Here are some examples of additive synthesizers: Modern additive synthesis is robust and cable of some truly amazing sounds. That’s why most modern additive synths are digital-You need a lot of horsepower to run enough individual sine oscillators to create highly complex sounds.īut today’s VST plugins are definitely up to the task. Tones like bells with inharmonic overtones and noisy, complex attacks are more difficult. Sounds that are closely related to sine waves (like the pipe organs the Hammond was trying to imitate) are easier to generate with additive synthesis. Pioneering electronic instruments like the Hammond Organ and Telharmonium used this method to create their iconic timbres. This had big implications for the earliest generation of synths. That means that any timbre, no matter how lush or complex, can be synthesized by combining enough sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. It’s a good place to dive in because it’s surprisingly easy to understand.Īdditive synthesis is based on the principle that any sound can be expressed as a sum of simple sine waves. In this article I’ll explain the most common types of synthesis, what they’re good for, and what they can do for your sound and workflow.Īdditive synthesis is the process of adding sine waves together to synthesize new timbres. That means you only need to understand a few key concepts to know how most synthesizers work-and how to use them to get the sounds you’re looking for. The number of new instruments is always growing, but there’s actually only a few different methods of synthesizing sound. It doesn’t have to be intimidating though. It seems like every different machine takes time to figure out.

Every year more new exciting products hit the market.īut learning how to use even one synth is hard enough.

There’s a huge number of inspiring synthesizers out there.

Additive vs subtractive synth