tags: synthesizers music mus-407 electroacoustic midi

Digital Synthesizers

An digital synthesizer is a [synthesizer] device used to [synthesize sound] digitally using [digital signal processing].

History

Digital Improvements

Tools for digital control and programmability became commercially viable and available ca. mid-1970s.

This enabled the ability to recall configurations, among other enhancements, such as "hybrid" [analog]/digital synthesizers:

• GROOVE - Max Mathews @ Bell Labs, late 1960s
  • (Generated Real-Time Output Operations on Voltage-Controlled Equipment)
  • system for interactive [music composition]
  • see: DDP-24 computer card rack used in GROOVE system
• Buchla 500 Series ca. 1970
• Synclavier, developed by Jon Appleton et al. at Dartmouth University

[MIDI] (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

• digital [communication protocol] for computers and musical instruments, developed and released in 1983
• quickly and fully embraced by the synthesizer industry

Numerous MIDI synthesizers saw commercial success:

• Yamaha DX7, DX11, Kurzweil K2000

Computers and Software

PC Proliferation (ca. late 1980s) has migrated synthesizer development to a software platform

• the need for real-time performance capabilities with digital synthesis on computers required new methods to generate sound efficiently in terms of memory and processing speed
• led to the conception of [wavetable-synthesis], a fast and memory-inexpensive synthesis method

Examples of digital software synthesizers:

• Massive, Native-Instruments modular synthesizer plugin
• Serum, Xfer Records modular synthesizer plugin
• Max/MSP, visual programming language for audio/visual artists by Cycling '74

Sources

• MUS 407 Analog Synthesizers (TODO: double check source)
• "Wavetable Synthesis Algorithm Explained", Jan Wilczek (WolfSound)