Korg Forums

LMG · Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 10

Maybe many of you will think I'm stupid for asking this, but now I have a doubt and I need someone to explain to me.

The sounds on Korg synthesizers (and other brands) are synthized, right? I mean, the are created (out of the blue )at your will using different oscilators and all those stuff. AM I RIGHT? OR THERE ARE SOUNDS THAT ARE REAL RECORDINGS like the virtual instruments libraries you can buy in DVDs??? (maybe this applies in part on the M3 which has a sampler, but I'm talking about the PCGs)

Thank you!!!

georgeinar · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:48 am Post subject:

You know, a lot of your questions might be answered if you downloaded the manuals from the links at korg that explain how the synthesizers work and spend some time reading them. When you ask very broad 'how does a synth work' questions it can often best be answered by going to korg.com and reading the descriptions of the synths in there. They have quite detailed explanations of the various synths and how the sounds are produced, some being sampled and some being 'synthed.'
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

X-Trade · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:42 pm Post subject:

Synths like the M3, Triton, Pa Series, etc, use recordings (samples) of instruments typically. These are refered to as samples or ROMplers depending on whether you can sample your own sounds or only use the ones built in.
Some of these samples may be of analogue waveforms such as sawtooth, etc. which may be samples of a real analogue or VA or samples or single cycle samples created on a computer (e.g. no 'other/real instrument' involved but 'recordings' are created danamically or by hand to produce the series of numbers to create a sawtooth cycle).

Other synthesizers - The VA or Virtual Analogue such as Radias, MS2000, Microkorg, R3, Roland SH201, Access Virus.
These create the sounds on the fly - like what I described above where the single cycle waveforms are generated as WAVs, but this is happening in realtime, or single cycle data exists but is manipulated to allow things like pulse width modulation, and other waveform-bending things like sync and symetry etc.

To blur the boundaries a bit, A lot of these synths & workstations of both types now feature filters which are placed after the oscillators. Oscillators being the virtual analogue type or being the sample playing oscillators of a sampler or ROMpler.