About Synthesizers (overview)
1.
General Parametersa) Oscillators
- any type of musical instrument can be emulated by a synthesizer through waveforms SINE, SAW, SQUARE, TRIANGLE,
PULSE, NOISE.
- oscillators are synthesizers components which are producing waveforms
b) Filters
- with the help of filters we add, subtract, amplify or reduce a frequencie:
c) Envelopes
- defines the way we percep the sound (long sound, short sound etc.)
- Attack Decay Sustain Release ( in the image we observe how the envelope is shaping the sound and the way we percep it)
- with envelopes we can control filters (Filter Envelope), the amp (Amp Envelopes) etc.
d) LFOs (Low Frequency Oscillators)
- LFOs, can be linked depends of the synth, to any other parameter (Pitch, Pan, Filter, Volume etc.)
- vibrato is one of the effects that can be produced with LFOs
e) Effects
- delay, reverb, chorus etc. we can find this effects integrated almost in any kind of synths.
2.
Classification
a) Samples Synthesize (Samplers)
- instead of waveforms (sine, saw, square, triangle) this type of synthesises use samples (short piece of digital audio - recorded mp3, wav etc.)
b) Additive Synthesizers
- they use waveforms (Sine, Saw, Square, Pulse, Noise) in blocks for creating sounds
c) Subtractive Synths
- a simple scheme of this type of synthesize - the oscillator generates a tone (saw, sine, triangle etc.) which goes through a filter which will amplify, reduce, cut frequencies depends of the filter type (low pass LP, High pass Hp, Band Pass BP etc.). We can apply Envelopes (ADSR - Attack Decay Sustain Release) and LFOs.
d) FM Synthesizers
- the Matrix is the main characteristic we find at this type of synths
- The matrix allows us to establish connexions( also called algorithms ) easily, between synths oscillators, oscillators which in FM synthesizes are also called operators.
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