From the course: Learning Modular Synthesis

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The difference between filter slopes

The difference between filter slopes

From the course: Learning Modular Synthesis

The difference between filter slopes

- Not all filters sound the same. That's why it's quite common to have more than one type of filter inside your modular synth. We're going to explore those differences in the next couple of movies. One common difference is the slope of your filter, how strongly it filters out frequencies beyond the corner or cutoff frequency. They're usually defined in terms of decibels per octave. For example, the 24 decibel per octave slope on a filter means that when you get one octave higher than the cutoff frequency, those harmonics have been reduced in strength by 24 decibels, or 24 dB. On the other hand, a 12 decibel per octave cutoff means that when you get one octave beyond the cutoff, those harmonics are only reduced 12 dB, not as strongly. Sometimes you'll hear this referred to as the number of poles a filter has. This kinda gets into the electronics inside a filter, but in short, one pole equals six dB of cutoff. So, a 2-pole filter has 12 dB per octave slope, and a 4-pole filter has 24 dB…

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