Electronic musical instrument

An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. In contrast, the term electric instrument is used to mean instruments whose sound is produced mechanically, and only amplified electronically - for example an electric guitar. Usually the instrument will have some way of controlling the sound, such as by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note.

Synthesizers

The most commonly used electronic instruments are synthesizers, so-called because they artificially generate sound using techniques such as additive, subtractive, FM and physical modelling synthesis to create sounds.

Related Topics:
Synthesizer - Additive - Subtractive - FM - Physical modelling

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Dr. Robert Moog introduced the first practical commercial modern music synthesizer with his Moog synthesizer. This instrument used a series of tone generators with keys that would adjust the tone generators' pitch. To gain enough money to engineer this synthesizer, Moog sold Theremins, a very peculiar instrument that uses no switches to trigger pitch or volume, relying instead upon a pair of antennae and the variable capacitance occasioned by the presence of the instrumentalist's hands.

Related Topics:
Robert Moog - Synthesizer - Moog synthesizer - Theremin

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The first digital synthesizers were academic experiments in sound synthesis using digital computers. FM synthesis was developed for this purpose, as a way of generating complex sounds digitally with the smallest number of computational operations per sound sample.

Related Topics:
Digital synthesizer - FM synthesis

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