By Jo Haq
spanapurba.blogspot.com
Jo played a song on a guitar using a digital delay effect. He recorded it and shared it with Izham.
Izham said, "Nice delay. There’s a string out of tune though. Heard it at 0:29 second of the video. When you played an open string I think."
Jo got offended and replied, "But I didn't play any open strings. Maybe I bent too much somewhere.... tend to do that..... Azhar dah marah banyak kali hehhehe....."
Izham reluctantly tried to calm Jo down, "Haha. I heard two strings playing the same note. The slightly later one seems out of tune. Assumed it was open. But maybe it wasn’t." But then, he could not resist shooting another point across, "Upon critical listening, it is the delay that is out of tune. But how is that possible if the original note isn’t? Unless, the decay of the original note was due to the bend and that got captured in the digital delay setting. Hmmmmm.... This is an interesting problem. So you are right it could be the bend."
At this point Sunil interrupted, "Actually, the LFO oscillator modulates the delay causing a pitch fluctuation which effectively thickens the sound."
Izham got irritated, "Hmmm it doesn’t explain the out of tune though."
Jo was, by now, enveloped by a severe inferiority complex because the discussion had reached matters above his pay grade. He quietly said, "Hahah... at least you understand enough to conclude that. I can only assume that it explains by my sheer incomprehensible state."
Azhar happened to be closeby. He sort of concurred with Sunil. Azhar jumped in, "Found this on the web... here goes..... the delay time is modulated with a low frequency oscillator. Changing the delay time has two pronounced effects. First, the timbre of the comb filter shifts with the changing delay time between the two signals. Secondly, moving the delay time forward and backward creates a doppler pitch shift effect in the delayed sound. This was the author explaining how a flanger works. Flanger, chorus, phaser all have digital delays as their basic circuitry so maybe that's why what happened happened."
Izham now seems to be on the same wave length as Sunil and Azhar and said, "What I’m theorising is that you must have bent your note during the delay in the volume. And that delay was audible because the original note sound has gone and only the delayed sound is left, exposing the delay and the out of tune note."
By this time Kamal came in, "Whatever it is, Jo...... you played the wrong note by bending it."
Azhar tried to calm Jo as his face was as red as a lobster, "Ya, I've picked wrong notes countless times before."
Izham also did the same, "I play wrong notes too and call it jazz."
Jo in his last attempt to close the day with a positive note finally has the courage to say, "That was what I intended to do. The bend was to Jazz up the song."
Everyone cheered, "Well saved Jo!!!!!"
