Subtractive synthesis is a method of sound synthesis in which partials of an audio signal are attenuated by a filter to alter the timbre of the sound. While subtractive synthesis can be applied to any source audio signal, the sound most commonly associated with the technique is that of analog synthesizers of the 1960s and 1970s, in which the harmonics of simple waveforms such as sawtooth, pulse or square waves are attenuated with a voltage-controlled resonant low-pass filter. Many digital, virtual analog and software synthesizers use subtractive synthesis, sometimes in conjunction with other methods of sound synthesis.
Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is a musical instrument manufacturing company headquartered in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan. It is best known for its grand pianos, upright pianos, digital pianos, electronic keyboards and electronic synthesizers. The company was founded in August 1927.
Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd. is a British musical equipment manufacturer, founded in 1992 by Ian Jannaway and Mark Thompson as Novation Electronic Music Systems. Today the company specializes in MIDI controllers with and without keyboards, both analog and virtual analog performance synthesizers, grid-based performance controllers, and audio interfaces. At present, Novation products are primarily manufactured in China.
The Yamaha AN1x is a DSP-based analog modeling synthesizer, produced by Yamaha Corporation from 1997 to 1998, and was marketed as an "analog physical modelling control synthesizer".
Waldorf Music is a German synthesizer company. They are best known for the Microwave wavetable synthesizer and Blofeld virtual analogue synthesizer.
The Korg Trinity is a synthesizer music workstation released by Korg in 1995. It was also the first workstation to offer modular expansion for not only sounds, but also studio-grade feature such as ADAT, various sound engine processors, audio recording capability, and more. It was considered one of the most comprehensive music workstations, in term of features, at the time.
The Clavia Nord Modular series is a line of synthesizers produced by Clavia, a Swedish digital synthesizer manufacturer. The Nord Modular series, in common with their sister range the Nord Lead series, are analogue modelling synthesizers, producing sounds which approximate those produced by conventional analogue synths by using DSP chips to digitally model analogue circuitry.
The Korg MS2000 is a virtual analog synthesizer produced by the Japanese electronic musical instrument manufacturer Korg.
The Korg Wavestation is a vector synthesis synthesizer first produced in the early 1990s and later re-released as a software synthesizer in 2004. Its primary innovation was Wave Sequencing, a method of multi-timbral sound generation in which different PCM waveform data are played successively, resulting in continuously evolving sounds. The Wavestation's "Advanced Vector Synthesis" sound architecture resembled early vector synths such as the Sequential Circuits Prophet VS.
The Yamaha SY85 is a digital music workstation introduced in 1992. Unlike other Yamaha synthesizers of the time the SY85 does not use FM synthesis. Instead, its sounds are based on samples, which can be layered and modified to create new sounds.
Linear arithmetic synthesis, or LAsynthesis, is a means of sound synthesis invented by the Roland Corporation when they released their D-50 synthesizer in 1987.
The Roland XP-50 is a music workstation that combines the synthesizer engine of Roland's JV-1080 sound module with the sequencing capabilities of their MRC-Pro sequencer and a 61-note keyboard. First released in 1995, the XP-50 and the Roland XP-10 were the first two Roland XP-series products, later joined by the XP-80 and XP-30.
Yamaha SY77 is a 16 voice multitimbral music workstation first produced by Yamaha Corporation in 1989. The SY77 is a synthesizer whose architecture combines AFM synthesis, AWM2 for ROM-borne sample-based synthesis, and the combination of these two methods christened Realtime Convolution and Modulation Synthesis (RCM). The same technology was also packaged in a rack-mounted module released simultaneously, the TG77.
Casio's SDSynthesizers were a late-1980s line of analog synthesizers featuring a resonant filter. SD synthesis was traditional DCO-analog synthesis, with the main difference being that some of the SD waveforms' harmonic spectrums changed temporally, or dynamically in relation to the amplitude envelope. SD synthesis is used in six Casio synthesizers and home keyboards released in 1987 and produced until 1991, when Casio exited the synthesizer market completely and focused solely on pure consumer keyboards. Due to some programming limitations plus Casio's poor marketing, the SD synths never gained wide popularity and are now fairly rare in the second-hand marketplace. There still exists a small but devoted fanbase who insist that SD synthesis, particularly as expanded in the high-end model HT-6000, was overlooked and highly underrated and today really rare
The Alesis Quadrasynth is a 76-key, 64-note polyphonic PCM sample-based digital subtractive synthesizer first introduced in 1993. It was Alesis's first major foray into synthesizer production.
The Prophet '08 is a polyphonic analog synthesizer created by Dave Smith of St. Helena, California, US, for Dave Smith Instruments (DSI), released in late 2007. As with DSI's other instruments, the Prophet '08 uses analog subtractive synthesis, as opposed to many of the current crop of synthesizers, which employ DSP-based virtual analog synthesis.
The Waldorf Blofeld is a synthesizer combining virtual analogue synthesis with wavetable synthesis and FM synthesis. It is available as a small desktop unit and as a 49 key velocity and aftertouch sensitive keyboard version. The keyboard version features extra performance controls; these comprise two performance wheels and up/down transpose keys to shift the range of the keyboard. It is named after the character Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the leader of the fictional SPECTRE organisation from Ian Fleming's James Bond series; this lends its name to the sound management computer application SPECTRE, used to send audio and firmware data to the synthesizer. Two subsequent Waldorf synthesizers have been named after Bond villains; the Stromberg and Largo.
The CZ series is a family of low-cost phase distortion synthesizers produced by Casio in the mid-1980s. Eight models of CZ synthesizers were released: the CZ-101, CZ-230S, CZ-1000, CZ-2000S, CZ-2600S, CZ-3000, CZ-5000, and the CZ-1. Additionally, the home-keyboard model CT-6500 used 48 phase distortion presets from the CZ line. The CZ synthesizers' price at the time of their introduction made programmable synthesizers affordable enough to be purchased by garage bands. Yamaha soon introduced their own low-cost digital synthesizers, including the DX-21 (1985) and Yamaha DX100, in light of the CZ series' success.
The Yamaha EX5 is a synthesizer/workstation produced by Yamaha from 1998 to 2000. The EX5 combines several methods of sound generation. The later released EX7 was a cheaper version of the EX5 with fewer keys, polyphony, sounds and functions. The Yamaha EX music synthesizers, along with the early Yamaha S series, were the predecessors of the Motif workstation series.
The history of home keyboards lies in mechanical musical instrument keyboards, electrified keyboards and 1960s and 1970s synthesizer technologies.
