6 ms·

Can someone explain what a synthesizer is to a non musician? It looks like a keyboard to me. Do the two terms mean something different? Also, in today’s world,

Can someone explain what a synthesizer is to a non musician? It looks like a keyboard to me. Do the two terms mean something different? Also, in today’s world, do these need to exist in the same form? That is, can’t all these sounds simply be digitally produced rather than relying on circuitry? Why aren’t all new keyboards (or those other things DJs have on stage) simply software, maybe with a custom input device for easier live use?

jacquesm 5y ago
A synthesizer is a device that creates waveforms of a musical nature that do not have a natural equivalent.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Is it not possible to have a fully digital (built in software) synthesizer?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Sure, but that's still a device.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    It is definitely possible... it is also easy to end up with software synthesizers that use up large chunks of your available CPU power, or even synthesizers that require more CPU than you have available. It is also easy to end up with a beloved software synthesizer that stops working because you updated your computer's OS. I have sound modules from the 1980s that still work exactly as they did almost 40 years ago. I can't say that about software I used in the 1980s. A lot of modern synthesizers or sound modules are basically just software running on CPUs, DSPs, or even FPGAs.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    That is what is used for modern music production in software. It's a somewhat new development and with too many in use at once, you will have to prerender/cache the sound as your computer may not be able to handle it all live. But previously it was all analogue electronics. Which are extremely difficult to perfectly replicate in software and even models of the same synth would sound slightly different due to manufacturing differences/defects.
recursive 5y ago
The synthesizer is the part that makes the waveform. Some of them have keyboards attached. Some don't. Some performers do indeed use a MIDI controller and VST plugins on a laptop. The main problem with this is that software runs on computers, and sufficiently portable computers are generally just not reliable enough for a lot of live performances.
ssalazar 5y ago
> That is, can’t all these sounds simply be digitally produced rather than relying on circuitry? Even for an almost fully digital synth like the DX7 a bit-accurate emulation is difficult (there is a rich discussion of this in one of the other threads here). For analog synthesizers, there is a lot of character and nuance in the individual circuits that are difficult to capture in a digital model, across all possible configurations. In the mix of a full song though, its not often that people can notice the difference. Aliasing--the introduction of extra unwanted and generally non-harmonic frequencies--is also really hard to avoid in digital systems. For more esoteric instruments like Eurorack modules or Moog modular synthesizers, the physical interface is an integral part of the instrument--software versions of these exist but are obviously very different to interact with using a mouse or touchscreen. > Why aren’t all new keyboards (or those other things DJs have on stage) simply software, maybe with a custom input device for easier live use? For live use this is very common nowadays, though physical single purpose keyboards (even fully digital ones) still are used widely. In a fast moving stage show you may not want to mess around with the complexity of a full personal computer setup. In modern operating systems, even with 100s of processes competing for CPU time, real-time audio may rarely drop out (the result of which is audible clicks and pops), but even this is too risky for a big professional live show.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  I honestly dont understand why none of the main consumer operating systems are optimized for low latency. outside servers, I feel like I would gladly take an OS that made my computer 2x slower, but never had a pause of more than half a ms or so.
  - jerrysievert 5y ago
    half a ms is still 2 samples missed: 44000 / 1sec / 1000ms hopefully we have better latency than that!
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Half a millisecond is 20 samples missed. 44000 * .0005 = 22 But that's not what he meant, he meant that non-real time (soft real time, not even hard real time) OSs pause pretty frequently for relatively long periods. You might not miss any samples at all due to hardware buffering, but the effect on UI is tremendous.
ajuc 5y ago
Synthesizer is the part that creates the sound, keyboard is the part that tells synthesizer what note to play, when, for how long, and possibly at what volume. Sometimes people call the whole thing keyboard cause its the most distinctive part of it, but you can use the same keyboard connected to different synthesizers and synthesizers can exist without keyboards. What's important about synthesizers is the fact that for the first time in history it allowed musicians to control the "character" of sound gradually in new dimensions (the parameters that let you distinguish the same note played on piano, flute, guitar, violin, etc.), creating sounds that were impossible previously and even changing the character of the sound in real-time as another dimension of artistic expression. It's like you played a long note on violin and it morphed slowly over time into a flute and then some instrument that doesn't exist. You couldn't do it before and all these new possibilities and constraints changed music. Also the particular UI of some synthesizers allowed easy exploration of these new dimensions and that's important too. It's one thing to be able to play any waveform you want (you can do that by editing .wav file in hex editor), it's another to have several knobs and sliders and hear the differences in real-time when you tinker with them. We can simulate all of this in software but not 100% perfectly.
klodolph 5y ago
> Can someone explain what a synthesizer is to a non musician? Keyboard = input device, usually generates MIDI. Synthesizer = creates sounds from scratch, usually generates audio from MIDI. Some keyboards are not synthesizers (sometimes called a "master keyboard") and you have to plug them into something in order to get sound. Some synthesizers are not keyboards, and you have to plug something into them to control them. For example, the DX7 is both a synthesizer and a keyboard. The TX-802 is a synthesizer but not a keyboard... it is kind of like two DX7s in a 2U rack-mount unit without a keyboard. The Akai MPK249 is a keyboard but not a synthesizer. You can buy a TX-802 and an Akai MPK249 and plug them into each other, and it's kind of like having a DX7. > Also, in today’s world, do these need to exist in the same form? That is, can’t all these sounds simply be digitally produced rather than relying on circuitry? Circuit emulation has varying degrees of accuracy. I like to think of digital synthesizers as computers that don't ever need software updates, and are therefore more reliable than software running on a computer. They also often have purpose-built UIs (knobs, buttons, sliders) which are critical to some people using them. If you are going to make a custom input device, why not just make the custom input device and the synthesizer one single package? This is called a "sound module" -- something that makes sounds but does not have a keyboard attached. They come in both rack-mount and desktop versions.
jerrysievert 5y ago
> Why aren’t all new keyboards (or those other things DJs have on stage) simply software, maybe with a custom input device for easier live use? there are some sounds that rely on certain electronic oddities from weird components that cannot easily be modeled in software. some Russian transistors that are used for the polivoks filters are some that I can think of off the top of my head. personally, I've built a ton of software simulations of hardware equipment, but I still have a tx81z sitting around, and a rack full of eurorack gear. there are just some things I can't get quite right, and some weird things that I doubt I could ever reproduce[1]. we can't accurately model a SID chip in software or fpga due to its weird quirkiness under electrical load, some of the less sane chips are even harder. that's why there's such a demand for weird things that use older chips[2]. 1. https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/brain-custard https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/brain-custard 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZZiTpK3f0&t=112s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZZiTpK3f0&t=112s
Bxbo 5y ago
Fourier, 200 years ago showed you can create a curve of any shape you can imagine by adding Sine Waves. The synth applies that to music and speech. But the concept is applied in hundreds of fields as you move from curve, to planes to volumes. The key magic is the sine wave which unlike other curves on differentiation any number of times always produces a sine way due it's deep connection to anything in nature that Repeats.
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  Sine waves are convenient, but aren't at all necessary for a fourier transformation. The requirements are that you have a set of functions which are all pairwise orthogonal which also form a complete basis set. At least, that is what I recall from my EE classes 35 years ago.

jacquesm 5y ago

A synthesizer is a device that creates waveforms of a musical nature that do not have a natural equivalent.

throwawaysea 5y ago
Is it not possible to have a fully digital (built in software) synthesizer?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Sure, but that's still a device.
- klodolph 5y ago
  It is definitely possible... it is also easy to end up with software synthesizers that use up large chunks of your available CPU power, or even synthesizers that require more CPU than you have available. It is also easy to end up with a beloved software synthesizer that stops working because you updated your computer's OS. I have sound modules from the 1980s that still work exactly as they did almost 40 years ago. I can't say that about software I used in the 1980s. A lot of modern synthesizers or sound modules are basically just software running on CPUs, DSPs, or even FPGAs.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  That is what is used for modern music production in software. It's a somewhat new development and with too many in use at once, you will have to prerender/cache the sound as your computer may not be able to handle it all live. But previously it was all analogue electronics. Which are extremely difficult to perfectly replicate in software and even models of the same synth would sound slightly different due to manufacturing differences/defects.

recursive 5y ago

The synthesizer is the part that makes the waveform. Some of them have keyboards attached. Some don't. Some performers do indeed use a MIDI controller and VST plugins on a laptop. The main problem with this is that software runs on computers, and sufficiently portable computers are generally just not reliable enough for a lot of live performances.

ssalazar 5y ago

> That is, can’t all these sounds simply be digitally produced rather than relying on circuitry? Even for an almost fully digital synth like the DX7 a bit-accurate emulation is difficult (there is a rich discussion of this in one of the other threads here). For analog synthesizers, there is a lot of character and nuance in the individual circuits that are difficult to capture in a digital model, across all possible configurations. In the mix of a full song though, its not often that people can notice the difference. Aliasing--the introduction of extra unwanted and generally non-harmonic frequencies--is also really hard to avoid in digital systems. For more esoteric instruments like Eurorack modules or Moog modular synthesizers, the physical interface is an integral part of the instrument--software versions of these exist but are obviously very different to interact with using a mouse or touchscreen. > Why aren’t all new keyboards (or those other things DJs have on stage) simply software, maybe with a custom input device for easier live use? For live use this is very common nowadays, though physical single purpose keyboards (even fully digital ones) still are used widely. In a fast moving stage show you may not want to mess around with the complexity of a full personal computer setup. In modern operating systems, even with 100s of processes competing for CPU time, real-time audio may rarely drop out (the result of which is audible clicks and pops), but even this is too risky for a big professional live show.

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
I honestly dont understand why none of the main consumer operating systems are optimized for low latency. outside servers, I feel like I would gladly take an OS that made my computer 2x slower, but never had a pause of more than half a ms or so.
- jerrysievert 5y ago
  half a ms is still 2 samples missed: 44000 / 1sec / 1000ms hopefully we have better latency than that!
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Half a millisecond is 20 samples missed. 44000 * .0005 = 22 But that's not what he meant, he meant that non-real time (soft real time, not even hard real time) OSs pause pretty frequently for relatively long periods. You might not miss any samples at all due to hardware buffering, but the effect on UI is tremendous.

ajuc 5y ago

Synthesizer is the part that creates the sound, keyboard is the part that tells synthesizer what note to play, when, for how long, and possibly at what volume. Sometimes people call the whole thing keyboard cause its the most distinctive part of it, but you can use the same keyboard connected to different synthesizers and synthesizers can exist without keyboards. What's important about synthesizers is the fact that for the first time in history it allowed musicians to control the "character" of sound gradually in new dimensions (the parameters that let you distinguish the same note played on piano, flute, guitar, violin, etc.), creating sounds that were impossible previously and even changing the character of the sound in real-time as another dimension of artistic expression. It's like you played a long note on violin and it morphed slowly over time into a flute and then some instrument that doesn't exist. You couldn't do it before and all these new possibilities and constraints changed music. Also the particular UI of some synthesizers allowed easy exploration of these new dimensions and that's important too. It's one thing to be able to play any waveform you want (you can do that by editing .wav file in hex editor), it's another to have several knobs and sliders and hear the differences in real-time when you tinker with them. We can simulate all of this in software but not 100% perfectly.

klodolph 5y ago

> Can someone explain what a synthesizer is to a non musician? Keyboard = input device, usually generates MIDI. Synthesizer = creates sounds from scratch, usually generates audio from MIDI. Some keyboards are not synthesizers (sometimes called a "master keyboard") and you have to plug them into something in order to get sound. Some synthesizers are not keyboards, and you have to plug something into them to control them. For example, the DX7 is both a synthesizer and a keyboard. The TX-802 is a synthesizer but not a keyboard... it is kind of like two DX7s in a 2U rack-mount unit without a keyboard. The Akai MPK249 is a keyboard but not a synthesizer. You can buy a TX-802 and an Akai MPK249 and plug them into each other, and it's kind of like having a DX7. > Also, in today’s world, do these need to exist in the same form? That is, can’t all these sounds simply be digitally produced rather than relying on circuitry? Circuit emulation has varying degrees of accuracy. I like to think of digital synthesizers as computers that don't ever need software updates, and are therefore more reliable than software running on a computer. They also often have purpose-built UIs (knobs, buttons, sliders) which are critical to some people using them. If you are going to make a custom input device, why not just make the custom input device and the synthesizer one single package? This is called a "sound module" -- something that makes sounds but does not have a keyboard attached. They come in both rack-mount and desktop versions.

jerrysievert 5y ago

> Why aren’t all new keyboards (or those other things DJs have on stage) simply software, maybe with a custom input device for easier live use? there are some sounds that rely on certain electronic oddities from weird components that cannot easily be modeled in software. some Russian transistors that are used for the polivoks filters are some that I can think of off the top of my head. personally, I've built a ton of software simulations of hardware equipment, but I still have a tx81z sitting around, and a rack full of eurorack gear. there are just some things I can't get quite right, and some weird things that I doubt I could ever reproduce[1]. we can't accurately model a SID chip in software or fpga due to its weird quirkiness under electrical load, some of the less sane chips are even harder. that's why there's such a demand for weird things that use older chips[2]. 1. https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/brain-custard https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/brain-custard 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZZiTpK3f0&t=112s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZZiTpK3f0&t=112s

Bxbo 5y ago

Fourier, 200 years ago showed you can create a curve of any shape you can imagine by adding Sine Waves. The synth applies that to music and speech. But the concept is applied in hundreds of fields as you move from curve, to planes to volumes. The key magic is the sine wave which unlike other curves on differentiation any number of times always produces a sine way due it's deep connection to anything in nature that Repeats.

tasty_freeze 5y ago
Sine waves are convenient, but aren't at all necessary for a fourier transformation. The requirements are that you have a set of functions which are all pairwise orthogonal which also form a complete basis set. At least, that is what I recall from my EE classes 35 years ago.