Digital Synthesizers
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument that can create sounds by combining signals and frequencies. Digital synthesizers have this capability by means of digital sound processing. In this type of processing the sounds are represented by a sequence of numbers. The first step in the process is to filter real world sounds by converting an analog signal to a digital format.
Digital synthesizers are basically computers that have been programmed to create musical sounds. Many of them can be connected to personal computers and the sound created will then be stored on the computer’s hard drive. Such a synthesizer looks almost the same as a piano and has the same functions as a modular analog synthesizer. However, instead of using hard-wired circuitry, each module of the digital models is a subroutine within a main synthesizing program.
When you have a high-speed microprocessor attached to the digital synthesizer, you can avail of wavetable synthesis and physical modeling. Wavetable synthesis is a technique that enables you to implement real time audio synthesis to create musical timbre. Physical modeling refers to the method in which the waveform is created using the mathematical computations. In digital synthesizers you can achieve both of these techniques without having to install a lot of hardware on the computer.
Some of the modern digital synthesizers use what is called softsynth. This is software that synthesizes sound in your personal computer. When you use a dedicated synthesizer to help you create music, you have access to the onboard and the front panel can be switched to pursue different functions of the device.