A device that generates sound by creating waveforms electronically (such as subtractive or FM synthesis) or from stored samples of musical instruments (wave table synthesis). Although rudimentary electronic instruments were developed as far back as the 1920s, it was Robert Moog (pronounced "Mogue") who popularized the synthesizer in the 1960s. The term itself was coined after his devices, which were the first to combine an electronic (piano-style) keyboard with extremely flexible sound creation capabilities. In the 1970s, the Minimoog portable synthesizer was widely accepted. See MIDI and speech synthesis.
Recalling Times Past
Looking very much like the original portable device of the early 1970s, this 21st century transformation of the Minimoog Voyager Signature Edition synthesizer was introduced in 2002. (Image courtesy of Moog Music Inc., www.moogmusic.com)
Recalling Times Past
Looking very much like the original portable device of the early 1970s, this 21st century transformation of the Minimoog Voyager Signature Edition synthesizer was introduced in 2002. (Image courtesy of Moog Music Inc., www.moogmusic.com)
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
- FretPet X 1.2.1 (Mac)
- FretPet is a music sequencer with an interface based entirely around the guitar in which you compose using chords, fingerings, and picking patterns. FretPet plays through the built-in Quicktime synthesizer and provides a MIDI source for synthesizers like GarageBand, Absynth, FM7, Reason, MIDIPipe, etc. FretPet has been completely re-written to...
- Software downloads 2009-11-26
- EnergyXT 2.5.2 (Windows)
- EnergyXT is a powerful, yet easy to use application for music creation and production on your Mac or PC. Record instruments such as guitar and keyboards, play virtual instruments and make drum beats with the built-in drum machine. Mix your tune with professional sounding effects, save as MP3, and share...
- Software downloads 2009-11-17
- Ultrawave Guitar Racks 1.4 (Windows)
- Turn your computer into a powerful guitar effects processor. If you want to sound like your favourite rock star, or just want to make your guitar playing more exciting then you need effects. Ultrawave GuitarRacks has over 100 effects knobs, which gives you more control over your sound, allowing you...
- Software downloads 2009-11-11
- MagicScore School 6.130 (Windows)
- MagicScore School is specialized notation software for music aficionados, students, teachers, schools and colleges. The program offers people interested in music a variety of notation options--input, editing, printing, or correctness check. MagicScore School, as the name implies, has been specially created for folks who are learning music, but professional musicians...
- Software downloads 2009-11-11
- SynthMaker 1.1.4 (Windows)
- SynthMaker is the ultimate sound synthesizer. Create your own instruments and effects to use in your music or to share with others. Learn about and experiment with sound synthesis and digital signal processing techniques. The sound engine employs one-sample-at-a-time processing throughout allowing you to create single sample feedback paths essential...
- Software downloads 2009-11-10
- TabToolkit for iPhone 1.0.1 (Mobile)
- TabToolkit for iPhone is an incredibly powerful guitar tablature and music notation viewer, including an audio synthesis engine, tempo playback controls, metronome, built-in tab upload, and download manager. TabToolkit for iPhone features audio synthesizer allows you to hear the instrument being played, view both standard music notation and tablature notation,...
- Software downloads 2009-11-04
- Bend Box 1.0.1 (Windows)
- Bend Box is a software synthesizer that emulates a circuit-bending device. Can be useful for making experiments and for creating various noise FX. All knobs can be tweaked manually or through easily assignable MIDI controllers. MIDI Automation is also available. With Bend Box you can get wide range of noises:...
- Software downloads 2009-11-04
- Elertify your PC with Text to Speech! (Mobile)
- FREE 7 Day Trial - Trial Version is fully functional!Please Download the Trial prior to purchase Elertify your PC with Text to Speech! Do you work with your BlackBerry and a PC? Are you tired of picking up your BlackBerry every 15 seconds to check messages only to discover it's...
- Software downloads 2009-10-28
- Oresus 1.0 (Windows)
- Oresus is a synthesizer with huge range of tonal possibilities and intuitive user interface, it introduces WSM wave shape modulation and complex oscillator to produce new waveshapes from two raw sub oscillators. Oresus features two filters with 12 modes, these filters are configurable as parallel and serial or even as...
- Software downloads 2009-10-26
- Photosounder 1.6.6 (Mac)
- Photosounder is a spectrogram editor and synthesizer. It turns sounds into images and images into sounds, thus allowing for powerful sound processing to be done in an image editor. Photosounder allows you to open sounds and images, process them graphically and here the results. This can be used for...
- Software downloads 2009-10-23
- Karmic Koala: That's One Seriously Fast Marsupial
- I'm having issues with VirtualBox . . .I'm having issues with VirtualBox: Even though it worked before, lately it's claiming that "VT-X/AMD-V hardware acceleration has been enabled, but is not operational" and not allowing me to run 64 bit Ubuntu :(.RE: Karmic Koala: That's One Seriously Fast MarsupialI had some...
- Discussion threads 2009-10-01
- Discovery Pro 4.1 (Mac)
- 12 oscillators Virtual Analog VSTi RTAS Audio Units Synthesizer featuring 4 layers, WAV and SoundFont (SF2) support, 2X oversampling/undersampling, built-in arpeggiator, sync, FM, 12 filter types, panning modulation, stereo delay and gate effects, graphic envelope modulation. Imports Nord Lead 2 SysEx.
- Software downloads 2009-09-29
- Astral Blossom 2.2 (Mac)
- Astral Blossom is a screen saver for Mac OS X that features a constantly changing colorful display of luminous, geometric, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic, generative art. Multiple sets of mathematically generated 'flower petals' are rendered dynamically with beautiful transparent color combinations generated by Astral Blossom's internal color synthesizer. Several animation options may...
- Software downloads 2009-09-24
- Reese Machine VSTi 1.0 (Windows)
- The Reese Machine is a monophonic subtractive synthesizer optimized for creating deep, rich, vibrating bass for various kinds of electronic music, especially Drum'n'Bass, Speed Garage, Techstep. The synthesizer's architecture consists of two oscillators with four wave forms (SINE, SAW, TRIANGLE and PULSE), and also two multifunction low-frequency oscillators LFOs. Each...
- Software downloads 2009-09-17
- CK's Text-to-Speech to MP3 0.93 (Mac)
- You can use Apple's speech synthesizer to easily create audio files that you can put on your iPod. Make podcasts of blogs or other web pages. Make your own "audio books" from downloadable free e-texts of books. Create sound files saying every track in a playlist, so you can...
- Software downloads 2009-09-08
- OrangeVocoder 3.3.1 (Mac)
- With the advent of digital audio, realistic simulation of analog filters and circuitry has become a science of itself. We are very proud of being able to deliver you the perhaps fastest, most flexible and most transparent sounding simulation of an analog vocoder effect as a new plug in for...
- Software downloads 2009-08-29
- SIDPLAY 4.1.3 (Mac)
- SIDPLAY is a Commodore 64 music player. It emulates the sound chip and other internals of the Commodore 64 home computer to play back music that was originally written on it. The sound chip of the C64 is called the "Sound Interface Device" or SID, and therefore this music is...
- Software downloads 2009-08-28
- NoteAbilityPro 2.373 (Mac)
- NoteAbility Pro is a professional music notation package for the Openstep and Macintosh OS-X operating systems. Developed by Dr. Keith Hamel at the University of British Columbia, it is easily the most sophisticated music notation software available on any platform. NoteAbility combines both musical intelligence and graphical flexibility in a...
- Software downloads 2009-08-27
- Total Hotkeys 3.0 (Windows)
- Total Hotkeys - powerful manager of hotkeys. It is a unique tool to save time and improve the efficiency of the computer through the use of hotkeys. The development is based on a longtime experience of American scientists in the field of optimization of the computer work. Using quite an...
- Software downloads 2009-08-25
- Photosounder 1.6.2 (Mac)
- Photosounder is a spectrogram editor and synthesizer. It turns sounds into images and images into sounds, thus allowing for powerful sound processing to be done in an image editor. Photosounder allows you to open sounds and images, process them graphically and here the results. This can be used for...
- Software downloads 2009-08-17
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