Software Synthesizers
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Software Synthesizers
A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the same tasks that previously required the dedicated hardware of a conventional synthesizer. Softsynths may be readily interfaced with other music software such as music sequencers typically in the context of a digital audio workstation. Softsynths are usually less expensive and can be more portable than dedicated hardware. Types Softsynths can cover a range of synthesis methods, including subtractive synthesis (including analog modeling, a subtype), FM synthesis (including the similar phase distortion synthesis), physical modelling synthesis, additive synthesis (including the related resynthesis), and sample-based synthesis. Many popular hardware synthesizers are no longer manufactured but have been emulated in software. The emulation can ev ...
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Digital Audio
Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samples are taken 44,100 Hertz, times per second, each with 16-bit audio bit depth, resolution. Digital audio is also the name for the entire technology of sound recording and reproduction using audio signals that have been encoded in digital form. Following significant advances in digital audio technology during the 1970s and 1980s, it gradually replaced comparison of analog and digital recording, analog audio technology in many areas of audio engineering, record production and telecommunications in the 1990s and 2000s. In a digital audio system, an analog signal, analog electrical signal representing the sound is converted with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) into a digital ...
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Oberheim OB-X
The Oberheim OB-X was the first of Oberheim Electronics, Oberheim's OB-series polyphony (instrument), polyphonic Analog synthesizer, analog Subtractive synthesis, subtractive synthesizers. First commercially available in June 1979, the OB-X was introduced to compete with the Sequential (company), Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, which had been successfully introduced the year before. About 800 units were produced before the OB-X was discontinued and replaced by the updated and streamlined Oberheim OB-Xa, OB-Xa in 1981. The OB line developed and evolved after that with the Oberheim OB-8, OB-8 before being replaced by the Oberheim Matrix synthesizers, Matrix series. The OB-X was used in popular music by Rush (band), Rush (on ''Moving Pictures (Rush album), Moving Pictures'' and ''Signals (Rush album), Signals''), Nena (band), Nena, Styx (band), Styx member Dennis DeYoung (used frequently from late 1979 to 1984), Queen (band), Queen (on ''The Game (Queen album), The Game'', their fir ...
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Computer-generated Imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a specific-technology or application of computer graphics for creating or improving images in Digital art, art, Publishing, printed media, Training simulation, simulators, videos and video games. These images are either static (i.e. still images) or dynamic (i.e. moving images). CGI both refers to 2D computer graphics and (more frequently) 3D computer graphics with the purpose of designing characters, virtual worlds, or scenes and Visual effects, special effects (in films, television programs, commercials, etc.). The application of CGI for creating/improving animations is called ''computer animation'', or ''CGI animation''. History The first feature film to use CGI as well as the composition of live-action film with CGI was ''Vertigo (film), Vertigo'', which used abstract computer graphics by John Whitney (animator), John Whitney in the opening credits of the film. The first feature film to make use of CGI with live action in the storyline of ...
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SoundFont
SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology that uses sample-based synthesis to play MIDI files. It was first used on the Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card for its General MIDI support. SoundFont is a registered trademark of Creative Technology, Ltd., and the exclusive license for re-formatting and managing historical SoundFont content has been acquired by Digital Sound Factory. Starting in the late 2010s, the derived term ''soundfont'' has gradually gained online colloquial status to refer to chiptune – specifically the soundscape of a console's sound chip. Any video game console that utilizes sequenced audio is often referred as having "the onsolesoundfont", similar to the usage of Coke to refer to any soft drink. Additionally, it can also refer to a video game's audio data that specifically uses reusable digital samples. Specification The newest version of the SoundFont file format is 2.04 (or 2.4), released in 2005. ...
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Sampling (music)
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, or sound effects. A sample might comprise only a fragment of sound, or a longer portion of music, such as a drum beat or melody. Samples are often layered, Equalization (audio), equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, Loop (music), looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using electronic music instruments (Sampler (musical instrument), samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations. A process similar to sampling originated in the 1940s with ''musique concrète'', experimental music created by Tape splice, splicing and Tape loop, looping tape. The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron. The term ''sampling'' was coined in the late 1970s by the creators of the Fairlight CMI, a synthesizer with th ...
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Apple Inc
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed Apple Inc. in 2007 as the company had expanded its focus from computers to consumer electronics. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue, with  billion in the 2024 fiscal year. The company was founded to produce and market Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Its second computer, the Apple II, became a best seller as one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983 and the Macintosh in 1984, as some of the first computers to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. By 1985, internal company problems led to Jobs leavin ...
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Logic Pro
Logic Pro is a proprietary digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform developed by Apple Inc. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab which later went by Emagic. Apple acquired Emagic in 2002 and renamed Logic to Logic Pro. It was the second most popular DAW – after Ableton Live – according to a survey conducted in 2015. A consumer-level version based on the same interface and audio engine but with reduced features called Logic Express was available starting in 2004. Apple's GarageBand comes free with all new Macintosh computers and iOS devices and is another application built on Logic's audio engine. On December 8, 2011, the boxed version of Logic Pro was discontinued, along with Logic Express, and as with all other Apple software for Macs, Logic Pro is now only available through the Mac App Store and the iPad App Store, or with a discounted Pro Apps f ...
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Xfer Records
Steve Duda is an American DJ, record producer, audio engineer, manager and software engineer from Menlo Park, California. He is best known for his mid-2000s collaborative electronic music projects with Canadian record producer and DJ Deadmau5 under the names "BSOD" and "WTF?" (also with DJ Aero and Tommy Lee) and owning the record label and digital music software company Xfer Records. He is also known for creating the VST plugin Serum and Serum 2. Career 1990s: Beginnings Duda studied music composition at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He later became a member of the Santa Cruz rock bands named The Brothers of Other and Razorface. He later left the bands, and went on to work for the American technology company AVID. In 1997, Duda left Santa Cruz to become an engineer and programmer for the American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, for which he was a programmer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist on their third studio album '' The Fragile''. In 1999, Duda mo ...
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ARP Odyssey
The ARP Odyssey is an analog circuit, analog synthesizer introduced by ARP Instruments in 1972. History ARP developed the Odyssey as a direct competitor to the Minimoog, Moog Minimoog and an answer to the demand for more affordable, portable, and less complicated "performance" synthesizers. ARP produced several versions of the Odyssey from 1972 to 1980. In early 2015, Korg reissued the Odyssey in cooperation with the original designer and ARP co-founder, David Friend. Design The Odyssey is a two-oscillator analog synthesizer, and one of the first with Polyphony and monophony in instruments#Duophonic, duophonic capabilities (the ability to play two notes at the same time). All parameters, including a resonant low-pass filter, a non-resonant high-pass filter, ADSR envelope, ADSR and AR envelopes, a sine and square wave LFO, and a sample-and-hold function are controllable with sliders and switches on the front panel. Features *Switchable between sawtooth, square, and pulse wave ...
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Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakeman as a "classically trained keyboardist extraordinaire who plied his trade with Yes and developed his own brand of live spectacular in a solo act." Born and raised in West London, Wakeman quit his studies at the Royal College of Music in 1969 to become a full-time session musician. His early sessions included " Space Oddity", among other tracks, for David Bowie, and songs by Elton John, Marc Bolan, Cat Stevens, and Lou Reed. In 1970, Wakeman joined the folk rock group the Strawbs, during which his virtuosity gained national press coverage. He left in 1971 to join Yes, with whom he played on some of their most influential albums across two stints until 1980. During this time Wakeman began a solo career in 1973 and became an iconic and pro ...
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Yamaha CS-80
The Yamaha CS-80 is an analog synthesizer introduced by Yamaha Corporation in 1977. It supports true 8-voice polyphony, with two independent synthesizer layers per voice each with its own set of front panel controls, in addition to a number of hardwired preset voice settings and four parameter settings stores based on banks of subminiature potentiometers (rather than the digital programmable presets featured on the Prophet-5 introduced soon after). It has exceptionally complete performer expression features, such as a layered keyboard that was both velocity-sensitive (like a piano's) and pressure-sensitive (" after-touch") but unlike most modern keyboards the aftertouch could be applied to individual voices rather than in common, and a ribbon controller allowing for polyphonic pitch-bends and glissandos. Production of the instrument ceased in 1980. Vying with the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and Oberheim OB-X polysynths for the title, the CS-80 is often described as the pre- ...
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