characteristic module in giving this patch the formant/vocal sound which takes the sound beyond just FM noises (to my understanding at least).
I can't believe that this is anything particularly to do with the analog circuitry but rather the fact that it is a Low Pass Gate that can be morphed into having a High Pass Response.
I have little knowledge on how to construct a low pass gate or the ability to morph between filter responses in Max, so if anyone has any information regarding this it would be appreciated.

Dario's icon

Phasor~ .6----> * 1000 ---> saw~ and cycle~ and then feed the output back on *1000 makes a pretty good scream especially in gen~ when the feedback delay time approaches about 10 samples in length or

Dario's icon
James Corley's icon

Dario, thank you for that, it makes sense how the patch would work but I'm unsure how to implement it specifically. This was one of my attempts at implementing your patch:

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

However I feel I am missing something as it doesn't seem to work how you described.

Dario's icon

more like this:

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

I was saying its sometimes good to make patches like this in gen~ because you can have a delay line that is not limited by the vector size like it is in msp.

There is also some info on how to make a low pass gate on this thread which i believe was one of the modules on the video:

https://cycling74.com/forums/vactrol.

I personally wouldnt try to emulate the video module by module maybe just because I am not an expert with stuff like eurorack

I think that if I did some formant or vactrol style filtering to my patch it would sound pretty close to that video.

Dario's icon

oops disregard that last patch i posted heres what I meant to post for the patch:

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.