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Polyphonic Synthesiser
Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic or paraphonic. Synthesizer Monophonic A monophonic synthesizer or ''monosynth'' is a synthesizer that produces only one note at a time, making it smaller and cheaper than a polyphonic synthesizer which can play multiple notes at once. This does not necessarily refer to a synthesizer with a single oscillator; The Minimoog, for example, has three oscillators which are settable in arbitrary intervals, but it can play only one note at a time. Well-known monosynths include the Minimoog, the Roland TB-303, the Korg Prophecy, and the Korg Monologue. Duophonic Duophonic synthesizers, such as the ARP Odyssey and Formanta Polivoks built in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, have a capability to independently play two pitches at a time. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophony
In music, monophony is the simplest of musical textures, consisting of a melody (or "tune"), typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player (e.g., a flute player) without accompanying harmony or chords. Many folk songs and traditional songs are monophonic. A melody is also considered to be monophonic if a group of singers (e.g., a choir) sings the same melody together at the unison (exactly the same pitch) or with the same melody notes duplicated at the octave (such as when men and women sing together). If an entire melody is played by two or more instruments or sung by a choir with a fixed interval, such as a perfect fifth, it is also said to be monophony (or "monophonic"). The musical texture of a song or musical piece is determined by assessing whether varying components are used, such as an accompaniment part or polyphonic melody lines (two or more independent lines). In the Early Middle Ages, the earliest Christian songs, called plainchant (a we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Korg Poly-800
The Korg Poly-800 is a synthesizer released by Korg in 1983. Its initial list price of $795 made it the first fully programmable synthesizer that sold for less than $1000. It featured a 49 key non-velocity sensitive keyboard, two buttons for data entry, and a joystick controller, which could modulate the DCO pitch or the VCF. Though the Poly-800 had MIDI, it did not feature MIDI MIDI#System Exclusive messages, SysEx functionality (except EX800 - the expander-version; or by modding the Poly800 with additionally selectable EX-firmware-ROM), and patches had to be backed up to cassette tape. It had 8-voice polyphony (paraphony) with one Digitally controlled oscillator, DCO per voice. It could be switched into double mode which stacks two DCOs for a fuller sound, but reduces the polyphony to 4 voices. It featured one analog resonant low-pass VCF with 24 dB/oct which was shared for all voices. Like a monophonic synthesizer, the filter was switchable between single or multiple m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novachord FrontS
The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesis to generate tones, it was designed by John M. Hanert, Laurens Hammond and C. N. Williams, and was manufactured by the Hammond company. Only 1,069 Novachords were built over a period from 1939 to 1942. It was one of very few electronic products released by Hammond that was not intended to emulate the sound of an organ. History of production While production of the Novachord began in November 1938, it was first heard at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Novachord Orchestra of Ferde Grofé performed daily at the Ford stand with four Novachords and a Hammond Organ. The first instrument was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1940 as a birthday present. The Novachord was not well-suited to the technique of organist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound On Sound
''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals. Due to its technical focus, it is predominantly aimed at the professional recording studio market as well as artist project studios and home recording enthusiasts. All news and articles printed in the magazine since January 1994 have also been published online via its website, often including rich media content such as video and audio files that correspond to the content of individual articles. The articles printed in the magazine before January 1994 can be found on the Mu:zines website. History The magazine was conceived, created and founded by brothers Ian and Paul Gilby in 1985, and was originally launched in 1985 on the UK Channel 4 television programme, '' The Tube'', championing the conve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Scale
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the context of the common practice period, most or all of the melody and harmony of a musical work is built using the notes of a single scale, which can be conveniently represented on a staff with a standard key signature. Due to the principle of octave equivalence, scales are generally considered to span a single octave, with higher or lower octaves simply repeating the pattern. A musical scale represents a division of the octave space into a certain number of scale steps, a scale step being the recognizable distance (or interval) between two successive notes of the scale. However, there is no need for scale steps to be equal within any scale and, particularly as demonstrated by microtonal music, there is no limit to how many notes can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frequency Divider Organ
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments: * Hammond-style organs used in pop, rock and jazz; * digital church organs, which imitate pipe organs and are used primarily in churches; * other types including combo organs, home organs, and software organs. History Predecessors ;Harmonium The immediate predecessor of the electronic organ was the harmonium, or reed organ, an instrument that was common in homes and small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a fashion not totally unlike that of pipe organs, reed organs generate sound by forcing air over a set of reeds by means of a bellows, usually operated by constantly pumping a set of pedals. While reed organs have limited tonal quality, they are small, inexpensive, self-po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hammond Organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ was originally marketed by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios—small groups centered on the Hammond organ. Jazz club owners found that organ trios were cheaper than hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novachord
The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesis to generate tones, it was designed by John M. Hanert, Laurens Hammond and C. N. Williams, and was manufactured by the Hammond company. Only 1,069 Novachords were built over a period from 1939 to 1942. It was one of very few electronic products released by Hammond that was not intended to emulate the sound of an organ. History of production While production of the Novachord began in November 1938, it was first heard at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Novachord Orchestra of Ferde Grofé performed daily at the Ford stand with four Novachords and a Hammond Organ. The first instrument was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1940 as a birthday present. The Novachord was not well-suited to the technique of organist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harald Bode
Harald Bode (October 19, 1909 – January 15, 1987) was a German engineer and pioneer in the development of electronic musical instruments. Biography Harald Bode was born in 1909 in Hamburg, Germany. At the age of 18 he lost his parents and started studying, and graduated from the University of Hamburg in 1934. In 1935, he began his pioneering work in the field of electronic musical instruments, and with funding support provided by Christian Warnke, his earliest work was completed in 1937. The Warbo Formant Organ (1937), ; Originally published as an archetype of today's polyphonic synthesizer, was a four voice key-assignment keyboard with two formant filters and dynamic envelope controller. Eventually it went into commercial production by a factory in Dachau, and it became one of the earliest polyphonic synthesizer products, along with Novachord (1939) by Hammond. The Melochord (1947–1949), developed by Bode, was extensively used by Werner Meyer-Eppler in early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphonic Synthesizer
Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic or paraphonic. Synthesizer Monophonic A monophonic synthesizer or ''monosynth'' is a synthesizer that produces only one note at a time, making it smaller and cheaper than a polyphonic synthesizer which can play multiple notes at once. This does not necessarily refer to a synthesizer with a single oscillator; The Minimoog, for example, has three oscillators which are settable in arbitrary intervals, but it can play only one note at a time. Well-known monosynths include the Minimoog, the Roland TB-303, the Korg Prophecy, and the Korg Monologue. Duophonic Duophonic synthesizers, such as the ARP Odyssey and Formanta Polivoks built in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, have a capability to independently play two pitches at a time. Thes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltage-controlled Amplifier
A variable-gain (VGA) or voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) is an electronic amplifier that varies its gain depending on a control voltage (often abbreviated CV). VCAs have many applications, including audio level compression, synthesizers and amplitude modulation. A crude example is a typical inverting op-amp configuration with a light-dependent resistor (LDR) in the feedback loop. The gain of the amplifier then depends on the light falling on the LDR, which can be provided by an LED (an optocoupler). The gain of the amplifier is then controllable by the current through the LED. This is similar to the circuits used in optical audio compressors. A voltage-controlled amplifier can be realised by first creating a voltage-controlled resistor (VCR), which is used to set the amplifier gain. The VCR is one of the numerous interesting circuit elements that can be produced by using a JFET (junction field-effect transistor) with simple biasing. VCRs manufactured in this way can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltage-controlled Filter
A voltage-controlled filter (VCF) is an electronic filter whose operating characteristics (primarily cutoff frequency) can be set by an input control voltage. Voltage controlled filters are widely used in synthesizers. A music synthesizer VCF allows its cutoff frequency, and sometimes its Q factor (resonance at the cutoff frequency), to be continuously varied. The filter outputs often include a lowpass response, and sometimes highpass, bandpass or notch responses. Some musical VCFs offer a variable ''slope'' which determines the rate of attenuation outside the bandpass, often at 6 dB/octave, 12 dB/octave, 18 dB/octave or 24 dB/octave (one-, two-, three- and four-pole filters, respectively). In modular analog synthesizers, VCFs receive signal input from signal sources, including oscillators and noise, or the output of other processors. By varying the cutoff frequency, the filter passes or attenuates partials of the input signal. In some popular electroni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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