Yes, I listened to it on better speakers and was able to hear much
better.  It still seems a little quieter than I'd expect, but I can
cope.  I played with the different vco2 modes, it's interesting, but I
still prefer the simple oscilator I think.  Thanks for the feedback.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Peter Lakanen <lakanen@platinumweb.com> wrote:
>
> The first thing I'd check is the frequency response of the speakers or
> headphones you are using to listen to the music.  I would think you could
> hear 98Hz on most setups, but it's been a while since I was messing with
> pure sine waves that low.
>
> NOTE: You didn't say anything about what your function table looks like so
> I'm assuming you're using a simple sine wave.  If I'm right about you using
> a simple sine wave, try adding some partials to spice it up a bit and give
> your ear more stuff to grab onto at those lower frequencies.
>
> Regarding the vco2... if it sounds more like a video game and less like a
> flute then I'm guessing you're not using sine waves here.  There is a lot of
> variability in the vco2 instrument:
>
> http://www.csounds.com/manual/html/vco2.html
>
> For instance, if you're not specifying an imode value then it's going to use
> a sawtooth wave by default, which is considerably richer than a sine wave --
> and will likely result in the video game sounds you're getting.
>
> Finally, a word on LFO's (low frequency oscillators).  As you can see on the
> Wikipedia page for LFO's, they typically aren't used at frequencies higher
> than 20hz:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_frequency_oscillator
>
> The reason for this is because typically LFO's are used to control some
> dynamic aspect of an instrument that changes over time.  Because the lower
> threshold of human hearing is 20hz, anything more than that ends sounding
> like a sound and not like a part of the sound changing over time.  I hope I
> explained that clearly enough.
>
> Perhaps by using the phrase LFO what you meant to say is that you are
> experimenting with using oscillators to create low frequency sounds
> (bass-like and well above the 20hz lower limit for human ears) for use in a
> larger piece.  That ends up becoming another conversation that I will
> refrain from expounding on at this time.
>
> Good luck.
>
> -peter
>
>
>
>
>
> Thomas Nelson wrote:
>>
>> I'm new to CSound and thought it'd be a good start to try replicating
>> some simple songs with an oscilator.  But I noticed lower frequency
>> notes (98 hz or so, G2 on a piano for example) are very quiet and hard
>> to hear.  I've tried to compensate by putting lower frequency notes at
>> higher amplitudes, but it's difficult to tweak manually.  Does anyone
>> have any advice or suggestions.  I'm currently using poscil3, i
>> noticed some other generators like vco2 are much easier to hear at low
>> frequency, but it sounds less like a flute and more like a video game,
>> which isn't really what I'm going for.
>> Thanks,
>> Tom
>> P.S. I can attach the csd file i'm using if that will help.
>>
>>
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>> csound"
>>
>
>
> --
>  Peter Lakanen   lakanen@platinumweb.com
>  Platinum Web Development  http://www.platinumweb.com
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>
>
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