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Welcome to our second video. This will be a demonstration tutorial on SynthLab,

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which is the second part of the TamTam suite of music applications for the

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OLPC XO computer. To start SynthLab, you start it from MiniTamTam and you

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select one of the four icons that correspond to the four slots that you

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have available in MiniTamTam to play SynthLab made sounds. So you select one

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of them and hit the small red button at the top and this will open the SynthLab

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interface. SynthLab was conceived as an educational activity. It is meant to

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provide an environment to explore the physics of sound, to introduce kids to

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logic of circuitry, and to give concrete example of applied mathematics as it

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relates to sound. So the SynthLab interface consists of five different

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parts. There's a work table over here where we will do our circuits. There's a

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bank of modules. There are three types of modules. There are sources, the green

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boxes over here. There are processors, which are the blue boxes, and there are

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controllers, which are the yellow boxes. We have on the right hand side of the

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screen a bank of ten presets. Now these presets are useful because they show us

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different examples of circuits that can be done or can be built with SynthLab

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and they work right out of the box. And then we have the two boxes at the

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bottom over here. This slider gives you the possibility of changing the duration

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of the sound that you are going to do. For instance, if I go in the same example

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I do a... it'll be shorter and if I go over here it will be much longer. And the last

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panel over here gives you tools that allow you to save the patches that you

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have done or to call them back. The red button allows you to save the sounds

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that you have made so that you can use them in Mini TamTam. And then there's a

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little garbage can over here that allows you to reinitialize the work table over

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here and just clears it out, puts everything back in its places, and you're

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ready to begin a sound building session. The three different types of modules that

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we have in SynthLab, they serve quite a different purpose. These sources are

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essentially what make the sound and then you can hear it. The filters or

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processors that are over here, the blue boxes, will modify that sound. So

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typically you will take a source and then you will put it into a processor

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and be able to alter the quality of the sound. The controllers are things that

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will allow you to control the behavior of the sound in time. So it means that

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for instance, a controller will be applied to one of the inputs of the

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sources to give it, for instance, a vibrato or a tremolo or to change some

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other aspects of the timbre. You can also use controllers to regulate how the

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filters or processors will be modifying the sound. So a typical session of SynthLab

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will involve first choosing a sound source. The sound sources are the

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green icons over here and I put them on the table by clicking on one of them and

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dragging it onto the table like this. Now sound generators are of different types

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and you can have access to the parameters by right-clicking on the icon

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and this will bring up the various types of sound source that you can have and

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the various parameters that control what they will actually do. And you can close

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by clicking on the X over here. So in order to connect the units together we

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simply click on the output of a unit, in this case a source, and we click on the

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input of a destination which is the loudspeaker. So this will give us a

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connection. As soon as we have a connection we can start playing on the

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keyboard. So this is going to be a very boring sound because it's a straight

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source. So let's right-click on the source and take a look at what we can do.

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Now these controls can be actually controlled by controllers over here. So

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let's close this and we'll connect one of the controllers to this slider over

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here, the modulation index. Now they're all different for the different types of

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sources that we have. So let's close this and we're going to take a controller and

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bring it over here. Now this is an envelope generator. We're going to open it and yes

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this is an envelope. It has a rapid decay over here and we will be able to apply

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that time variant function to the modulation index. So we're going to do

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the same type of connection by clicking once over here and on the third input

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over here to get the connection. So the connection is now made and the sound is

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going to be like this.

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Much more interesting. So we can vary a few of the parameters over here to get a

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different sound. This is going to make it higher.

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Perhaps it's more interesting this way. That's interesting. We have a good

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timbral change over here. So I'm going to close this and now what we're going to do

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is we're going to put a sound processor between the source and the output. So

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we're going to get one of the blue boxes over here. We're going to connect the

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output of the source to the input of the processor and the output of the

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processor to the loudspeaker. I'm going to delete this by this one over here.

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We're going to delete by clicking on it once. So now we have a sound processor or

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filter that we put on the output of the sound generator or source. So we're going

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to right-click on the processor, open it, and now we have a harmonizer selected. So

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let's see what that sounds like. So we have like two notes playing together now

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because it doubles the note at a different pitch. So let's change the frequency over

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here. We're going to put it higher or lower.

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Or we can try a different type of processor. We're going to try the delay

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over here. So I'm going to put a little resonator in fact. So this adds a little

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resonating frequency. I'm going to turn down the level a little bit. And there is our

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circuit. So we're ready to play with it.

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We can make it longer over here and we can put a final envelope on the

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amplitude by right-clicking on the loudspeaker. We're going to give it a

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nice little attack, a little release like this. Close this and see what this sounds like.

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That's very nice.

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We have a sound that we like. We're going to record it to Minitamtam by hitting

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the red button over here. So it's going to wait for me to play and then record it.

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Voila! Now we can close SynthLab and get back to Minitamtam and our sound should

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be waiting for us in the slot over here.

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There we go. It becomes a regular Minitamtam instrument that we can play

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with the keyboard. So this concludes the SynthLab demonstration. I hope you

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enjoyed it and stay tuned. We're going to have some more little tidbits for you in

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the near future. Thank you!