More Natural Vibrato Techniques

dding some vibrato to the end of a note or phrase is one of the most time-honored ways of adding expression to your playing. And for most of us that has meant reaching for the mod wheel to bring in some LFO-based modulation of pitch. After all, the mod wheel was first featured on the Minimoog (see Fig. 1), which came out in 1971. LFO modulation has existed since the beginning of synthesizer design, but it was the mod wheel that first offered a musically useful gestural controller to “play” the modulation. That said, it is acknowledged that LFOdriven modulation of pitch does not always sound natural, as it