Part one

    For these tutorials you are going to need a synth, and you can download RGC Audio's absolutelystunning FREE VST called "Triangle 1" here.

             It was a late night sometime in the late Seventies, I think.  It was Saturday, and as a geeky teenager, I spent the evening doing what the rest of America’s geeky teenagers did on Saturday nights.   No, not that!  Watching Saturday Night Live, of course!  This night was different, and would change me forever, though I couldn’t have known it beforehand.  On this particular show, the musical guest was a very young British sensation called Gary Numan.  I had heard nothing by this artist; not many on this side of the Atlantic had.  He got thrown in with the British “Punk Rock” phenomenon.  Or maybe it was “New Wave” by then.  Whatever it was called, it was decidedly unsavory to our parents!  Of course that only ensured that I was tuning in.  And what I saw was a skinny, intense man dressed in charcoal black with eyeliner and close-cropped hair.  He sang a song called “Cars” and another called “Praying To The Aliens”.  The aliens, for cryin’ out loud!  Songs of desperation and isolation and absolutely nothing like the light-rock ballads and country tunes I heard coming from my Dad’s car stereo, or the pointless disco and bloated misogynous rock I heard from schoolmates.  But what made it really different and strange to me were the sounds.  I seem to recall a violinist, and of course a drummer, but most of the music being performed was being performed on synthesizers.  Oh, sure, I had heard synthesizers before (I’m a Doctor Who fan, after all), but they were always used for effect.  This guy was playing Rock music with them!  Melodies and chugging bass rhythms, and string washes; all just on the other side of weird.   That night, I heard for the first time, music that spoke in a language I could understand.

             Forgive my indulgence.  The rather lengthy introduction was written to try to convey the awe and power I still feel when playing and programming synthesizers.  I hope communicate some of that to the people who read these missives.  I’ve been in love with synthesis and sound since the night described above.  I live, eat, and breathe synthesizers.  Hardware, software, expensive, cheap, or homemade; I do not distinguish one from another.  I love them all.  Every nasal plink, plonk, bleep and bloop.  From the silly to sublime, it doesn’t matter.

Synthesizers form a large percentage of my discussions with my fellow human beings, and I spend a lot of time answering questions about them, and how one obtains the desired result from a particular synthesizer.  Never more so than now, with the introduction of today’s powerful computers and software synthesizers which cost but a fraction of their hardware granddads.   It has recently been suggested that I write a column on synthesizer programming, and you are reading the first installment in that endeavor.  I hope not to write just another in the endless glut of  “basic synthesizers” columns, but to really get to the guts of sound design, to explain in understandable terms what all the common functions do, and why.   There will be MP3s for you to download and hear the results of our explorations.  I’m going to explain, from the beginning to the end, what kinds of functions you’ll find on virtually every synthesizer you are likely to use.  Sure, there are exceptions, and we’ll get to those, too, when we’ve covered the basics.  We are going to start with the basic analog subtractive synthesizer.  Not because it’s hip, but because ever since Dr. Moog rolled the first Minimoog out of the factory, the signal path of synthesizers has changed relatively little.  It’s a testament to the good Doctor’s genius that his design was so darned near complete, that few improvements could be made.

But first, we’re going to cover the types of synthesis available to the user.  There are a number of them, but we are only going to cover the ones that are widely available.  The most common, by far, is the subtractive synthesizer.  This is a synthesizer that generates a complex waveform through analog, digital, or sampling technology, and then filters out frequencies to shape the sound.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a Minimoog, a D-50, or a Korg Triton, the method is the same.  The user takes away frequencies from the raw waveform the way a sculptor chips away at a block of stone.  Needless to say, the types of waveforms generated by a subtractive synthesizer are crucial to the outcome of your sound.  The quality and type of the filter is equally important.  We’ll cover both of these subjects at great length a little later.

Conversely, another, less common type of synthesis called additive synthesis.  This is a technique based on the idea that all sounds, no matter how complex, can be stripped down to reveal a multitude of sine waves or harmonics.  It requires a nearly infinite amount of these harmonics for even the seemingly simplest of sounds.  Fortunately, the human brain is easy to fool, and we can create very complex and pleasing sounds with a few dozen well-chosen harmonics.  Still, it’s a lot of stuff to control and manipulate, and until recently with the advent of software synthesizers, there didn’t seem much hope that this very powerful form of sound creation would ever become common.  It still might not catch on, as it requires a lot of time and patience when compared to other, more common kinds of synthesis.  Not many manufacturers ever saw fit to produce this type of synthesizer, though there have been a couple of good ones.  DK’s Synergy was an additive synth, and can be heard on Wendy Carlos’ masterpieces “Digital Moonscapes” and “Beauty In The Beast”, as well as her soundtrack to “Tron”.  Another stunning additive was Kawai’s K5000 series, one of which I own.  You can see a picture of it on the Home Recording page.

In 1982, when Yamaha introduced to the world at large the DX-7 synthesizer, and its stunning FM synthesis, it changed the way we programmed and played.  Much like FM radio, this form of sound production is based on a carrier waveform that is modulated by another signal.  In Yamaha’s terms, these are called “operators”.  This method of synthesis uses complex algorithms built on four or six of these operators in a particular arrangement.  It is a very capable type of synthesis, and is only just now coming back into fashion in software plug-in form.  Its sounds are decidedly “digital” and can be brittle or beautiful.   Yamaha’s FM synths were notoriously difficult to program.  It wasn’t Yamaha’s fault; they are very complex machines, though it didn’t help that the DX-7 ushered in the era of the spartan front panel, with none of the analog synthesizer’s accessible knobs and sliders.  Many people feel FM synths lack the warmth of analogs.  Personally, I think there is still room for FM, and I’m glad to see it make a comeback.

A relative newcomer to the world of synthesis is physical modeling.  The idea behind this type of synthesizer is that the behavior of all sounds in nature can be expressed by complex mathematical equations performed in real-time. Like additive, physical modeling requires extremely powerful hardware and software, and benefits from the current escalation of computing speeds at our disposal.  The first product to hit the mass market using PM technology was Yamaha’s VL-1 (crafty lot, huh? The first FM, and now the first PM synth).  This expensive, classy synthesizer modeled plucked strings, winds, and reeds to amazing effect.  It fared even better if you used a “breath controller” to add expression.  Then something odd happened.  A bright red synthesizer came out of Sweden.  It was called a Nord Lead, and it used PM technology to model an analog synthesizer.  Talk about coming full-circle!  I always felt using a complex technology like PM to model a simple sound like an analog synthesizer to be a bit like building a matter-transmitter to go to the corner store for a Coke, but that’s just me.  Nevertheless, the Nord sounded fantastic, and sold like mad.  Companies have been imitating it ever since with a rash of modeled analogs.  These are good machines, and the most remarkable one is probably the Nord Modular.  It has all the power and flexibility of the old Moog and Arp modular behemoths, but all the patching and programming is done on a personal computer.  When you get the sound you like, you unplug the tiny hardware synthesizer, and take it to the gig!

Most synthesizers and samplers today fall into one of the above categories, though there are a couple of granular software synths on the market.  This form of sonic manipulation breaks the sound down into “grains” and “grain clouds” which you then manipulate in a variety of ways.  It’s produces some really bizarre effects.  You can get a hold of this kind of technology via programs like Granulab or Crusher X.

  Well, that’s about it for the types of synthesizer you might have access to.  In part two, we’re going to cover the various types of oscillator, and what the heck you can do with the little buggers!