Synthesis
Shaping voltage into tone — oscillators, filters, envelopes. Every entry below is filed under the limit that shaped it.
- A Panel Is an ArgumentEvery front panel is a claim about what matters. One knob per function against menu diving, the layout as a theory of how the instrument should be played, and how panel design shaped the music made on it.
- Six Operators, No FilterThe DX7 threw out the filter — the one control every synthesist understood — and replaced it with mathematics almost nobody did. The result was on half the records of its decade. Why FM sounded like nothing else and why almost everyone used presets.
- The Filter Is the InstrumentSubtractive synthesis explained through the component that gives it its character: resonance, self-oscillation, and why two filters with the same specification do not sound alike.
- Monophony Is Why the Bass Line Has a ShapeOne voice means every note is a decision about what to abandon. How the constraint produced glide, accent and the phrasing of a whole genre.
- Tuning Drift as a SoundAnalogue oscillators wander with temperature. What was originally a defect became a signature, and what happened when it was engineered out.