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Chapter 3: Basics of Analog Synthesis
ANDROMEDA A6 REFERENCE MANUAL 81
CHAPTER 3
BASICS OF ANALOG
SYNTHESIS
AN OVERVIEW OF SYNTHESIS
The concept of a synthesizer is an instrument that is capable of producing a very
wide range of sounds electronically. The huge popularity and continued
development of synths since the late 60s is due, in great part, to this ability to offer so
many different types of sound textures in one box.
A synthesizer’s ability to produce such an incredible variety of sound comes from its
basic design: it electronically simulates the fundamental components of sound and
gives you control over each part. The term synthesize means to “to combine parts into a
whole”. And that’s exactly what a synthesizer does: the essential ingredients of sound
are presented on the front panel as separate parts which are then “re-assembled” as an
audible sound.
ANALOG AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES
In today’s world, the majority of electronic keyboards are digital. Although the first
synthesizers were analog, the demand for digital products led the market away from
analog designs. But because analog instruments have a sound quality all their own,
and because they operate somewhat differently than their digital cousins, there’s
been sort of a revival of interest in this technology.
So if this is your first analog synthesizer, or your first synthesizer ever, you might be
wondering what the difference is. Briefly, a digital instrument is completely
dependent on its microprocessor(s) and memory for the sounds it makes and any
control and sound-modifying functions.
An analog instrument uses electronic circuitry for sound creation and filtering that is
not dependent on its computer chip. While the instrument’s processor provides
many control and memory functions, the basic sound path is in the hardware that is
separate from the microprocessor. In the early days of synthesizers, everything in
the unit was analog, which involved many transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes
and coils of wire, and often meant no program memory, frequent manual tuning,
limited sound-modifying abilities and relatively high cost.
But where did all this start?
A LITTLE HISTORY
Electronic music as we know it today began years ago with musicians and physicists
analyzing and experimenting with sound. Sound, as we might remember from high
school physics, is created by an object vibrating the air causing sound waves – minor
fluctuations or changes in air pressure that we perceive or experience with our ears
as audible sound. The people who studied this natural phenomenon from a musical
perspective put audible sound into two categories: sound that has a musical pitch
and sound that doesn’t.