ALESIS FUSION
ANALOG SYNTHESIS TUTORIAL
The basics....
Since the early days of analog
synthesisers back in the 60s, an analog synthesiser can be
broken down into just a handful of basic components. These are:
• SOUND GENERATORS
•
SOUND PROCESSORS / MODIFIERS
• CONTROLLERS
The sound generators take the form of OSCILLATORS and also NOISE GENERATORS
The sound processors
/ modifiers take the form of FILTERS and AMPLIFIERS and also RING
MODULATORS and, these days, effects units such as REVERB, DELAY, CHORUS, etc..
The controllers
take the form of ENVELOPE GENERATORS, LFOs (LOW FREQUENCY
OSCILLATORS) plus
‘real-time’ controllers such as KEYBOARD, PITCH BEND and MOD
WHEELS, VELOCITY, AFTERTOUCH, etc..
Don’t worry about the jargon and terminology for now - we will look at these in
detail throughout
the course of this tutorial.
The history....
In the early days of synthesisers, all the different components mentioned
above were available
as separate ‘modules’ and were connected together using ‘patch cords’:
Thus, to make a sound, you would typically patch a cord (cable)
from the output of an oscillator
to the input of a
filter. You’d then patch a cord from the output of that filter to the input of an
amplifier and the whole lot would be controlled by various controllers (all patched in with
various
cords). Apart from
being big, bulky and expensive (not to mention somewhat temperamental
and unreliable!), this made them
unsuitable for use live on stage because each sound had to
be made from scratch (there were no patch memories in those days!).
Introduction
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