Glossary

• 303 sound

  Roland(TM) invented a so called "TB-303" in the year of 1982, by "TB" meaning "Transistor Bass". The sound of this machine was revolutionary among music producers, and this machine has become a classic in almost every musician's producing adobe. Its sound soon became known as "the 303 sound". Have a closer look at www.tb-303.org to find out more.

• ADSR Envelope

  Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release envelope. Attack is the time for a signal to reach maximal volume, Decay is the time to drop to 50%, Sustain is the time how long to sustain it at same volume, Release is the time to fade out to silence. This is an older type of envelope, used by older synths, more advanced use graphical envelopes.

• Analogue

  Analogue voltage controlled as opposed to pulse controlled. It is better than digital representation of sound but analogue systems add noise with each unit and amplification because of imperfection of analogue equipment.

• ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output)

  Steinberg's technology for drastic reduction of audio latency. It is a connection of hardware and software to ensure such low latency (fast audio response time). It enables audio hardware manufacturers to write optimized drivers for their audio hardware (audio cards) that bypass the potentially high latency operating system mechanism like Windows Media for supporting audio hardware. It has even lower latency than Direct X.

• BPM (beats per minute)

  Each beat is bassdrum kick if it kicks in regular intervals.

• Buffer

  Term used to describe memory storage reserved for extra sample/music data. If something temporarily slows down computer buffer is used to play while CPU recovers from slow down. This enables continuous music playback. Buffers can actually store any kind of data, not only samples or music.

• CDDA (Compact Disc Digital Audio)

  CD Quality 44.1kHz, 16Bit, Stereo sound. 16 bits are 2 bytes, 2 bytes are one (short) word. This means you need 2 bytes*2 channels*44100 samples/second = 176400 bytes for one second of stereo CD quality sound.

• Channel

  Usually left or right channel (stereo). Sometimes also referred with the same meaning as track. See track for comparison.

• Clipping

  When a digital sample is amplified so much that the peaks of its waveform go past maximum level you get a clipping. Too much clipping produces sound distortion.

• DAT (Digital Audio Tape)

  16Bit, 48kHz Stereo sound tape that stores music data digitally just like CDs. It is used for higher quality recordings. DAT is not used that much today any more because it is expensive and computer hard disks (for hard-disk recording systems) offer more flexibility for storing such music data.

• DC Offset

In a normal waveform, there are 2 maximums (positive, negative) and the center (zero). On waves with DC Offset in it, this center line is not at Digital Zero but slightly moved into the positive or negative range. This results in reduced dynamics.

• Digital Zero

  If there is no audio signal present, digital systems store this condition as "zero". Analogue systems may add some noise due to imperfection of cable, electrical losses etc. while recording empty signal. This also counts for output of PC sound cards.

• DSP (Digital Signal Processing)

  DSP refers to anything related to processing of audio in digital form. When audio wave is sampled in digital form, the CPU processes its values (numbers). The result is digitally processed audio. There are is no noise or anything similar in it, which is usually the case with analogue processing.

• Envelope

  An envelope defines how certain parameters will change over time. For example the volume envelope, graphical display shows how it will vary volume during period envelope lasts.

• FFT (Fast Fourier Transform)

  Family of mathematical techniques that decomposes signal into sinusoids, usually for purpose of analysis (spectrum analysis) and therefore calculating average or most dominant frequency. FFT is an optimized version of FT using integers which is used for real-time DSP, sometimes hundreds time faster. FFT calculation is very CPU intensive. FFT is the basis of nowadays' sample compression used in a lot of the 64kb intros of the demoscene.

• Filter types

  There are various types of filters you can apply to a sound. The most common ones are:
  

  • Lowpass filters

    filter all sound above a certain frequency.

  • Highpass filters

    filter all sound below a certain frequency.

  • Bandpass filters

    filter all sound out of the range of two defined frequencies.

  • Bandreject filters

    filter all sound between two defined frequencies.
  
  
  There is usually also a certain number of poles to every filter. This defines the way the transition from unfiltered to filtered sound looks. The more poles a filter has, the smaller the frequency transition area is.

• Frequency

  Number of oscillations per second (e.g. number of full sinus cycles per second).

• Harmonics

  Double frequency of original signal mixed together. First harmonic is original signal, second harmonic is doubled frequency etc. Harmonics are mainly important because some of them may appear in badly done interpolation. Also using same sound with doubling frequency and mixing it together can produce some cool sounds.

• Hi-Fi (High Fidelity)

  High quality reproduction of music with as much loss in original signal as possible.

• Humanize

  Adds random patterns to notes, drums etc. to produce a more natural sound to rhythms etc. By humanizing notes, you can get rid of the "computer-like precision" of drumloops etc..

• Inertia

  The tendency of a body (or sound) to maintain its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. Musically speaking, Inertia represents the time needed for a setting (i. e. an effect) to take effect.

• Interpolation

  Increasing the sampling rate of a digitized signal and inserting additional values to fill the gaps. There are unlimited number of ways to interpolate signal but most common are linear and cubic interpolation. Renoise supports both kinds.

• Latency

  Delay between user action and sound output. When you press a key how long will it take for note to start playing, therefore lower latency is better. Latency also appears in MIDI equipment in different context: since MIDI interface is not really fast sometimes significant delay can occur when synchronizing audio components. That kind of latency is solved by delaying MIDI signals for particular time in milliseconds (ms).

• LFO

  Low frequency oscillator. See also oscillator.

• Loop points

  A loop repeats the sample. Loop points define the positions from and to where the sample will be repeated. Renoise supports forward, reverse and pingpong loops for samples.

• MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

  MIDI is a protocol designed for recording and playing back music on digital synthesizers that is supported by many makes of personal computer sound cards. Originally intended to control one keyboard from another, it was quickly adopted for the personal computer. Rather than representing musical sound directly, it transmits information about how music is produced. The command set includes note-ons, note-offs, key velocity, pitch bend and other methods of controlling a synthesizer. The sound waves produced as a result of this are usually stored in a wavetable in the receiving instrument or sound card.

• Module (MOD file)

  A MOD file (or so called "module") is a file that contains all played samples, the definition of instruments made out of the samples, and the song arrangement (the information "when which sample is played"). Modules originate from Amiga computers. Classic modules need no extra data or hardware to be played because they're "a song in a box". Modules are not a streaming format like for example OGG, MP3 or WAV.

• New note action (NNA)

  This gives the possibility to continue the playing of a sample in one track of the pattern if a new sample is triggered on the same track. If in Renoise an instrument is set to "note off" or "continue", it won't cut the sample from playing when a new note is triggered.

• Normalization

  The process that maximizes the volume of a sample (spread values to maximum digital range e.g. in 16-bit from -32768 to 32767).

• Octave

  Full musical scale from one C to another C (or from any other note to another same note). A note frequency multiplied by 2 gives the same note one octave higher.

• Oscillation/oscillator

  Oscillator is a device that produces oscillations. One oscillation is for example full cycle of sinus wave - the moment it starts at 0, goes to maximum value, goes to minimum value, and returns to 0. This is one cycle and one oscillation. Oscillation is not always like sinus, it can be a square, triangle or any other basic repeating waveform, except noise of course. Oscillators with low frequencies (LFOs) are used to steer synthesizers or effects.

• Pitch

  The most dominant frequency of a sound. The human ear perceives this frequency as "note" although the sound usually consists of many different frequencies.

• Real Time (processing)

  Processing data instantly as it appears.

• Resample

  Change sample pitch to make it sound like other note while preserving original sample rate. Resampled samples last longer or shorter than original sample. Resampler has limited range of operations - depending on quality of resampling function. In Renoise, we use highest quality resampling functions (cubic and sinc) to maximize this range.

• Resonance

  Resonance is an electric phenomenon corresponding to that of acoustic resonance, due to the existance of certain relations of the capacity, inductance, resistance, and frequency of an alternating circuit.
  Resonance usually sharpens a sound by emphasising a frequency range in the upper middletones and gives the sound more strength.

• Pumping

  Pumping is an expression to describe what usually happens as a result of overusage of a Compressor. Compressing beatloops in a really harsh way usually results in the fact that the low frequencies (bassdrums and such) hardly gained volume because they were already very loud at the beginning. High frequencies though gain a lot of volume by being harshly compressed, but only during the periods that don't contain bassdrums and such. The result is usually that on the beats, you can hardly hear hihats at all while in the other places of the drumloop the hihats are really loud.
  The word "pumping" comes from the sound of the beatloop "WOOM TS WOOM TS" with the original beatloop sounding like "TSOOM TS TSOOM TS".

• Sample (Sampler)

  Representation of analogue signal in digital form (numbers). Samples are more convenient for digital systems storage like computers, CDs, etc. A sampler uses digital sound presentation to produce "instruments" out of samples.

• Sequencer/Sequence

  Arrangement of patterns (pattern order) in case of Renoise. In general case - arrangement of all the notes that appear in a song. A sequencer is a device either hardware (but usually software) that is used to make such arrangements and input notes.

• Synthesizer

  A device designed specifically for creating sound using basic waveform oscillators. Basic waveforms are sinus, triangle, square (pulse), saw, noise etc.

• Track

  A single pattern column that usually contains notes. Originally, a note playing on a track stopped playing as soon as a new note was triggered on the track. Nowadays, a lot of music programs like Renoise use polyphonic tracks that open virtual tracks to continue playing the old note if desired by the user.

• VST (Virtual Studio Technology)

  The VST plug-in technology is an interface standard for connecting audio effect plug-ins to audio editors and hard-disk recording systems. A VST plug-in is a real-time audio processing module that can be hosted by any VST compatible host software like Renoise. VST therefore exists in 2 versions: as a host (that accepts VST plug-ins), or as a plug-in (that needs VST host software).

• Wavetable

  In computer technology, a wavetable is a table of stored sound waves that are digitized samples of actual recorded sound.

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