Casio CZ style Phase Distortion

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dioxide
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23 Oct 2016

What do people think about the PD synths available for Reason? Is there only the Rob Papen one or are there others? Are they worth spending time with or does Thor mostly have it covered? Thanks.

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Benedict
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24 Oct 2016

I had a CZ-1000 for a very long time but not any longer. While I can't compare, I don't feel tat making a sound in Thor really has any of the same character as my CZ. The few times I have dipped into PD on other instruments I have felt the same. I wouldn't say that any Reason synth has majored in PD as they all add it as an extra. That said Thor's Osc definitely appear true to the originals in concept at least.

:)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
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dioxide
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24 Oct 2016

Benedict wrote:I had a CZ-1000 for a very long time but not any longer. While I can't compare, I don't feel tat making a sound in Thor really has any of the same character as my CZ. The few times I have dipped into PD on other instruments I have felt the same. I wouldn't say that any Reason synth has majored in PD as they all add it as an extra. That said Thor's Osc definitely appear true to the originals in concept at least.

:)
Thanks. One of the things missing is the CZ style envelopes. I will look into this further I think and demo the RP synth to see how it stacks up against Thor.

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Benedict
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24 Oct 2016

I knew it would be about 12 secs before someone brought up the 8-stage Env. There are a few RE options but none built-in.

:)
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Carly(Poohbear)
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24 Oct 2016

Benedict wrote:I knew it would be about 12 secs before someone brought up the 8-stage Env. There are a few RE options but none built-in.

:)
With regards to stage Env, the Oberon has 16 built in :)

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Creativemind
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24 Oct 2016

Yeah, the Casio CZ-101 is available as a vst, Plug-In Boutiques Virtual CZ. It would be great if was ported to Re (if what it can do is achievable in Re that is) and then we could do real Phase Distortion.

On Thor, the Phase Modulation is different from Phase Distortion isn't it?

To the OP, the Rob Papen synth Re you were talking about, was that QUAD?
:reason:

Reason Studio's 11.3 / Cockos Reaper 6.82 / Cakewalk By Bandlab / Orion 8.6
http://soundcloud.com/creativemind75/iv ... soul-mix-3

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Creativemind
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24 Oct 2016

I've just come across another Re (synth) in the shop that uses distortion. Not phase distortion but thought I'd share.

Iridium Distortion Synth.

I found a YouTube video of someone showing it's capabilities. It's quite basic really with only 2 oscillators but quite nifty though:-

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Iridium Distortion Synth.PNG
Iridium Distortion Synth.PNG (362.74 KiB) Viewed 2785 times
:reason:

Reason Studio's 11.3 / Cockos Reaper 6.82 / Cakewalk By Bandlab / Orion 8.6
http://soundcloud.com/creativemind75/iv ... soul-mix-3

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dioxide
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24 Oct 2016

Yes Quad.
Creativemind wrote:On Thor, the Phase Modulation is different from Phase Distortion isn't it?
In Thor the Phase Modulation Oscillator is Phase Distortion. I'm not sure why they decided to name it differently.
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/thor ... oscillator

Confusingly the Thor Phase Modulation Oscillator is actually Phase Distortion and the FM is actually Phase Modulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_dis ... _synthesis
Phase distortion (PD) synthesis is a synthesis method introduced in 1984 by Casio in its CZ range of synthesizers.
it is similar to phase modulation synthesis as championed by Yamaha Music Corporation (under the name of frequency modulation]

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dioxide
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24 Oct 2016

Creativemind wrote:Not phase distortion but thought I'd share.
This looks like something else. I'm not familiar with it but this synth seems to be a bunch of waves plus a Waveshaper section like the one in Thor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveshaper

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Lizard
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24 Oct 2016

Well.... in my opinion I find that Thor's Phase Distortion does a pretty darned good gob of sounding like the CZ PD. Of course the programming model of the CZ is quite different than the more traditional analog programming techniques of Thor so you have to work within that box. For the more rare times you need to find that 8 stage envelope you can use the Mod Env with a delay up to about 10s I think over another envelope.

This is an oldie here but worth providing. I've attached here of a refill I did for a promotional thing for Line6 many moons ago. I called this Thor CZ. It has the original 16 presets from the original unit nd with the exception of two of them (that I was not happy with my results) the rest are pretty spot on. I'll conceded that those patches were somewhat generic in nature but the character still comes through. The refill has another60 or so patches as well all using PD. Check it out for yourself.

***disclaimer - It's just my opinion. Doesn't mean it's right. :D
Lizard's Thor CZ Refill.zip
(1013.29 KiB) Downloaded 92 times

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dioxide
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25 Oct 2016

Lizard wrote:Well.... in my opinion I find that Thor's Phase Distortion does a pretty darned good gob of sounding like the CZ PD. Of course the programming model of the CZ is quite different than the more traditional analog programming techniques of Thor so you have to work within that box. For the more rare times you need to find that 8 stage envelope you can use the Mod Env with a delay up to about 10s I think over another envelope.

This is an oldie here but worth providing. I've attached here of a refill I did for a promotional thing for Line6 many moons ago. I called this Thor CZ. It has the original 16 presets from the original unit nd with the exception of two of them (that I was not happy with my results) the rest are pretty spot on. I'll conceded that those patches were somewhat generic in nature but the character still comes through. The refill has another60 or so patches as well all using PD. Check it out for yourself.

***disclaimer - It's just my opinion. Doesn't mean it's right. :D

Lizard's Thor CZ Refill.zip
Thanks for this. I already have the Refill though need to go back and try it again. From what I remember it's pretty accurate to what I recall of a CZ101. Thanks for chiming in, I really value your thoughts on this subject because of the work you did on this Refill.

I know the developer of VirtualCZ personally and I knew he was keen on doing a RE version while VCZ was still in beta. I'm unsure of what has gone on since but I might drop him a line to ask. It seems a shame that no-one has yet tackled a PD specific synth.

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Creativemind
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25 Oct 2016

dioxide wrote:
Creativemind wrote:Not phase distortion but thought I'd share.
This looks like something else. I'm not familiar with it but this synth seems to be a bunch of waves plus a Waveshaper section like the one in Thor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveshaper
Interesting, it's a shaper on the middle bit of Thor isn't it and that adds distortion so the manual says. I wonder if that's kinda like Waveshaping that that's doing?
:reason:

Reason Studio's 11.3 / Cockos Reaper 6.82 / Cakewalk By Bandlab / Orion 8.6
http://soundcloud.com/creativemind75/iv ... soul-mix-3

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Creativemind
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25 Oct 2016

dioxide wrote:Yes Quad.
Creativemind wrote:On Thor, the Phase Modulation is different from Phase Distortion isn't it?
In Thor the Phase Modulation Oscillator is Phase Distortion. I'm not sure why they decided to name it differently.
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/thor ... oscillator

Confusingly the Thor Phase Modulation Oscillator is actually Phase Distortion and the FM is actually Phase Modulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_dis ... _synthesis
Phase distortion (PD) synthesis is a synthesis method introduced in 1984 by Casio in its CZ range of synthesizers.
it is similar to phase modulation synthesis as championed by Yamaha Music Corporation (under the name of frequency modulation]
Good info mate, cheers!

I just thought the Phase Modulation was so called because one waveform was been modulated by another waveform, one being the carrier and one being the modulator...just checked the menu, that's the FM Pair Oscillator. Got them mixed up. So have the Props haven't they?
:reason:

Reason Studio's 11.3 / Cockos Reaper 6.82 / Cakewalk By Bandlab / Orion 8.6
http://soundcloud.com/creativemind75/iv ... soul-mix-3

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dioxide
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25 Oct 2016

Creativemind wrote:
dioxide wrote:I just thought the Phase Modulation was so called because one waveform was been modulated by another waveform, one being the carrier and one being the modulator...just checked the menu, that's the FM Pair Oscillator. Got them mixed up. So have the Props haven't they?
Perhaps, I'm not sure to be honest, it depends on how you define modulation. Both PD and (Yamaha) FM both have a carrier oscillator that is modulated by another source. I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows more about this but when it comes to using them as a musician the thing is to just recognise the differences in sound and capabilities and use it for creative purposes instead of getting lost in the definitions of the terms. Yamaha's FM is very close to analogue FM so I can see why they just called it FM on their synths so people could understand the general principle.

Another good article here on Thor's FM Pair. If you try building a DX style clone (more than 2OP) using Thor you'll find there are some things you can't do. As soon as you use cross oscillator FM in Thor's Mod Matrix this is a different type of FM, so you will need something like the FM4 or PX7 to do FM properly in Reason.
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/thor ... sis-part-1

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dioxide
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28 Oct 2016

dioxide wrote:I know the developer of VirtualCZ personally and I knew he was keen on doing a RE version while VCZ was still in beta. I'm unsure of what has gone on since but I might drop him a line to ask. It seems a shame that no-one has yet tackled a PD specific synth.
Well I've had a reply and he has no plans to port VirtualCZ to RE format. So that means Reason users have to live without a CZ clone unless someone decides to tackle it.

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Benedict
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28 Oct 2016

Yamaha's FM was always mis-labeled as it is really PM all along. The big difference is that while Yamaha allowed for the creation of a (vaguely) infinite number of tones, Casio limited the options to the presets (and of course what you can do with them). This makes a DX more of an additive process and CZ more of a subtractive process. There are more technical reasons why the two don't match, simply put Casio limited the user to harmonic harmonics but Yamaha allowed anything which meant it was very easy to get ugly tones until you know what you were doing (just as on Blamsoft's Zero).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_dis ... _synthesis

While a CZ can emulate some of what a DX can do there is plenty that can't be achieved. However, despite complaints, CZs were much easier to understand and program than DXs.

Thor's PD OSCs seem very true to the Casio method but you have to avoid Filters and many other parts of the possible architecture to emulate a CZ accurately. Also I think the CZ probably had a relatively poor DA converter so that likely added a unique character missing in Thor.

:)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

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