Comb filters and their magic!

[Rekk]

Hey, so this is my first post to this forum and I am wondering how people go about comb filtering... I have made some absolutley killer sounds through comb filters but the sound always ends up detuned so much that it kind of strays off the key that I'm working with. If you know what I mean and know of any techniques to avoid the major pitch shift issues any help will be awesome... thanks in advance

[mthrfnk]

Excuse me if this sounds retarded, but I've rarely used comb filters, only when playing around with reeses and growls, but why would the comb filter be pitch-shifting your sounds. It's a filter as the name suggests, so it's technically only constructively or destructively altering the frequencies you are hearing. Perhaps your original source sounds are too detuned or you're using the filter too agressively.

[Comfi]

I'm not sure exactly what a comb filter is either, but from using it in massive it seems to affect the pitch. Is it even technically a filter?

[Reversed]

massives comb filter scales with keys. in order to have a in-tune sound you have to just play a note and put the comb filter onto a frequency value that matches the harmonics of that key, so that it does not sound out of tune. Then you will be able to use it for any melodies / chords without having the synth go out of tune. Just dont use envelopes / lfo on the fequency of the filter of course.

[Rekk]

@mthrfnk Not retarded mate, I rarely use them either but just recently have been able to make some awesome patches in massive by applying a comb filter. I may be using it too aggressivley. when the feedback is up all the way, that's when the most epic sounds come out from fine tuning the cutoff. It may not be affecting the pitch but in Massive it sure sounds that way, plus when I play a riff alongside the comb filtered melody, the comb melody seems to stick out like it shouldn't be there :/

@Comfi I was playing around with it in Massive and it seemed pretty sweet, I have no idea if it actually is a filter tbh, it seems more like a kind of phaser to me (hopefully that didn't sound too retarded.)

thanks for the extra info

[Rekk]

massives comb filter scales with keys. in order to have a in-tune sound you have to just play a note and put the comb filter onto a frequency value that matches the harmonics of that key, so that it does not sound out of tune. Then you will be able to use it for any melodies / chords without having the synth go out of tune. Just dont use envelopes / lfo on the fequency of the filter of course.

thanks man, that's just the answer I needed I was kind of figuring that out, just needed a nudge in the right direction. I figured out the lfo part, every time I added lfo the patch suddenly sucks!

[Hircine]

WOW's comb filter + reeses

[Rekk]

@Hircine I've never actually used WOW's comb filter, I'm gonna give that a try... Thanks this forum is so damn helpful!

[dubesteppe]

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

[mthrfnk]

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

Is that basically the same as the haas effect without the panning?

[Bassf4ce]

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

So like a a notch filter times ten?

[dubesteppe]

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

Is that basically the same as the haas effect without the panning?

i believe so

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

So like a a notch filter times ten?

this is an example, this would be a 10x comb filter. it really depends on the filter you are using. get some white noise and run it through the filter to see what its actualy doing

[hasezwei]

huge resonances can be offkey with every filter if they end up self-oscillating

[Rekk]

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

Is that basically the same as the haas effect without the panning?

i believe so

this is a comb filter
the same effect can be achieved by playing two tracks simultaneously while one has a really short ( under 15 ms) delay on it

So like a a notch filter times ten?

this is an example, this would be a 10x comb filter. it really depends on the filter you are using. get some white noise and run it through the filter to see what its actualy doing

That's a really good idea, I'm gonna give that a go