How To Program A Digital
How to program a digital synthisizer/soft synth
Hey people ! Alright well this is a tutorial on programing a synthisizer on your computer there are hundreds if not thousands available and they work in similar ways for the most part. Unfortunatly they can be a little overwhelming at first so I will take you through some of the basics you need to get started.
What is a synth ?
Basically a synth is a bunch of differant components wired together to create audio output. There is at least one oscillator (Osc from now on) and a midi in(possibly from a controller or piano roll but there are loads of other ways to get midi in) and an envelope then usually a Low frequency oscillator (LFO) a filter, (Hp,Lp or Bp I’ll get to that) quite often there will be things called detuners or built in FX too.
Midi input
Midi is simply put language for audio software or hardware. I’m not going to get into much detail on this because theres an infinite world of thing midi can do. But this usually happens behind the scenes so to speak and as such isn’t very important to a beginner.
Oscillators
Simply put, an oscillator generated a basic tone. These tones are made from waveforms and sound very simplistic. The 4 main wave forms are Saw, Square, tri (triangle) and Sine. These each have distinctive sounds and can be manipulated various ways. On most synths you can simple select the wave form and go from there. Many soft synths will have other wave forms and you can even draw up your own wave forms but those vary from synth to synth and it would be impossible to name them all.
-Detuneing
Detuneing is simply lowering or raising a tone for various reasons. You can raise it semi tones (from B to C or G# to A for example) or cents. Semi tones would be done to create harmonies or have one oscillator play an octave (12 semitones, basically playing the same note name lower) to add more low ends to the sound. Cents are more complicated, you can raise or lower them to get a “fatter” tone. But only raise them a little or the synth will sound messy and bad. Also be carefull about detuning if you are using a one oscillator synth because it might sound out of place in your mix.
-Multiple oscillators
Most synths will contain multiple oscillators, usually a single oscillator synth will sound too simple (although there is exceptions to every rule) so generally turn on at least 2. Also more than 3 or 4 can sound too congested, but again this is not hard and fast rule, I have used 6 oscillator synths.
Envelope
These things generate things called volume envelopes. Basically how the volume progresses over time. These are usually ASDR envelopes. This stands for Attack (how fast the sound comes in) Decay (how long it takes for the sound to go from the “peak” at the end of the attack to the sustain volume) Sustain (how long the sound lasts at the sustain volume) Release (how long the sound takes to go from sustain to nothing)
-Not ADSR envelopes
These things work on the same principal, however there are more or less components. You can easily find articles elsewhere on these envelopes, however I don’t want to go into detail given this is a basic guide.
-Reverb and Delay
In a synth the signal travels out of the oscillator and to the evelope then the another components. Only then dose it reverb or delay. What this means is that reverb, delay or any other effect is not affected by the envelope.
LFO
An LFO is an oscillator of sorts (it users the same waveforms and such), however it’s signal is so slow (low frequency) that it dose not produce an audible tone. So we use these to tell other components what to do. For example a filter might be connected to a LFO and will be more powerfull in the mix when the LFO is at the high part of it’s wave form and have little effect when the wave form is at the low point.
-Tempo sync
Some LFO’s can be programed or detect the tempo of the track and use that to dictate how fast they go. This means that the wave form might start on 1 and 3 and be half way done at 2 and 4. This is usefull if the LFO has to sound rhythmically correct (in time)
Filter
A filter basically filters out a given frequency. There are 3 types of filter High pass (HP), low pass (LP) and band pass (BP).
