We’ve debated for years what to call this section. We’ve settled for Trem, short for Tremolo.
Think of Trem as “what happens to the sounds timbre over time.”
Trem is just jargon for “amplitude modulation” or “moving the volume up and down.”
In Sine Machine’s case, you can change (modulate) the volume of individual harmonics within each note over time.
That sounds simple. But remember the promise of Fourier — every sound can be decomposed into a collection of sine waves at different pitches and volumes — it’s harmonic volumes have an enormous impact on a sound’s timbre.
How to think about Trem
As you modify the harmonics, the sound can completely change from something sawtooth-y to something square-wave-y to something sparkley and absolutely magical.
Trem is humble name. It hides the fact that there’s a TON of things you can do here, including:
- Filter sweeps
- Add “reverby” effects
- Make “delay” sounds
- Arpeggiate the harmonics
- Make very fun sparkle sounds.
Sound Designers Tip: Trem gives you access to over 10,000 volume LFOs — one for each of the 500 harmonics, for each and every voice. Although it doesn’t expose them individually (that would be tedious), you can gleefully imagine an army of LFOs running behind the scenes, waiting for you to command them in bulk.
Filter Modulation
Removing volume from the higher partials basically lowpasses the sound.
Modulating this volume with tremolo = filter modulation!
Timbre Morphing
Modulating only the odds or evens are a way to drastically morph between timbres in a rhythmic way.
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