Software Synthesis

Thus far we have concentrated on music creation using MIDI and external sound-creation devices such as synthesizers, but what if you want to use your computer as a synthesizer? No problem!

What is a software synthesizer? Considering what a synthesizer does, converting electricity into sound, it stands to reason that a computer with a soundcard would also be able to convert electricity into sound. The only hitch is that you need a fairly powerful computer to do this, which is why MIDI is so nice ”it doesn't require a 1-GHz system to achieve amazing results. Of course, the trade-off is the expense of the synthesizers. However, if you find yourself with an extra dozen CPU cycles lying around doing nothing, give a software synthesizer a try. Here's a few from www. freshmeat .net that might meet your needs:

· aRts: analog real-time synthesizer

· BacteriuM: virtual analog matrix synthesizer

· Cumulus: asynchronous grain synthesizer

· Freebirth: integrated bass synthesizer/step sequencer/sample player

· gAlan: modular synthesizer “drum machine “sequencer “effects unit for Linux

· SpiralSynth: a software synthesizer

So what do they do? Using your soundcard, they shape bit patterns into sound. They model old-style analog synthesizers that had lots of knobs , buttons , and switches and produced very rich sound. If you like to tinker with stuff, you will probably like analog modeling synthesizers, as they are known, because they allow you to fiddle with all aspects of sound, from waveforms to filters and more.

The interesting thing about these tools is that the sound you create can be stored to a file. So then what? Later in this chapter you will learn how to use these stored sounds in two other types of music creation applications for Linux.