Fundamentals of Synthesizer Programming Ch. 2 - Sources

Question 1

What does an oscillator do?

Answer 1

generates a repetitive electronic signal in the form of a periodic waveform

Question 2

What two properties of sound does a waveform represent?

Answer 2

pitch/frequency and shape/timbre

Question 3

What are the three oscillator controls for pitch?

Answer 3

• fine tune (detune)
• coarse tune
• octave selector

Question 4

What does fine tune do?

Answer 4

adjusts the pitch of an oscillator by small intervals over a short range

Question 5

Coarse tune adjusts the pitch of an oscillator by _____ _____ over a _____ _____.

Answer 5

larger intervals, wider range

Question 6

What oscillator control changes pitch by octaves?

Answer 6

octave selector

Question 7

What interval does the fine tune control change pitch by?

Answer 7

cents

Question 8

The coarse tune control changes pitch by _____.

Answer 8

semitones

Question 9

What is the range of the coarse tune control?

Answer 9

one to several octaves

Question 10

What is the range of the fine tune control?

Answer 10

half or whole step

Question 11

What is the range of the octave selector control?

Answer 11

four or more octaves

Question 12

What are the oscillator controls for harmonic content?

Answer 12

• waveform selector

- pulse width

Question 13

What are the 5 main types of waveforms?

Answer 13

• sine
• triangle
• square
• sawtooth
• pulse

Question 14

What is a sine wave?

Answer 14

pure tone containing only fundamental frequency

Question 15

What types of waves contain odd harmonics only?

Answer 15

triangle and square

Question 16

What type of wave contains odd and even harmonics?

Answer 16

sawtooth

Question 17

What does a pulse wave do?

Answer 17

varies by shape and harmonic content using pulse width control

Question 18

What does changing pulse width change?

Answer 18

duty cycle

Question 19

What is duty cycle?

Answer 19

relative time that waveform is on during one cycle

Question 20

What does a triangle wave sound like?

Answer 20

brighter, fuller, and louder than sine wave

Question 21

What does a square wave sound like?

Answer 21

brighter and louder than a triangle wave

Question 22

What does a sawtooth wave sound like?

Answer 22

bright and buzzy

Question 23

What is pulse width modulation?

Answer 23

controller such as LFO affects pulse width, causing a thicker sound that varies at the rate of the LFO

Question 24

What does a noise generator (NG) do?

Answer 24

generates random noise that includes all frequencies

Question 25

What is the control on a noise generator?

Answer 25

noise color

Question 26

What does noise color do?

Answer 26

changes the overall spectrum of noise

Question 27

White noise has equal energy per _____.

Answer 27

bandwidth

Question 28

Pink noise has equal energy per _____.

Answer 28

octave

Question 29

For pink noise, _____ increases as _____ increases.

Answer 29

amplitude, frequency

Question 30

What is beating?

Answer 30

periodic fluctuation in loudness caused by slightly detuning two oscillators

Question 31

What are three advanced oscillator functions?

Answer 31

- hard sync - ring modulation - frequency modulation

Question 32

What does hard sync do?

Answer 32

allows you to change timbre by forcing one oscillator to restart its cycle in sync with the start of the other oscillator's cycle

Question 33

What does ring modulation do?

Answer 33

combines frequencies from 2 oscillators to produce a new audio signal that contains sum and difference frequencies of the 2 original frequencies

Question 34

If two oscillators produce sine waves at 250 Hz and 600 Hz, the output of the ring modulator would be sine waves at _____ and _____ Hz.

Answer 34

850, 350

Question 35

What kind of sound does ring modulation produce and why?

Answer 35

metallic, bell-like timbres since the harmonics may no longer be integer multiples of the fundamental frequency

Question 36

What is frequency modulation?

Answer 36

one oscillator (modulator) becomes the control signal for another oscillator (carrier)

Question 37

The audio output from a carrier includes its _____ and _____.

Answer 37

frequency components, complex sideband frequencies above and below that frequency

Question 38

What are sideband frequencies in frequency modulation?

Answer 38

(sums and differences of the carrier + (modulator frequency x sideband number))

Question 39

As sidebands move further from the carrier frequency, amplitude _____.

Answer 39

decreases

Question 40

What does FM amount control?

Answer 40

allows you to adjust sidebands; increasing amount increases amplitude and number of sidebands

Question 41

What does FM sound like?

Answer 41

produces even more complex bell-like tones than ring modulation