what hardware is used in the 5 synths inside the Monomachine

[kushwonder]

just curious what is actually making & shaping the sound of the 5 mono synths inside the monomachine....googled it with no luck, but found pics of the guts of the monomachine here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/novamusik/ ... 984735828/

[Ashe37]

My guess would be the nice square Analog Devices DSP on the red PCB in those photos

[Bitexion]

Not so much audio hardware except for good A/D converters and such. The synths are very well programmed software contained in the DSP chips.

Remember that "sound" is just waves, and waves can be replicated digitally.

[kushwonder]

never heard of a DSP until now...so the synth engines are just software inside the DSP with external A/D converters then?...no other external hardware (filters, amps, etc)?

[Ashe37]

never heard of a DSP until now...so the synth engines are just software inside the DSP with external A/D converters then?...no other external hardware (filters, amps, etc)?

Yes, just like most current digital sythesizers

[kushwonder]

Yes, just like most current digital sythesizers

thank you, but now I am kind of sad about this

[Bitexion]

That's the way it's been for the past 20 years, so it shouldn't be too shocking.

It's nothing to be sad about. What we perceive as sound is just waves travelling through the air with varying amplitude, that vibrates our eardrum in just the right way to let us hear music/sound. And waveforms can be replicated digitally without a hitch. It doesn't have to sound "bad" because it's not analog. Analog was just another way of getting the waves out of the synthesizer.
Sawtooth, square, sine, are all waveforms with a certain harmonic content.

Lowpass filters remove the harmonics in a certain manner, and harmonics is maths. Maths can be done with computers, so you get digital filters. Roland started doing that back in 1989 with the D-50. They can still have plenty of character in that the programmer can mimic alot of the quirks and things in an analog filter.

[madtheory]

Shhh. Don't spoil the magic.

(Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic- Arthur C. Clarke)

Actually harmonics "is not" maths. They are harmonics. Maths is just a really really useful and cool way for us to use them.

[shaft9000]

right, the material reality is independent of math

math is just a language WE MADE to describe it

now we're getting existential on a simple hardware thread

[Stafftunes]

Yeah it's nothing to be sad about at all, it's a wonderful world of audio out there, natural, acoustic, electro-analogue and digital.

Before computer electronics are advanced or fast enough, all these wonderful analogue circuits that exist were the only tools we had for manipulating electronic audio signals and creating the flavours that we all love, as microprocessors became more advanced and sophisticated it started allowing people to create the same processes but in a digital fashion.

The fundamental difference once you get into software/firmware/IC based signal processing (let's call it dsp) as that you're deadling with quantized pieaces of audio information rather than analogue waves, so thousands or millions of on/off messages create the audio we finally here (after going through a DAC) rather than wavey analogue fun.

If people do some very clever engineering and programming at synth manufacturers etc, they can create the exact same processes that occur in analogue kit in 'virtual' or digital fashion. However, as people and humans are involved (and make mistakes, or don't hear so well, or colour it with how THEY think it should be done), and old analogue kit varied because of the physical components, it's very hard to get the sound exactly the same, hence lots of people love true analogue kit.

I love both, as long as it makes great sounds I'm a happy person.

Sorry if I ramble

[Sir Nose]

right, the material reality is independent of math

math is just a language WE MADE to describe it

now we're getting existential on a simple hardware thread

Well...

Physics is the use of math (and words) to describe the material reality. The creation of mathematical idea is often independent of a desire to describe reality. The inescapable tie to reality occurs from the notion that , as with all thought, math is material reality. Thought is a physical happening at the quantum level (and larger).