Synthesizer

Article

A synthesiser is an electronic musical instrument that generates or modifies audio signals. It may create sound with analogue circuits, digital algorithms, sampled recordings, physical models, or combinations of these methods.

Common synthesis techniques include subtractive, additive, frequency modulation, wavetable, granular, vector, and physical-modelling synthesis. Oscillators or other sources produce material that can be shaped with filters, amplifiers, envelopes, modulation, and effects.

Synthesisers may be controlled by keyboards, sequencers, computers, touch surfaces, wind controllers, or other interfaces. Control standards such as MIDI allow notes and performance data to be exchanged among instruments and software.

The instrument became prominent in twentieth-century experimental and popular music. Modern synthesisers range from modular hardware and stage keyboards to software instruments embedded in computers, phones, and digital audio workstations.

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• Source / publisher: Wikipedia
• URL type: WWW
• Credits: Wikipedia
• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer