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How is a synthesizer used?

Synthesizers are typically keyboard-based instruments that can be played in real-time or sequenced. Synths come in both physical hardware and virtual software forms,and allow users to manipulate parameters such as pitch, volume, and timbre, creating a wide palette of sounds for music production, sound design, and performance.

Is it easy to use a synth?

Though some synths can be complicated, many synths are easy to use, especially if you’re working with pre-made ‘preset’ sounds. In this case you can load up a synth in your DAW, load a preset, then play and sequence it without having to do anything else.

Creating smooth transitions is determined by a few factors, including the keys, tempos and melodic content of the tracks. If a DJ is mixing together two tracks with vocals, a good use of cue points would be to place a marker where the vocal begins in the track. The DJ can use these cue points to bring in the next track so that the vocals do not overlap.

Placing cue points can help a DJ to make mix choices. For example, if cue points are placed at the beginning of the verse, drop or chorus, 2nd drop or chorus, or outro, this will give you four places where it would make musical sense to begin a new mix. A DJ may have a track that has a great intro, verse and drop but then a breakdown that they don’t want to play. Setting mix in and mix out points on a track like this allows them to play the parts of the track they want, but cut the track before the breakdown section.

During the heat of a live mix, it may be easy for a DJ to lose themselves in the moment and forget to mix out of the track exactly as planned. The cue point serves as a reminder to mix in the next track at the intended place. It’s worth mentioning that setting cue points does take additional preparation time.

To save time, a program such as Mixed In Key can be used to automatically set cue points and then these cue points can be imported into Traktor.

What is a bitcrusher effect?

Bitcrusher effects can offer a variety of capabilities, but all of them feature two main functions: sample rate reduction, and bit depth reduction.

Sample rate reduction reduces how much information an audio signal has over time. For example, if your project uses a common sample rate of 44.1 kHz, that’s 44,100 amplitude level values (or ‘samples’) for each second of audio.

This gives us a very clear sound, and the 44.1kHz value is commonly used because it’s just over twice the limit of human hearing (around 20kHz), and a sample rate of twice the maximum frequency present in a signal is necessary to capture that signal accurately. This is known as the Nyquist frequency.

Reducing the sample rate introduces what are known as aliasing errors, which distort the higher frequencies present in the signal. While this distortion is usually undesirable, it can be useful for certain creative effects.

Bit depth reduction reduces the amount of data used to describe the amplitude level of a sample. A bit can be either a 0 or a 1. So, if you have a 24-bit audio signal, each sample can be one of 16,777,216 possible values, enough fidelity to be very convincing to the human ear.

However, if you were to reduce the bit depth to, say, 4-bit, that’s only 16 different possible values. This is nowhere near as convincing to the human ear, and gives us a much noisier signal. You can read more about the relationship between bit depth and noise.

So, we can think of sample rate reduction as reducing the ‘resolution’ of an audio signal over time, and bit depth reduction as reducing the ‘resolution’ of an audio signal’s amplitude. These effects give us different-sounding results, and can be used independently or together to achieve creative effects.

3. How to mimic hardware gear characteristics

This tutorial will show you how to mimic the characteristics of hardware gear. One of the main criticisms I hear most often about computer-based DAWs, synths and effects is that they sound too perfect or sterile. Throughout this video there are a number of ways that one can introduce various small imperfections, for example, pulse-width modulation using virtual analog oscillators, and ways to trigger random option-in conjunction with the oscillator so as to create a “round-robin” effect, as well as affecting noise and the shape of noise in relation to the LFO section.

In order to demonstrate what a specific effect or modulation does, this instructor uses extreme settings so you can really hear what is being done. It also goes into detail about creating custom randomization, and setting up a situation where the sound will continually evolve and change throughout the duration of itself.  You can also learn about the noise waveform on the first LFO, and combining it with other LFOs to give the sound yet more movement.

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