It's not how all synths work, probably the most famous FM synth the DX-7 never had a filter, additive synths don't really need filters either, but for a subtractive synth this would be unthinkable. And the general architecture of any synth is usually not that hard, you have a source, possibly filters, an amp and some modulators.
My friend, with the app above you can take 6 VCOs, have them modulate each other and understand how the FM(phase) synthesis on a DX7 works. Instead of guessing. Explore why certain ratios produce bell like tones etc.
One of may favorite digital synths is the TX-81z. 4op FM. One of the first digital synths where the operators weren’t restricted to sine waves. (DX7 had 6op FM)
If you just look at the specs. And even play with the values you won’t understand why one synth could obtain sounds the other couldn’t.
That “source” is usually the synthesis method.(usually the complicated part outside of anything that’s not a traditional VCO)
If you have a filter, the resonance imparts a particular sound as well.
Digitone is 4op fm as the source then that’s funneled through a pretty standard east coast architecture.
More notes or voices playing than the player has fingers is quite common, a note doesn't stop just because you let go of the key. Sometimes you want it to ring out so most synthesizers handle that case. Some even let you configure the behaviour, for example you could reallocate the longest playing note or the closest note.
Many synthesizers have limits on how many sounds they can support. Midi was originally started because 1970's (analog) synthesizers could only produce one sound and so they wanted a way to have several synthesizers connected together. Before midi was finished synthesizers (now digital) could play more than one note. Though hardware limitations (not just software) didn't support infinite notes and so until around 2000 that synthesizers could generally play enough notes that players wouldn't run out in the real world.
The companies that came together to make MIDI all had analog polysynths capable of true polyphony before the MIDI standard was even finished. (distinct osc/amp/filter outputs per note and not just paraphonic synths that shared AMP/Filter circuits between OSCs)
MIDI was more about unifying the entire studio of synths, samplers, drum machines, and recording equipment. And creating interoperability between various manufacturers of music equipment. It was a solution to the multiple control voltage standards that predated it and made it troublesome to tie equipment together.
Yep, and not forgetting that serial ports on a computer were (at the time) expensive, and the sounds most synths were capable of were.. kind of simple. So there was the motivation for stacking multiple synths up to produce bigger/richer sound, doing keyboard splits (possible on some hardware of the time but not most), as well as driving many devices from a single port.
Multi timbral synths (different sounds addressable per MIDI channel) were a later thing too, analog polysynths could play more than one voice, but very few could play more than maybe two different _sounds_ at once.
Polyphonic analog synths existed before MIDI. Notably, the Novachord from the late 30s. For the modern era, analog 2-8 note polyphony was available by the late 70s.
It was well before 2000. Most of my gear is 1990s vintage and while some has limited polyphony, most has unlimited polyphony and doesn‘t do note stealing.
Sustain pedal. Not sure how it’s implemented in midi, but that’s one way to have more than ten notes playing at once. (There’s also four-hand duets and the rare but not non-existent play two adjacent white keys with one finger technique.)
In theory yes, because you wouldn't need to copy the data, in practice it depends on the API and you might end up copying data from RAM to RAM. If the API doesn't allow you to simply pass an address to the GPU then you need to allocate memory on the GPU and copy your data to that memory, even if it's unified memory.
For Apple specifically, you have to act as if you do not have unified memory because Apple still supports discrete GPUs in Metal and also Swift is reference counted - the CPU portion of the app has no idea if the GPU portion is still using something (remember that the CPU and GPU are logically different devices even when they are on the same die).
When you are running your code on an M- or A-series processor, most of that stuff probably ends up as no-ops. But worse case is that you copy from RAM to RAM, which is extraordinarily faster than pushing anything across the PCIe bus.
BEAM can't preempt native code, that's why NIFs should either be fast/low-latency to not excessively block the scheduler or be put in what's called a dirty scheduler which just means to run it in a separate thread.
> This unit cell, like an origami design, may be folded across either axis or laid flat, allowing you to physically change the direction of radiation. Because the phased array antenna on each face can steer the beam further, the antenna can be utilized to generate almost any radiation pattern using a combination of physical folding and electronic beam steering.
To me "physically change the direction of radiation" is rather explicit that the antenna isn't static.
> When you see a foldable circuit running at 28 GHz, the first thing you think about is the foldable interconnect's RF performance and stability over repeated folding...The result is a stable hinge design that does maintains low loss over the 180° range of folding, and shows no degradation up to 300 folds.
This is very clearly intended to be physically reconfigurable.
reply