I’ve seen quite a few descriptions of some synth or drum machine “sounding organic”. It sounds appealing, but vague and esoteric. I interpret it as non-mechanical or an antonym of synthetic, which in the context of musical tone-generating devices seems pretty much synonymous with acoustic. I guess I’ve heard some modular patches which sound like bodily functions where the label organic would be appropriate, but If when describing the sonic character of a synth or drum machine you make a distinction between organic and acoustic, please enlighten us!
Lots of great info here!
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LFOs.
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To describe a piece of music or composition as alive or breathing - I get it. But to describe the sonic character of a machine?
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Lots of dandruff and sneeze spray?
More seriously, for me it’s when the synthesised drums sound ‘woody’.
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As said above, some component of the sound is always in motion. Some detuning, some imprecision in pitch often helps.
just a buzzword that anyone can interpret on their own.
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I didn’t start this thread to be an argumentative bastard. Describing sound can be tricky, illusive. If synthesized drums sound “woody”, surely that’s akin to acoustic, as in banging pieces of wood together?
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Its like the writing on the label on a bottle of wine- made up bollocks.
Call it what ever you want, its all just iterations of ’ I really like this sound’ which is subjective.
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Wooden end cheeks.
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In other words, never trust a verbal description of a piece of gear.
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With the screws loosened so they produce vibrations with metal casing when placed on a vibrating surface.
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Pretty much nailed it.
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Essentially ad copy. Akin to other meaningless buzzwords like “warm”. If I were to hazard a guess I’d say that people are talking about instability of one sort or another for the former and abundant high order harmonics for the latter but I think that a description that warrants that much speculative interpretation has failed in its objective.
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As in totally vague!
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how its used ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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Haha, pretty much. That’s just what I associate with ‘organic’ for synthesised drums, that it sounds a bit like natural materials banging together, but not necessarily that it sounds like a regular drumkit.
I get what people are saying about movement and variations to the sounds so it sounds a bit more alive, but I figure that applying some modulation and lfos to a completely mechanical sound while changing it, doesn’t actually make it sound more organic.
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In reply to @Stone262 Good point. You lay down a closed hat on every beat with no variation, it’s static. Add amp / filter / decay / swing - it gets animated, surely not organised, because it was too organised before the animation?
But seriously, I do often use that word when describing a sound that reminds me of acoustic or physical resonances.
I think it can be questionable when trying to sell something but it has some validity for trying to describe certain kind of timbres and tones.
IMO it’s pretty much as usable as a term as “hollow”, “metallic” or “synthetic”.
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Organic means FM
Or sounds like a B3
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