originally posted on 6/2/15 on malaker.32hertz.com
Hello, my name is Ed Malaker. Today I want to talk about using the 5 most important synth modules.
The 5 most important synthesis modules are: Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier, Envelope, and LFO.
The Oscillator creates the sound. A single waveform that could be a sine wave, square wav, triangle, and sawtooth. There are also variations built from these types of waves. Many synthesizers have more than one oscillator to allow you to blend more than one sound.
The Filter shapes the sound. The sound wave of a square, sawtooth, or triangle wave contains may harmonics across the frequency spectrum creating a large sound. It might be helpful to think of this as similar to a large stone, The Filter is your chisel. You can use the high-pass, low-pass, band-pass, notch filter, etc. to chisel away at the frequencies until you create the sound that you desire.
The Amplifier is another very important part of a synthesizer. Use Amplifiers to adjust the volume of multiple oscillators, they are also usually connected to an Envelope or LFO.
The Envelope is a controller that controls something else (like an Amplifier) using a set path called an Envelope. It runs the path every time a key is pressed (or action is taken) There are 4 main parts to an Envelope:
1. Attack Time -This is how long it takes for a sound to get to full strength after a key is pressed. The longer the attack time the more the sound will fade in.
2. Decay Time – This is how long it takes to go from full volume to Sustain Level.
3. Sustain Level – This is the volume level the note will stay at as long as the key is pressed.
4. Release Time – This is how long it takes for a note to return to a 0 value after a key is released.
The LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) is another type of controller that controls something else using a low frequency oscillator. Unlike an Envelope which runs once each time, The LFO path keeps cycling to as long as a note is pressed.
Using these 5 modules it is possible to create really great sounds that are all your own. I hope that you had fun reading.
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