Electronic instrument guides & articles

There have never been so many grooveboxes—nor have they ever been so sophisticated. From portable devices to standalone production stations and performance instruments, here’s our selection of the be…

Faced with the domination of software, a return to hardware is no longer a nostalgic idea. Between screen fatigue, the need for gesture and the search for constraints, some musicians are rediscoverin…

The Fairlight was both the first sampler and the forerunner of CAM (Computer-Assisted Music). A look back at a decisive technical evolution, at the origin of many of today's production tools.

The Yamaha DX7 marked a turning point in synthesis and music in the 1980s. The first consumer digital and FM synthesizer, it transformed the studio sound palette and introduced new sounds that became…

It's the story of a clumsiness, a bad trip or a machine going haywire. It's also the story of your favorite song.

This week, in our non-linear micro-series of "retro-tests," we take a look at that venerable monophonic drum machine, the Roland TR-77. The first product ever designed by the famous Japanese brand, t…

Paul McCartney and the Gallagher brothers all play it. But while the existence of the famous tape keyboard has had a profound effect on the history of English rock, it is in the United States that th…

The '80s revival that has taken hold of pop culture seems to not have an end. And, obviously, music hasn't escaped this phenomenon, to the benefit of one instrument: the synthesizer. A fact that make…

Today we continue with the top lists of 2017 and the time has come to present the community's favorite analog synths!

Dear friends, the time has come to say goodbye, at least regarding this article series. This last article is a sort of summary of what we've seen throughout the series, which I hope has been useful.

In the previous article we discovered two amazing instruments, the Ondes Martenot and the Ondioline. In this, the second-to-last installment of this series, I invite you to discover two even more ama…

As I mentioned in the previous article, I want to end this series by reviewing some rather extraordinary instruments.

Graphic and stochastic synthesis are not very widely used and, yet, they are quite interesting. Let's see why...

This time around, I invite you to discover two unusual forms of sound synthesis: Formant and linear arithmetic synthesis.

We are slowly coming to the end of this series!

Today we'll finish reviewing the different types of physical modeling synthesis and move on to how it has been implemented.

After having explored synthesis methods that have opened the doors to the most extravagant worlds of sound, today I invite you to tread a more conventional path: The artificial reproduction of well-k…

In the previous article you learned that FM synthesis allows the creation of harmonically rich sounds. Today we'll see what that means in terms of frequency spectrum....

In the fifteenth article of this series, I briefly mentioned FM while introducing the different forms of synthesis. Now, the time has finally come to discuss it, but before we do that I must first ta…

In the previous article we introduced the concept of granular synthesis. Today we'll take a look at the different applications for it.

In the two previous articles we looked at the principle behind sample-based synthesis. Among other things, this allowed us to establish that, thanks to digital technology, the frontiers between the d…

In the previous article, we took a first look at sampling, from the point of view of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM). In this installment we'll study wavetables and sample banks.

Some people might think it's weird to see sampling considered as a type of synthesis. Indeed, throughout this series of articles, I've been telling you all the time about the creation of sounds "from…

In the previous article we saw what subtractive synthesis, the most widespread method of synthetic sound creation, is all about and we saw that it's based on the sound production and manipulation mod…

Dear friends, now that we've become acquainted with the main components used, it's about time we get familiar with the main forms of sound synthesis. Oh, yes, there are several!