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The Synthesizer
The synthesizer is an electronic
instrument that allows the creation and merging of sounds via electrical
circuits. The first synthesizers of the 1960's
and 1970's were analog synthesizers, meaning that they used oscillators
in order to generate sounds, and the user would manipulate different buttons
in order to determine the various audio components. Different filters created
different sound timbre
and sound appearance. The synthesizer enabled
the musician to create sounds according to acoustic
parameters as wave
form,
overtones
etc., and in this way, one
could create sounds that imitate real instruments and also sounds unparalleled
in reality.
Today,
synthesizers use advanced digital technologies, combining auditory signals
originally sampled from the real sounds of instruments and voices. This
way, the synthesis technology is combined with the sampling technology
used to manufacture samplers,
which enable the recording of sounds - from a breaking glass to a cello,
and playing them back in various pitches, as if they were the original
instrument. Different styles of music formed with the synthesizer and the
sampler at their heart. Creators of art electronic music, from the school
of Boulez
and Stockhausen,
gladly integrated the synthesizer in their music, and the world of pop
music
incorporated them in giant productions. Artists such as Jean
Michael Jarre
and Rick Wakeman
recorded popular works in the 1970's that used synthesizers and emphasized
the beauty of their sounds. Pop music
of the 1980's and 1990's, and especially the "New
Wave",
Techno
and Dance
styles, are based more and more on electronic
technology.
MIDI
communication, developed in 1983, created
a state of maximal connectivity between digital instruments, making it
possible for every musician to establish his own recording studio at home.
Electronic Musical Instruments
connected to the Synthesizer via MIDI
Drum Machine
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Sampler
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Sound Module
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Electric Piano
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Midi controller
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Composers
Boulez
Stockhausen
The
Synthesizer
Timeline
Synth Museum
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