Even currently, most synthesiser would give you the monophonic or polyphonic selection. Presently though with latest technology this has become much stronger, yet cheaper to make. It has got to the point where almost all of the newer synthesiser could produce an almost innumerable amount of notes all at the same time. Simply like a piano will. In elementary terms, a monophonic synthesiser plays one note at a time. Its a useful setting because it prevents 2 keys from being hold down at the same time.

This will imply they will over lap one another giving terrible effects. The monophonic is good for a few of the lead and bass sounds as well. For two or more notes to play simultaneously you require the polyphonic.

To be able to slide ‘tween two notes the synthesizer needs the Portamento/guide. You’ll get your best effects of producing a bending ‘tween notes if you utilize the portamento on monophonic sounds. On the other hand it could also be utilized polyphonically if played in the block chords style. You can go from a very slow sweep between two notes to a uncomplicated glide. This will permit a difference in the severity of bending. This’s finished when you change the time and sometimes the scale of the glide. It’s truly useful for SFX.

In subtractive synthesis, you could utilize the basic ideas of frequency modulation, which’s an entire entity of synthesis. You would be applying its sound creation methods. If you are to speed up LFO, you would be able to produce FM effects. The rate is set at such a high speed an audible pitch is produced by the oscillator.

A truly sharp piercing effect is attained when a non-harmonic sound is created by using the 1st oscillator to modulate the pitch of a second oscillator. It has been learned that FM effects cannot be utilized successfully on analogue synthesiser keyboards.

If you apply two oscillators, with one being the master and the second one slave youre producing the effect of hard synchronisation (oscillator sync). In this case, the slave oscillator works faster or slower than the master, whereas the master functions as normal with its wave form. If you trigger the 2 oscillators at the same time, you will get very unique harmonic effects. The slave would also start to perform over again via it’s wave form. It wont matter whether it completed its cycle. This occurs when the master oscillator is put into action.

Take two oscillator inputs and multiply them against one another. This is dependant on the frequencies. This’s recognise as ring modulation in music synthesis. This’s the ideal result for producing dissonant, percussive sounds, due to the non harmonic result