Bleeps and Bloops?
When I first showed a demo of Sine Machine to my sister, she asked me “Don’t synthesizers just make bleeps and bloops?”
I laughed. Then thought a while before answering her. It’s a valid question. Yes, they do make bleeps and bloops! And no, that’s not the full story.
Mimicking real instruments
Early synthesizers were created and marketed to mimic acoustic instruments. Think flutes and strings.
The goal of most synthesizers is to make things that sound pleasing or interesting to our ears.
In addition to detailing Sine Machine’s engine and UI, it’s worth taking a shallow dip into the words of acoustics, psychoacoustics, sound and synthesis.
One classic problem: synthesizers rely on a lot of jargon. When I was starting out, it took me a couple years of toying with software synths before I fully understood terms like Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO) or reliably remembered which term in ASDR referred to a volume and not a time value (answer: Sustain).
To experienced synthesists, a new synth like Sine Machine will have a lot of familiar mental models. But of course invent a few new ones with strange names like Sharpness.
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