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Jun 14, 2024 · A synthesizer is an electronic music instrument that creates sound by generating audio signals. With a synthesizer, you can create any sound you can imagine by customizing elements like its waveform and envelope.
To satisfy equal temperament and inharmonicity in piano tuning, complex and subtle adjustments are made. This paper explores the theoretical and practical details and challenges involved in piano tuning.
- The Waveforms
- The Filters
- The Envelopes
- The LFO
- Polyphony
- Unison Mode
- Analog Mode
- Sync Mode
- Ring Modulation
- Granular Modulation
Everything starts with a waveform, which can be synth based (meaning an oscillator) or sample based (meaning recorded audio). And there are also many types of synthesizers that use different techniques to create and shape the waveforms. But basically the waveforms are the main building material for any sound.
Filters are one of the fundamental ways to shape the sound of a synthesizer. Basically you can think of the filters like special types of equalizers that you use to form the range of frequencies you want to focus your sound on.
The main way to shape the sound of a synthesizer over time, is with the envelopes. A synthesizer can also have several envelopes that control different parameters. The 2 most common are the Amp Envelope and the Filter Envelope, which are standard features on all synthesizers. Sometimes they are simply called envelope 1, envelope 2 and so on, which ...
The LFO is short for low frequency oscillator. The difference between the LFO and the oscillators used as waveforms for the sound, is that the LFO is used to add a continuous movement for any parameter you route it to. Here are the main settings of a standard LFO: 1. Waveform The type of waveform used for the LFO. The default LFO waveform is a sine...
The polyphony setting simply states how many notes you can play at the same time. If the polyphony is set to 1, the synth can only play 1 note at a time. If you want to be able to play harmonies and chords, you need to set the polyphony to a higher setting. However, sometimes you actually want to have the synth in monophonic mode, for example on ba...
The unison mode is a fEeature on many synthesizers, which purpose is to make the sound wider and fatter. It works by duplicating the waveform into several copies, and then slightly detuning each copy, and spreading them in stereo space. Think of this as the difference between one solo violin, and a violin section playing in unison (the exact same p...
On some synthesizers you have a feature called “Analog” or sometimes “Drift”, which adds slight variations in mainly the tuning and phase of the waveform. This occurs naturally in analog synthesizers, and you can think of this, as similar to the random slight variations of tuning, timbre and tonal character of an acoustic instrument. Because every ...
Would you like the ability to make the synth sound more harmonically rich, sharper and more aggressive? Well, oscillator sync is a great way to accomplish this. It is sometimes simply called sync mode, but most often it is labeled as “hard sync”.
Ring modulation is a feature where 2 waveforms are multiplied with each other to create a combined more complex waveform.
Granular synthesis basically slices up the waveform or sample into tiny grains, which are then played back in a sequence. The true power of granular synthesis comes from the fact that you can change how many grains you use, the range, play them back at different speeds, phases, volume, and frequency, among many other parameters.
Synthesizing Pianos. Synth Secrets. Synthesizers > Synth Secrets, Synthesis / Sound Design. By Gordon Reid. Published October 2002. Surely the only convincing synth pianos are sample-based ones? A sound as rich and expressive as that of an acoustic piano is far too complex to be rendered by subtractive synthesis... isn't it? Let's find out...
- Keyboard Magazine
- Detuning. Here’s a classic sound, the warm beating of oscillators drifting ever so slightly (or not so slightly) against each other. A common approach is to use the same waveforms and have one oscillator tuned to exact pitch, and then set the other oscillator slightly sharp or flat, usually by only a few cents.
- Intervals. Tuning oscillators in pure intervals is another classic sound, and there are plenty of permutations to explore. The most common choice is setting a second oscillator an octave above or below the first.
- "Outside" tunings. I’ve been hearing oscillators tuned in minor thirds (+3 semitones) and major thirds (+4 semitones) in electronic dance music. This is less “inside” sounding and works better for melodic parts that aren’t necessarily about the old-school “let ’er rip” type of soloing.
MuseScore supports microtonal notation systems such as Helmstolk Ellis notation, Johnston notation etc., so that tuning systems such as Just intonation, Pythagorean tuning etc can be notated precisely.
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Jun 12, 2022 · A synthesizer (sometimes spelled "synthesiser") is an electronic keyboard that can generate or copy virtually any kind of sound, making it able to mimic the sound of a traditional instrument, such as a violin or piano, or create brand new, undreamed of sounds—like the crunch of footsteps on the surface of Mars or the noise blood cells make ...
