Before we venture out, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, you will do things you had not believed yourself capable of. Now the bad: At first you may not have a clue what you’re doing. But everything will turn out fine in the end, for SoundForum promises enlightenment. The little exercise we’ll go through in this article aims to stone two birds with one killer tutorial: The more experienced hands will get a feel for the SoundForum synthesizer. The less experienced will be treated to some fundamental insights. Why the focus on basics? Well, word has reached my ears that many readers want an instructional column that takes things from the top. So we’ll welcome the newbies to the fold and invite more accomplished synthesists to recap some of the ABCs of sound sculpting on a nifty little downloadable synth. More good news: Where possible, we’ll avoid discussing theory. This isn’t driver’s education, after all. We don’t give a hoot about right of way and speed limits - we just want to fire it up, burn some rubber, finesse our way around obstacles, and bring the payload home in style. And preferably have truckloads of fun while we’re at it. Start Your Engines Before we get into the fun, we’ll need a set of wheels - the SoundForum synthesizer. If you haven’t downloaded it already, you’ll find it under the SoundForum directory at Keyboard Online). A utility will guide you through the very simple installation process. In addition to the software, you’ll find it helpful to hook up some sort of MIDI keyboard to your computer. If your computer doesn’t yet have MIDI I/O, the folks at your friendly neighborhood music store would love to sell you an accessory. It needn’t cost a lot, but be sure they know what kind of computer you have, as it’s a hassle if you buy the wrong item. You’ll also need to connect your computer’s audio output to a sound system of some sort. In the unlikely event that you encounter problems with the synth software, the guys and gals at Native Instruments support have agreed to help. Get in touch with them directly at support@native-instruments.de. Please don’t send emails describing the problem to the SoundForum address, or to Keyboard. Experience has proven that these ills are virtually never attributable to the synthesizer itself. Normally the culprit lurks in the computer configuration, and only the near-clairvoyant specialists at NI support know how to cope with the labyrinthine intricacies of your computer. All Systems Go When you start the synth, you’ll find a pop-up menu for snapshots in the toolbar. As the name would indicate, snapshots are freeze-frame camera shots of the synth in action. Twiddle knobs and punch buttons at will, click the camera located on the right next to the menu, choose a place to store it - behold, a snapshot. Select your snapshot from the menu whenever the urge to use it overcomes you. As you’ll see when you click on the dropdown menu in the middle of the toolbar, I have already drafted a platoon of 20 simple snapshots. These are your boot camp buddies - they’ll help you practice the drill ’til you get it right. How Does Simple Synthesis Work? Ugh. Do I detect a musty odor of higher intellectual pursuits, physics, and history wafting through the room? Far too many times this issue has been attacked by science nerds, steely knives and forks of higher learning drawn in an attempt to spear the little sucker and make a meal of it. Much ado about not much, I say. Simple synthesis - also called subtractive synthesis by those in the know, and analog synthesis in its incarnation in electronic circuitry - is only slightly more complicated than tying shoes. While you’re walking. No, it really is simple. In fact, this is all there is to it in the simplest-case scenario: The oscillator (so called because it oscillates or vibrates) generates a raw, vile-sounding waveform that has the pitch of whatever key you press. Load snapshot 3, "Basic Saw," if you doubt my words. Play a few notes on your MIDI keyboard and listen to the oscillator in action. A peek into the oscilloscope window shows us that in this case we’re dealing with a sawtooth wave. This is not quantum mechanics, so there’s no great mystery to the name. It is merely descriptive of the shape of the oscillation. Or perhaps it’s onomatopoetic, describing the sound’s raking-your-fingertips-down-the-cheese-grater effect on the central nervous system. (If you don’t see a sawtooth in the oscilloscope, it’s probably because you’re playing more than one note.) The next stop along the signal path is a filter. The oscillation is ushered into a filter because in the interests of maintaining our collective sanity, not all of the synthesized sounds of this world should echo the sound of a saw. Grab the filter’s Cutoff knob with the mouse and back it off. You will hear and immediately grasp the nature of the filter’s purpose and see how it works. If you crank the cutoff down low enough, the notes you play will be muffled or disappear entirely. Congrats - you’ve just learned the first principle of synth programming: Move the filter cutoff up or down until you like the sound you hear. Varying the tone color (also called timbre - and by the way, that’s pronounced "tam-br," not "tim-br," because the word comes from French) is a good start. But we want to monkey with the volume too. In a bid for hipness, we would like the sound of each note to fade in like a string orchestra doing an expressive swell, or perhaps fade out the way a piano note dies away when you let it ring. Here’s where the only real hitch to understanding the process comes into the picture. Unlike the oscillator and filter, the third component in the signal path, the amplifier, is not immediately visible. However, you can see what controls it, the bewilderingly named amplifier envelope. Now there’s another dreadfully intimidating term that turns out to mean something altogether mundane. An envelope is a shape. An envelope generator creates a signal that changes over the course of time. So an envelope is merely a time-based control signal that you can shape to some extent. Enter the following values in the Amp Env section: A 32, D 12, S 0.4, R 52. The graphic below the knobs (as you can see in Figure 1) illustrates from left to the right what happens to the amplitude of the sound while this envelope does what you just told it to. Don’t let the jargon throw you: "Amplitude" is just a fancy word for "amount." With a signal you’re listening to, the amplitude is the same as the loudness. Link to Figure 1: The Native Instruments SoundForum synth is a free download from Keyboard Online! Once it’s installed on your computer, you’ll be able to try out all the examples in this column and hear what waveforms, filtering, and envelopes sound like. (If you already know all that, you can still download the synth and use it to make music.) The oscillator, filter, and amplifier are the only three components that the signal runs through in a simple synthesizer. All other features are there solely to adjust, control, and automate these three components so they conjure up more variations. Don’t be afraid to play around with the SoundForum synth on your own. Peter Gorges is a professional studio keyboardist, a sound designer and consultant for synth manufacturers, and an author. He owns and runs the book and CD-ROM publisher Wizoo).
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