Cool white noise "oscillator" trick

[Electrolight]

just now I had a cool idea, maybe some of you already do this or know of this, but I'm posting it anyway

So I was jamming on my little phatty, doing some 'sound design' and saving some presets, and at a moment I thought it would be cool to have a REAL white noise oscillator there, but modulating osc 2 with 'white noise' just didn't do it, it wasn't clean enough
so what I did was take my iPod, make a little white noise loop, and hook up the iPod to the IN port of my LP, and put the loop on repeat

Now the clean white noise only gets gated when I press a key, and I really like the sound of it, especially together with a saw tooth and some filter enveloping, it sounds really cool!
I know it's no analog oscillator or anything, but as a third osc I think it really does the trick well!

one problem you might have is that the iPod isn't loud enough, what I do is put my osc levels a bit softer, and my master higher.

ps: you could of course use your laptop too, but with an iPod you could easily do the same thing live!

[Sir Nose]

It takes an insanely good ear to hear the difference between an analog noise source and a digital noise source, esp. when mixed. It depends some on how the noise is generated, but still it's noise. Someone mentioned on here using an am radio tuned between stations for some colored noise. Closer to pink noise I think.

[EricK]

You can even take an actual noise source and connect it to the voltage input of an oscillator to generate some raspy sounding Oscs.

I do this with the freqbox on occasion.

Eric

[Electrolight]

So I just want to let know:
I've made, sought and sampled some good white noise / pink noise samples and put them on my iPod, apparently I've put my volume control on so that's why it didn't really go loud enough, but if the samples are well maximized and you turn off the volume restriction, it's just perfect! I'm using this a lot

[diddi_jo]

This is a great sounding trick. I always felt though that omitting a white noise generator in the audio chain in LP is just about the only serious design flaw of an otherwise fantastic instrument. It's simply not enough to have it as a mod source.

[Sore_Knee]

I use something similar, though i use an app for my iphone called WhiteNoise.

the app generates noise colour from red though pink white blue to violet and has a tuneable low-pass and high-pass filter.

[Josef_K]

I use something similar, though i use an app for my iphone called WhiteNoise.

the app generates noise colour from red though pink white blue to violet and has a tuneable low-pass and high-pass filter.

Great idea here, I have an andriod though but I found an app that generates White, Pink or "Brown" Noise. No filters or anything but I think I'd rather use my LP filter than one in a free app haha :D Great stuff, I will try to use it with my LP as soon as I can.

[Electrolight]

I think it might be interesting enough to use a hi pass filter on the white noise before feeding it in the Phatty, to create a thinner sound (something I do a lot in VST's) and to be able to have more of the white noise effect with less low end troubles (so you just have the hiss of the white noise, not the low end rumble)

[Assar]

Is there any problem with the stereo output from the mobile units vs the mono input in the LP?
Or how do you guys handle that?

[Electrolight]

I don't think that's a problem... or anyway I use a stereo jack in my input and it works, so I hope it's no problem

[Josef_K]

I think it might be interesting enough to use a hi pass filter on the white noise before feeding it in the Phatty, to create a thinner sound (something I do a lot in VST's) and to be able to have more of the white noise effect with less low end troubles (so you just have the hiss of the white noise, not the low end rumble)

This is a good point, I didn't think of a high-pass filter ^^. I can manage without one though, still very cool if it's available.

Is there any problem with the stereo output from the mobile units vs the mono input in the LP?
Or how do you guys handle that?

I haven't tested this, but I will connect a stereo mini-tele out from my phone into the phatty using a mono mini-tele to tele adapter. So it will be mono into the phatty anyway. I don't know if it would be a problem feeding a stereo tele into the Phatty, never tried that.

[Sir Nose]

Highpassed white noise is blue or violet noise depending on the slope of the filter.

Stereo in shouldn't cause a problem, though only the signal from the tip actually goes through the phatty.

[Sore_Knee]

I made up a cable - stereo-mini at one end, mono 1/4 at the other. the ring on the stereo-mini end disconnected ie so it's only using 1 channel.

i am considering changing this, so the tip and ring of the stereo mini are tied to the tip of the 1/4inch mono tip through 32ohm resistors. i don't expect more gain (slightly less actually), though it should be a more true stereo->mono conversion rather than using just one channel. i think this is a correct way of doing it.

ben.

[Lars]

There actually is an option to enable noise directly from the Phatty. P. 37 in the manual. "Enable Master button, go into advanced preset, mod src 6: OSC2. Move the cursor to set OSC2 to NOISE.

Another great feature is that one can use Sample and Hold to modulate eg pitch. Also p. 37 in the manulal. Advanced preset mod src 5:: change filt to s-h

Greetings,

Lars Brondum

[Electrolight]

There actually is an option to enable noise directly from the Phatty. P. 37 in the manual. "Enable Master button, go into advanced preset, mod src 6: OSC2. Move the cursor to set OSC2 to NOISE.

Another great feature is that one can use Sample and Hold to modulate eg pitch. Also p. 37 in the manulal. Advanced preset mod src 5:: change filt to s-h

Greetings,

Lars Brondum

thank you, actually I said this in the opening post, I was searching for a cleaner and brighter and smoother alternative, plus, you don't loose an oscillator

So I was jamming on my little phatty, doing some 'sound design' and saving some presets, and at a moment I thought it would be cool to have a REAL white noise oscillator there, but modulating osc 2 with 'white noise' just didn't do it, it wasn't clean enough