Analog Synthesis: The Newbie Guide to Synthesizers and Sound-Design

128 Pages·2001·6.84 MB·English

by  Reinhard Schmitz

Reinhard Schmitz
Analog Synthesis

Reinhard Schmitz
Analog Synthesis
The Newbie Guide to
Synthesizers and Sound Design
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Author Reinhard Schmitz
Translation Tom Green
Cover art M0type, www.motype.de
Interior design & layout Uwe Senkler
© 1999–2005 Wizoo Publishing GmbH, www.wizoobooks.com
ISBN 3-934903-01-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
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val systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Welcome
It must have been around 1975 when I first locked horns with that myste-
rious beast, the synthesizer. The keyboardist of the band I was in at the
time had bought a second-hand ARP Odyssey. Perched atop a Fender Rho-
des in our rehearsal room, this sheet metal incarnation of man’s dream of
a bigger and better sonic spectrum seemed to have just one hitch —it was
as mute as a stone effigy. Failing to coax any kind of sound out of it, the
case was clear: our ivory tickler had been had!
For some unfathomable reason, the unspoken consensus in this particular
combo was that the guitarist—me that is—was responsible for technically
challenging chores such as soldering cords, replacing fuses, defrosting the
fridge etc., so I was elected to find the ghost in the machine. And after just
two hours of man-handling the box’s faders to come up with every concei-
vable combination of settings, I found the culprit: the slider for the cutoff
frequency of the filter was pulled all the way down. Go figure. Anyway, the
synth squawked away merrily and the rest is history. No worries, in all en-
thusiasm, I am not going to bore you with a gripping yarn about a man
and his metal machine mistresses, but henceforth it was a clear case of
“romancing the synth.”
Why am I sharing this wonderful little anecdote with you? Only to make it
clear to you that people who are perceived as gurus—by others or themsel-
ves—and share their profound wisdom in books about synths such as this
one didn’t have a clue when they started out. So don’t sweat the small stuff
and definitely forget about being intimidated by the many knobs and swit-
ches. Think of all of those little gizmos as your allies in the never-ending
struggle against boring sounds.
On the flip side, it really is helpful if you have a general idea of what will
happen when you tweak this parameter or twiddle that knob, or like me in
my newbie days, what won’t happen if you don’t. Presumably, you bought
this book because you are raring to wade right into the wonderful world of
analog sound synthesis and get your feet wet with some experimentation.
And that’s precisely what this book was written for, to help you avoid
hassle, headaches and grief and get down to the nitty-gritty of making me-
tal machine music. Much of the fun of dabbling in analog synthesis is
Zen-like: the path to gaining knowledge can be as exciting as your ultimate
destination. In this spirit, I hope you enjoy discovering this world as much
as I did being your guide.
Reinhard Schmitz
Contents
1 Synthesizer Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What Exactly Is a Synthesizer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Synthesizer History 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Dynamophone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Theremin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Spherophone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Ondes Martenot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Trautonium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Hammond Organ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Mixturtrautonium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Forerunner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The First Synthesizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
What Is an Analog Synthesizer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 How Many Species of Analog Synthesizers Are Out There? 23
Modular Synthesizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Hard-wired Synthesizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Real Analog Vs. Virtual Analog Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3 What Analog Sound Synthesis Can and Can’t Do . . . . . . . 31
Understanding Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
How Is an Analog Sound Generated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Is an Analog Synthesizer a Gifted Mimic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Basic Components of Analog Sound Generation . . . . . . . . . 36
4 Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Oscillator Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
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Contents
Combining Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5 Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Filter Settings: Cutoff and Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
What Types of Filters Are There? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Combining Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Slope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
The “Sound” of a Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6 Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7 Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
What Does an Envelope Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
What Type of Envelopes Can I Play With? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Where Can I Use Envelopes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Are there “Good” and “Bad” Envelopes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
8 LFOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
LFO Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
What Do the Different LFO waveforms Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Controlling the LFO Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Delaying and Fading LFOS In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
LFO Retrigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Using Several LFOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Which LFO Setting Generates Which Effect? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9 Playing and Controlling Synthesizer Sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
10 Advanced Synthesis Features and Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Using an Oscillator as a Modulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Using Your Synthesizer as an Effects Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Envelope Follower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Pitch-to-Voltage Converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
8
Contents
Sample&Hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Formant Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Vocoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Step Sequencers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Types of Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
(Wo)Man as Modulator—“Playing” Sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Contents of the Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Pocket Compendium of Analog Sound Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
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