MODELLING AND VIRTUALISATION

Over the last few months, this series on the history and science of sound synthesis has covered a lot of ground. Starting with the earliest valve-based electronic instruments that harnessed radio technology, we’ve seen how synthesis has always straddled the worlds of scientific research, state-of-the-art technology and abstract musical creativity.

We’ve touched on how synthesis technology has continually driven our culture through the development of new forms of music. As such, synthesis could even be seen as a perfect amalgamation of high-tech and high-art – the ultimate human expression of the march of technology. And where traditional acoustic instruments, once designed, tend to remain fundamentally unchanged, synthesisers have constantly evolved and developed in line with the technological art of the possible – and users have explored and unleashed the artistic and creative potential that the technology enables.

Throughout most of this history, the driving force behind synthesis has been the desire to create accurate emulations of acoustic instruments, with the creation of new and original sounds a happy side-effect. But by the late 80s, the battle for truly accurate emulation had seemingly been won by digital sample-based synthesis, with more than a few forgotten companies, defunct technologies and discarded instruments strewn in its wake.

But were we satisfied? Nope, not a bit of it. Because when surveying those remains, we recognised what we had lost: the individual character and hands-on control of analogue subtractive synths; the hard-edged bite and wide-ranging expressiveness of FM synths; the timbral flexibility of wavetable synthesis; the ever-evolving soundscapes of vector synthesis and the satisfying pit-of-the-stomach thump of an analogue drum machine. We surveyed a vista of identikit sample-based instruments that always sounded accurate,