What is LFO ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Antikal
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Antikal

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Hi there! Since English is not my native tongue I'd like to ask you all a probably very simple and stupid question.

Reading articles and manuals I often come across the abbreviation LFO.

What does this stand for and what does it mean?

THanx from a dutch illitterate..
 
Ehrm...

Mostly manuals for effects processors and stuff.

Low Frequency Oscillator sounds fair enough, but what does it do?
 
Thanx!

I'll have a look at that in a minute! Great help! Thanx a lot!
 
An LFO is used to modulate something. Like the pitch (creates a vibrato), or the filter frequency (creates a sweeping effect), or a delay (for flanger/chorus effects).
 
Hey y'all !

Thanx people! I'm starting to get the picture! Sometimes language can be a bit of a barrier...

But I'm getting there!
 
Hmmmm... this beats my Low Flying Object theory all to hell :)
 
The term LFO comes right from the modular synth world. And indeed it stands for Low Frequency Oscilator.
About any effect that has got some kind of cyclic modulation, a periodic change in timbre or whatever, uses it. Chorus, flanger, phaser, autowah. All these effects use an LFO to change the amount of effect.

On synths it is also used to modulate the pitch...

You should picture an LFO as a black box, that outputs a periodial signal that varies in time. For example, a blockwave, sinewave, trianglewave,... any signal that repeats itself. The ouput of this black box is then used to make a parameter change in time.

If you want more info in dutch, just mail me.
 
Hey Antikal- Your english is better than a WHOLE lot of native english speaking people I know!!!
 
Thanx Stratamatic!

Thanx for the compliment. I usually get by well enough with the English I know, but sometimes the technical terms get the best of me.

Especially annoying since you can't look most of them up in a dictionary. Not in the one I own anyway...

But considering the replies I got to this call for help I suppose this forum will be a huge aid in the future.

Thanx again to all who helped me out on this.
 
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