Tuesday, July 15th, 2025 02:15 pm

Synth Glossary

Granular Synthesis:: The sound is split into small chunks called granules. These may then be processed in various ways to acheive various effects - for example, to stretch a sound (timestreching) the granules will be played back so as to overlap each other. An interesting effect can also be obtained by playing the granules backwards....

Very early VCS3 (pre-Putney), note Oscillator 1 The original portable synthesizer introduced in 1969 had a solid Aformosia cabinet which housed the following modules interconnected by means of a matrix patchboard.

3 x Voltage Controlled Oscillators.
Noise Generator.
2 x Input Amplifiers.
Ring Modulator.
Voltage Controlled Low Pass Filter.
Trapezoid Envelope Generator.
Voltage Controlled Reverberation.
Meter.
2 x Stereo Output Amplifiers.
Joystick.

The VCS3 had:3 Voltage Controlled Oscillators, a Noise Generator, 2 Input Amplifiers, 1 Ring Modulator,1 Voltage Controlled Low Pass Filter,1 Trapezoid Envelope Generator, a Voltage Controlled Reverberation unit, 2 Stereo Output Amplifiers and a Joystick. Routing the various functions of the instrument was done via a small pin patchboard.