Sound Synthesis

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

Michael Zacherl wrote:
>> WAIT A MINUTE!!! You mean, you're not going to BUILD YOUR OWN!!!?!!
> 
> hehe, obviously there _are_ people who actually want to play that stuff 
> immediately ;-)

I'll admit it helps to have used synthesizers a bit before you start 
building your own :) Perhaps I should put in a good word for the VCS3 at 
this point? Everything laid bare, so, it's incomprehensible for a day or 
so, and impossible to obtain any sound. Then, once you get your head 
round it, you're ready for anything. The VCS3 is monophonic, and best 
for abstract sound-making. Its sound is amazing, once tamed, and capable 
of melodic stuff too, although it's hard work. It was used extensively 
by Pink Floyd on Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon.

I mention the VCS3 because it's a classic example of a synth where all 
the components are "duplicated" in a better form on many digital synths, 
but the sound texture - its quality - is *completely* different, and so, 
working with this type of analogue machine, will enlighten you to 
something equally important as pitch, modulation, filtering et al, which 
is the black art of aesthetic, which, to this day, remains not entirely 
understood. This little synth will give you an awareness of that, and so 
enable you to avoid the idea that a musician "controls" the instrument 
by design and action. True instruments are symbiotic beings. I mention 
it briefly, in case that is of any interest. It's not just gear and 
algorithms that count, when making music, but the sense that one has of 
pleasure, mystery and exploration. The nature of the journey is what 
attracts or repels the Muse; not the end "product", whose completion 
lasts an infinitessimally short time.

Tony (HB)