Wednesday, July 9th, 2025 03:28 am

Synth Glossary

Arpeggiator:: Many synths can only play one note at a time (they are monophonic). With the arpeggiator on, if more than one note is pressed at a time, the synth will alternate between the notes. They also often have a range control that allows the user to tell the ynth to play additional octaves - so if the range is set to two octaves the synth will play the keys that are held down in the octave that they are played and then in the next octave up/down....

The Roland SH-101 is a monophonic synthesizer, featuring a 2 1/2 octave 32-note (F-C) keyboard in a light, plastic case. It was designed as a strap-on synth with an optional modulation attachment that stuck out like a guitar neck. It can run on batteries and it came in a number of exciting colors. The SH101 was pre-MIDI, but it has CV (1 volt/octave cv) and gate inputs in the back. It features one VCO with separate levels for each waveform, saw, square, pulse, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), and suboscillator. PWM can be set at one level or can be controlled by the EG or the LFO. The VCF is self-oscillating (resonant) and can be modulated by the envelope generator, the LFO and the keyboard (keyboard tracking). The Envelope Generator (EG) is ADSR and can be triggered by the gate or the LFO. The LFO can be set on triangle, square, random (sample-and-hold), and noise. The VCA can be controlled by the EG or the Gate. The SH-101 also features a very primitive arpeggiator and sequencer as well as portamento.