Re: Synthesis (was Re:Amelio's ouster)

[Geoff Kaiser <SuperKais@MacConnect_REMOVE_THIS.com>]

Mitchell Spector wrote:
> 
> In article Geoff Kaiser <SuperKais@MacConnect.com> writes...
> 
> >Not to burst anyone's bubble, but being a Roland fan as I am, I had to
> >jump in and say that as much as I love the sound that somes out of my
> >Roland keyboards (and the Sound Canvas has some really great sounds,
> >too), these are NOT true synthesizers. They are integrating PCM samples
> >into these patches. There are absolutely no tones being generated from
> >scratch like in a true digital synth, like say, the Roland JD-800.
> 
>     The patches are ROM based, rather than loaded into a dedicated
> sound RAM. It is still generating tones from these patches, and
> thus a true synthesizer more or less.

No, it is NOT. A TRUE synthesizer is not using PCM samples, or
"wavetable" anything. It is generating frequencies from scratch, not
playing back samples like all Sound Canvas-type modules. (Rule of thumb:
if it's something that exists in ROM, then we're talking about software,
a digital sample, not a synth chip that creates waveforms from scratch)

My point is that samples are samples. They're all software. Most of
these 'synths' are improperly named; they're named such for marketing
reasons (like Roland's GR-1 guitar "synthesizer", which doesn't
synthesize anything, it just plays back ROM samples triggered by a
Roland pickup on a guitar. Same concept with the Sound Canvas modules,
except triggered by a keyboard or a computer mouse.

> 
>     That is what wavetable synthesis is all about, "using elements of
> the real thing". You digitally record a real-life instrument (a sax,
> piano, guitar, drum, etc) and use that waveform as a basis for the
> synthesized instrument.

As I said, that's NOT real synthesis. If there is a true synth for
computers (I don't know of any), then it wouldn't need so much ROM.
There wouldn't be a need for so much file space, regardless of whether
it's on a ROM chip or ona hard disk. (but then again, I guess we don't
really need that, since there's always the ability to hook up a true
keyboard synth to a computer via MIDI...)