A synthesizer (or synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument

designed to produce electronically generated sound, using

techniques such as additive, subtractive, FM, physical modelling
synthesis, or phase distortion.

Synthesizers create sounds through direct manipulation of

electrical voltages (as in analog synthesizers), mathematical
manipulation of discrete values using computers (as in software
synthesizers), or by a combination of both methods. In the final
stage of the synthesizer, electrical voltages generated by the
synthesizer cause vibrations in the diaphragms of loudspeakers,
headphones, etc. This synthesized sound is contrasted with
recording of natural sound, where the mechanical energy of a
sound wave is transformed into a signal which will then be
converted back to mechanical energy on playback (though
sampling synthesizers significantly blur this distinction).

Synthesizers typically have a keyboard which provides the human

interface to the instrument and are often thought of as keyboard
instruments. However, a synthesizer's human interface does not
necessarily have to be a keyboard, nor does a synthesizer strictly
need to be playable by a human. Different fingerboard synthesizer
or ribbon controlled synthesizers have also been developed.

Sound basics
When natural tonal instruments' sounds are analyzed in the
frequency domain, the spectra of tonal instruments exhibit
amplitude peaks at the harmonics. These harmonics' frequencies
are primarily located close to the integer multiples of the tone's
fundamental frequency.

Percussives and rasps usually lack harmonics, and exhibit spectra

that are comprised mainly of noise shaped by the resonant
frequencies of the structures that produce the sounds. The resonant
properties of the instruments (the spectral peaks of which are also
referred to as formants) also shape the spectra of string, wind,
voice and other natural instruments.

In most conventional synthesizers, for purposes of resynthesis,

recordings of real instruments can be thought to be composed of
several components.

These component sounds represent the acoustic responses of

different parts of the instrument, the sounds produced by the
instrument during different parts of a performance, or the
behaviour of the instrument under different playing conditions
(pitch, intensity of playing, fingering, etc.) The distinctive timbre,
intonation and attack of a real instrument can therefore be created
by mixing together these components in such a way as resembles
the natural behaviour of the real instrument. Nomenclature varies
by synthesizer methodology and manufacturer, but the components
are often referred to as oscillators or partials. A higher fidelity
reproduction of a natural instrument can typically be achieved
using more oscillators, but increased computational power and
human programming is required, and most synthesizers use
between one and four oscillators by default.

One of the most important parts of any sound is its amplitude

envelope. This envelope determines whether the sound is
percussive, like a snare drum, or persistent, like a violin string.
Most often, this shaping of the sound's amplitude profile is realized
with an "ADSR" (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelope model
applied to control oscillator volumes. Apart from Sustain, each of
these stages is modeled by a change in volume (typically
exponential).

• Attack time is the time taken for initial run-up of the sound
level from nil to 100%.
• Decay time is the time taken for the subsequent run down
from 100% to the designated Sustain level.
 • Sustain level, the third stage, is the steady volume produced
when a key is held down.
• Release time is the time taken for the sound to decay from
the Sustain level to nil when the key is released. If a key is
released during the Attack or Decay stage, the Sustain phase
is usually skipped. Similarly, a Sustain level of zero will
produce a more-or-less piano-like (or percussive) envelope,
with no continuous steady level, even when a key is held.
Exponential rates are commonly used because they closely
model real physical vibrations, which usually rise or decay
exponentially.

Although the oscillations in real instruments also change

frequency, most instruments can be modeled well without this
refinement. This refinement is necessary to generate a vibrato

Overview of popular synthesis methods

Subtractive synthesizers use a simple acoustic model that assumes
an instrument can be approximated by a simple signal generator
(producing sawtooth waves, square waves, etc...) followed by a
filter which represents the frequency-dependent losses and
resonances in the instrument body. For reasons of simplicity and
economy, these filters are typically low-order lowpass filters. The
combination of simple modulation routings (such as pulse width
modulation and oscillator sync), along with the physically
unrealistic lowpass filters, is responsible for the "classic
synthesizer" sound commonly associated with "analog synthesis"
and often mistakenly used when referring to software synthesizers
using subtractive synthesis. Although physical modeling
synthesi`s, synthesis wherein the sound is generated according to
the physics of the instrument, has superseded subtractive synthesis
for accurately reproducing natural instrument timbres, the
subtractive synthesis paradigm is still ubiquitous in synthesizers
with most modern designs still offering low-order lowpass or
bandpass filters following the oscillator stage.

One of the newest systems to evolve inside music synthesis is

physical modelling. This involves taking up models of components
of musical objects and creating systems which define action,
filters, envelopes and other parameters over time. The definition of
such instruments is virtually limitless, as one can combine any
given models available with any amount of sources of modulation
in terms of pitch, frequency and contour. For example, the model
of a violin with characteristics of a pedal steel guitar and perhaps
the action of piano hammer ... physical modelling on computers
gets better and faster with higher processing ..

One of the easiest synthesis systems is to record a real instrument

as a digitized waveform, and then play back its recordings at
different speeds to produce different tones. This is the technique
used in "sampling". Most samplers designate a part of the sample
for each component of the ADSR envelope, and then repeat that
section while changing the volume for that segment of the
envelope. This lets the sampler have a persuasively different
envelope using the same note..