Electronic Music, Unit 6

Assignment 1, What is a synthesizer?

 

Sound synthesis is the electronic production of sound

 

To synthesize something is to copy it, so a synthesizer is a machine that attempts to copy existing sounds. Most modern synthesizers are digital, they work in bits and bytes. Synthesizers in the past were analog, and if you go really far back, there were mechanical synthesizers.

 

The part of a synth that makes a sound is called the oscillator. The oscillator does this by creating waveforms in various shapes, like sawtooth, square, triangle, sine wave, and more.

 

The other two parts to a synth are the filter and the amplifier. The filter modifies the sound and the amplifier changes its volume and power.

 

Types of synths:

Modular - Oscillator, filter, and amplifier are all separate and can be modified accordingly.

All-in-one - All the components are mashed together on one control board on one machine and the only way they work is together.

 

Analog - Uses voltage controlled circuits to create different volumes and pitches

Digital - Uses digital technology to transfer sound data

Hybrid - Digital oscillators, but the rest is voltage controlled

Virtual Analog - A digital synth that tries to mimic an analog synth

 

In an analog synthesizer, everything is controlled by differing ratings in voltage (power of electrical current). The modules are thus 'voltage controlled'.

VCO - Voltage controlled oscillator - makes the sound

VCF - Voltage controlled filter - changes the sound

VCA - Voltage controlled amplifier - makes the sound louder

A controller provides input for all these to work off.

Digital synthesizers also have these elements, but instead of being voltage controlled, they work via MIDI.

 

To fade in and fade out a note, to better mimic existing instruments, the envelope was developed. It includes four parts that go under the acronym ADSR - Attack, delay, sustain, and release.

Attack - Amount of time it takes for the sound to reach maximum volume (starts at 0 dB)

Delay - Amount of time it takes for the sound to lower back to...

Sustain - ...the optimum/regular volume that a sound has. This stage lasts indefinitely until a key is let go.

Release - Amount of time it takes for the sound to lower back to 0. Initiates after a key is let go.

 

Logic has a virtual analog synthesizer called ES1.

 

 

Assignment 2, synthesizer components test:

 

http://i.imgur.com/IgGFreE.jpg

 

 

Assignment 3, ES M synth in Logic

 

 

 

 Assignment 4, Circle Synth

 

1.  How many oscillators are being used for this patch? ... There are two analog oscillators. The other two are grayed out.

 

2.  What type of filter has been applied? ... I'm not really sure what this is asking but there is a shape, a frequency knob (which is at ~60%) and a smaller resonance knob (~20%). There is a menu with a few number/letter codes to select from and "LP 4P" is the default. I'm not sure what LP 4P means.

 

3. The orange envelope is controlled what module? Find the orange dot. ... There is an orange dot at "Frequency" on the filter.

 

4.  The green envelope is control what module? ... There is a green dot on the VCA Level.

 

5.  Is the LFO on? ... No, it isn't. There are two of them, one red and one mint green but both are deactivated.

 

6.  Attach the LFO to OSC 2 in the mixer window.  Turn on the LFO... what happens to the sound? ... You can kind of hear the wave in the sound a bit. It gets louder, quieter, louder, quieter in the pattern of the waveform. This was especially clear in the sustain section of the envelope.

 

7.  On both Envelopes, grab the attack "dot"  the first one on the left attached to the line, and pull it all the way to the left.  Do this to both envelopes.  What happens to the sound? ... The sound starts out at maximum volume and then immediately proceeds to the delay stage. You could say it starts out at delay or completes the attack in 0 seconds.

 

8.  Where would you change the oscillator's waveform? ... On the left of each oscillator section there is a selection for four different types of waveform - sine, sawtooth, square, and triangle. If the oscillator is changed from analog to wavetable there is a larger display of the wave and a lot more to choose from.

 

9.  Change both oscillators to a sine wave... what do you hear?  Describe the sound? ... The sound is more transcendent, it has a higher pitch. It sounds more electronic than the square, which is more like your regular piano sound.

 

10.  Turn on the sequencer.  Click on random.  Grab the green dot and drag it up to Osc 1, and drop it under Course.  What do you hear? ... When the sequencer dot is dragged into Osc 1 and a note is played, the note follows the pitch pattern of the sixteen sequencer bars. When a bar is extended above the centerline, the note is higher in pitch than the normal, and when a bar is lower than the centerline, the note is lower.

 

11.  Click on the EFFECT TAB on the very bottom.  Choose REVERB from the drop down and turn it on.  There is a small arrow on the rigth of that frame.  Click on it and select HUGE HALL.  Describe the Sound. ... The sound feels like it is being played all around me in a wide open space, just as if I was inside a huge hall. 

 

Assignment 5, Sculpting sound with synthesis

 

Original:

Modified:

 

 

Quiz: 103%, first try

http://i.imgur.com/PbhT0uT.png