The Analog to Digital

A major change occurs in 1982 with the launch of Yamaha's first digital synthesizer using a sound synthesis system using the FM and algorithms: the DX7. Its huge success will mark the end of the era of analog synthesizers. Compared to other synths of the time, it provides a sound richer texture with less manipulation. It gains in compactness and transportability. But above all, its digitized sounds are much more stable than those produced by a voltage per volt (analog synth), sensitive to moisture as the heat.

The world of synthetic music evolves at a prodigious rate, and each year brings its new products. In the mid-1980s, also the arrival in force and racks of keyboards, samplers, synths first pre-sampled sounds come up, the K-2000 Kurzweil and Roland D-50. Then it was the turn of Workstations, including sequencers, various reverbs and effects, like Korg M1 and Yamaha SY85.

Extending the principle of automatic accompaniments that were present on the electronic organs of the 1970s, the 1990s appears a new generation of instruments, synthesizers, arranger, combining the quality of sampling (CD quality) to opportunities techniques related to computer music: arrangers called "intelligent" and capable of improvisation.

Parallel to these developments, the rapid expansion of information technology and means of backup disk or hard drive allows the player to work again with ease on his computer, his compositions and arrangements ... is the birth of MAO, the computer music.

During the 1990s, the explosion of virtual music and developing software for editing and processing sound spreads at lightning speed. The composition and arrangement are now within reach of musicians not provided with important tools: the studio is no longer the only place for electronic music composition.

The MIDI

In the years 1970/1980, two large currents can be distinguished: synthesizers based on the synthesis and the lineup sounds like the Synclavier and those whose equipment comes in part from electronic organs such as the Moog synthesizer.

The advent of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

The early 80's track use by all manufacturers of the MIDI standard. This revolutionary international standard for connecting electronic devices of different brands and have them talk to each other. He transcribes the messages into digital audio signals and allows you to program different "effects" such as velocity, volume, reverb, delay or other. This standard meets the need for codification of the main effects and music control functions that results.

With the advent of the micro-computer, music software with MIDI find any justification. So that information flow, the computer must be equipped with an interface that will allow software to transcode MIDI in his language. For example, using a software sequence, gender Cubase or Cakewalk, MIDI will allow information to be synchronized and to move between the computer and one or more synthesizers. The role of the interface is to understand both the MIDI and the language of the computer. The interface plugs into the USB port or a dedicated outlet for this purpose on the computer. Decision-MIDI interface are threefold: In, Out, Through. A five-pin DIN cable connects the computer to the musical instrument and can receive or transmit data in 2 directions (transmit - Out and Reception - In).

Tone and Growth

At first, the sound of a synthesizer was perfectly recognizable in music production discography, but gradually, thanks to successive technological innovations, the sounds have been refined and arrived today in such realism, it is difficult to distinguish between a natural acoustic sound and its reproduction by means purely artificial. However, we must not forget that the essential role of a synthesizer is not to imitate, but to explore new sonic spaces, to understand another way of listening, creating, and in close collaboration with composition techniques and interpretation.

In the years 1960/1970, the synthesizer was in most cases used by small strokes, or to meet a trend opposite to an orchestration of classical, or to support a desire for emancipation in some creative young musicians. So when the synthesizer was capable of expressing a certain musicality, a few talented and adventurous musicians built their artistic career by retaining a public increasingly wide around the instrument. While in France, the musician Jean-Michel Jarre has popularized the synthesizer in the mid-1970s, other international artists have contributed, they too, influence the synthesizer through the planet: Tangerine Dream, Vangelis Papathanasiou, Klaus Shultze ...

By democratizing, the synthesizer changes the musical practices. Self-taught musicians get satisfaction without being required to take music lessons. Similarly, with the advent of MIDI, the exchanges between musicians will be facilitated (midi files, sound banks) and new technological developments of the synthesizer will allow some composers to test their compositions and arrangements among them, simplifying their work and harmonization or orchestration.