A electronic music synthesizer is the device that generates electronic music with the components/ subsystems described earlier

The architecture of a synthesizer is the arrangement of these

Sound Generation :Oscillators :(Waveform/ Frequency (Pitch) /Amplitude (Loudness) /Phase No. of Osc.) Sound Modification: (Filter /Amplifier/ Modulator /Mixer /Special Effects (SFX))

Voltage-Controlled Oscillators: different timbres can be achieved by generating different waveforms(Sine Wave(pure” tone, no harmonics, un-interesting) Sawtooth Wave(Rich in harmonics -
odd and even) Square Wave Pulse Wave Triangle Wave Noise …. and other)

Combining Sounds:(Cloning Oscillators :By cloning (doubling) the oscillators - overall loudness depend on the phase difference between the oscillator)(Detuning: Several oscillators are
combined, while each oscillator has a slightly different frequency)(Layering Oscillators :Two or more different oscillators (with different waveforms) are combined to give a new sound)

Envelope generator:(sounds of different instruments can be generated by shaping the sound envelope accordingly)(Attack: time to rise to the maximum ;Decay: time to fall to the sustain
level ;Sustain: sustain level (% of maximum) ;Release: time to fall from sustain level to silence)

Envelope as Control:(waveform:(The amplitude (or velocity) of a waveform The pitch of a waveform The cut-off frequency of a filter) ;Volume Control:(The envelope signal is applied to a
Voltage-Controlled Amplifier (VCA) The volume of a the resultant sound is controlled by the envelope voltage) Pitch Control:(The pitch (frequency) can be varied by an envelope waveform so
that there is some fluctuation in the pitch The device used is usually a Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO))

Filters :(A filter is a device that selectively passes (or rejects) some frequencies, hence changing the timbres of the signal) Eg:Low-Pass filters(Passes low frequencies, rejects high frequencies)
High-Pass filters(Passes high frequencies, rejects low frequencies) Band-pass filter(sPasses a band of frequencies, rejects other frequencies )Band-stop filters(A very narrow band of frequencies
are rejected)

Modulation :refers to the operation of changing something by another thing(LFOs: are Low Frequency (e.g. 0.1 Hz to 20 Hz) Oscillators, they can control a lot of sound parameters in an
automatic way, The user can select many different LFOs wave forms (Sine, Triangle, Ramp, Sawtooth, Square, Random, Noise, etc.) and other parameters such as speed, depth, phase)

SYNTHESIZER DESIGN: Subtractive synthesis(Subtractive synthesis starts with a certain waveform.< Signal- Filter- Output>) Additive Synthesis(A periodic waveforms can be analyzed into
harmonics with frequencies being integral multiples of the fundamental) Frequency Modulation Synthesis(In FM, the frequency of a carrier signal (a sine wave) is modulated by a modulator
signal< Modulator signal(Operator 1)- Carrier signa(Operator 1)>)

Digitalization of Music:

Sampling (change from continuos time to discrete time)@ Sampled Waveform:( A sampled waveform is a discrete-time waveform It has finite number of data over a certain period of time)
Nyquist rate :(That means the sampling rate must be at least twice the highest frequency components )Minimum: W=x2@ Aliasing Error:not enough sample(Prevent: 1. Filter the signal to limit
its bandwidth to W Hz)@ Recovery of Waveform from Samples:( Pass the sampled signal through an ideal low-pass filter with cut-off frequency at W Hz(Low-Pass Filter (Cut-off Freq = W Hz)*
Sampling (>2W Hz)* Processing *Low-Pass Filter (Cut-off Freq = W Hz))

Quantization(Continuous variables have infinite possibility in values (depending on the precision))(each sample is restricted to values among a finite set)@ Quantization Error(quantization
noise )(When signal levels not exactly equal to the decision level, quantization error occurs)@ Bits Per Sample(2^x)@ SNR(SNR =10×log10 1.5+ 6.02R ≈1.76 + 6.02R dB)(Large: approximately
equal to 6R=bit*6)
Compression(One of the basic problems about digital music is that the raw PCM file (e.g. WAV files) can be quite large)(if the file size can be reduced, it will have the following advantages: Less
storage requirement (same storage size can hold more songs) Less transmission time across the Internet - music can be shared and distributed more easily)@ How?(We allocate bits to the
samples more wisely to represent information (source coding, e.g. Huffman coding)/ For music, we discard information that we cannot hear (perceptual coding)
@ Perceptual Coding (Perceptual coding method capitalizes on the human ears perception propertie)@Mask effect (Under some conditions, some sounds, although they are present, are
inaudible by human ears There is no need to store these sounds in order to reduce the data rate)@ Simultaneous Masking (Human ears can differentiate sounds in up to 24 frequency bands,
called critical bands If there is a strong (dominant) tone in a particular critical band, the other frequencies in that critical band will be masked out by the dominant tone The effect can be
illustrated in the following diagram) @ Lossy Compression Perceptual coding is known as “lossy compression” since some information, which are inaudible to human ears, are discarded, and
hence the original data cannot be fully recovered after decompression MP3 is known as lossy compression since it employs perceptual coding as part of the compression operations@
Impact(Music industry (the business model)(Online Music Store)/ Sharing of Music/ Impact on Health Risk for hearing loss due to estimated exposure of 89 dBA for longer than 1 hour per day)
prevent hearing loss(Avoid loud noises 2. Take care when listening to music 3. Protect your hearing during loud events and activities 4. Take precautions at work 5. Get your hearing tested)
MIDI (Sound modules - these are the synthesizers generating the required sound on reception of commands/ Controllers - these are the devices that give out commands to tell the sound
modules (synthesizers) to generate the required sounds, usually they are keyboards or computers/ Sequencers - these are devices that store the instructions and then send them out to sound
modules later) Connector( IN: for a device to RECEIVE data/ OUT: for a device to output data/ THRU: The device simply COPIES the data received at the IN port to the TRHU port)
MIDI message *General Format:(The general format of a MIDI message is a status byte followed by some data bytes) Functions of MIDI Messages(Note Off, first half of status byte = 1000
(binary)/ Note On, first half of status byte = 1001 (binary)/ AfterTouch (ie, key pressure), first half of status byte = 1010 (binary) /Control Change, first half of status byte = 1011 (binary)/
Program (patch) change, first half of status byte = 1100 (binary) /Channel Pressure, first half of status byte = 1101 (binary)/ Pitch Wheel, first half of status byte = 1110 (binary))General
format**(Status Byte Note ON, Channel No./ Note Number (Pitch) /Velocity (Loudness))
Note number(pitch0-127) Channel Number(PC:0-15, human 1-16) Velocity(loudess 0-127) AfterTouch( AfterTouch message indicates to the sound module the amount of pressure exerted on
the key after it has been played The sound module will change the sound timbre or trigger or sound effects according to the key pressure detected) Controller (This message sets a particular
controller’s value in the receiver (e.g. a synthesizer)) Program Change (A program is a specific sound (e.g. Piano) generated by the synthesizer ./This message causes the MIDI device (e.g. a
sound module) to change to a particular Program (also called a Patch, Instrument, Preset, ..etc.) for a particular channel)
Omni Mode(Omni mode on - device responds to all 16 MIDI channels Omni mode off - device will be configured to “listen to” a particular channel, called Base Channel) Polyphonic -( device can
respond to more than one Note On messages over a particular channel That means it can play more than one note at a time, similar to a normal piano (e.g. playing a chord)) Monophonic
( device can only respond to one Note On at a time over a particular channel) 4 different mode(Mode 1 - Omni On / Poly Mode 2 - Omni On / Mono Mode 3 - Omni Off / Poly Mode 4 - Omni Off
/Mono) Impact of MIDI(The average user can make complicated music Cheaper production costs Home recording is possible Performance is cheaper (with less equipment/
instrument/manpower) Music education is transformed by computeraided learning)