This section is meant to document how ZynAddSubFX generates sound, and how you can use that to make any sound that comes to mind!
Firstly, before getting into the synthesis engines, we should note that certain synthesis modules appear pretty often, so it would be very good if we covered those first.
Don’t worry, we’ll get into the good stuff soon, this section only serves so we don’t have to explain terms like LFO, ADSR, punch, stretch, velocity sensing and so on every time they appear. And, as you’ll see, no matter how scary Zyn-Fusion might look, the same elements work the same in every situation, so it’s not as daunting as you might think!
Here, you can shape the oscillator that will be used either as a main source of sound or a modulator.
You’ll notice the window is split into three strips, if you will, that being the strip with two oscillator windows and settings in the middle and two strips of horizontal faders, along with a scrollbar at the bottom.
The first strip has, from left to right, your starting oscillator, oscillator settings, and your final oscillator that will be used in your synthesizer of choice, be that ADDSynth or PADSynth.
The settings in the middle include settings like:
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the base oscillator (sine, square, triangle, etc)
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the waveshaping function
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the modlation
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the filter
and so on. Feel free to move the "shape" fader below the base oscillator settings, it changes the oscillators in interesting ways!
The second strip has faders which allow you to add harmonics to your sound. The fader sets the amplitude of the first, second, third harmonic, and so on. Using the scrollbar, you can go as far as to the 128th.
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Note
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What are harmonics?
Harmonics are just your base frequency multiplied by some number.
The second haronic is your base frequency multiplied by 2, for example.
Harmonics, as such, add frequency content to your sound, making it more complex and interesting.
Just don’t go too overboard (but even then, just double-tap the fader to reset it)!
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The third strip allows you to set the phase of each harmonic.
These settings relate to volume.
Most of them are pretty standard, like volume and panning. However, there is an interesting property of amplitude in ZynAddSubFX called "punch".
Punch adds an additional boost in volume at the start of the sound.
You can edit punch strength (how loud it is), time (how long it lasts) and stretch (how the length of it changes with the note; if you set it to 0, it will sound the same on all notes)
These settings relate to pitch.
From here, you can set the octave shift and fine-tune settings.
Fine-tune type offers four options, each being how far the fine-tune can go. By default, you can go up or down 35 cents.
These settings relate to the applied filter.
Here, you can set the type, cutoff, resonance, gain, number of stages, and other properties of the filter.
This section allows editing the ADSR envelope.
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Note
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ADSR stands for "Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release". It is the most common form of envelope out there. |
These envelopes are used everywhere in ZynAddSubFX, for making alterationgs to amplitude, pitch and frequency.
You can edit the envelope with the ADSR knobs, which is more precise, or with the envelope window, where you can move the envelope points around, which is more fun!
If you don’t see the envelope window, click on the "Envelope" text seen above the knobs.
"What if I want to make a specific envelope ADSR doesn’t allow?" - That’s entirely possible, using the free envelope mode!
To the right of the envelope window, you’ll find a couple options that allow you to use the free envelope mode.
Using the "Free" button, we can enable the free mode. The same button disables you, and asks you to confirm the action, since free mode points are not remembered if you disable the mode.
You can add and remove points, freely move them around, and set the sustain point!
This section allows you to edit the LFO.
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Note
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LFO stands for "Low Frequency Oscillator". It is used for any periodic changes you wanna make to your sound, such as vibrato or tremolo. |
You can alter all the basic settings, such as oscillator type, frequrency, depth, starting phase, delay, ramp-up and ramp-down time.
Additionally, you can connect your LFO’s frequency to its BPM. The two number fields, allow setting the numerator and denominator of the BPM, expressed in bars (e.g. setting it to 1/4 sets the LFO’s frequency to match a quarter of a bar).
The resonance editor lets you add natural-sounding resonance to your sound.
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Resonance is a property of the sound that describes how a certain sound reverberates around certain bands of frequencies. This makes the sound more full in those bands. Adding resonance is great for sounds like choirs and pads, which usually are more powerful in certain frequency spaces.
The editor allows drawing a resonance curve covering the range from around 0.15kHz to around 6.35kHz.