Where soft synths really start to come into their own is not so much by what each part of the synth does, but how they can interact with one another. LFOs, or low-frequency oscillators, can ‘modulate’ ...

The original Uno Synth was IK Multimedia’s surprise entry into the world of budget-minded hardware instruments. It wasn’t just a surprise that the company, best known for its iPhone-friendly MIDI ...

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: It's likely that we're all guilty of periodically shunning our existing repository of plugins and VIs, and splash out on a shiny new synth, hoping it’ll provide us with a fresh, ...

As technology continues to evolve, synthesizers have become the most versatile instruments in the studio, with all sorts of sounds and effects right at your fingertips. Not only are new synthesizers ...

FM synthesis can be notoriously tricky. For all the success of Yamaha's DX7 in the 1980s, its bafflingly mathematical system of operators and algorithms, and the seemingly endless parameter menus, ...

There’s something about Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesizer chips that appeals to a large audience. That’s one of the reasons behind [René Ceballos]’s XFM project, aiming to duplicate on an FPGA the ...

The abacus has been around since antiquity, and takes similar forms over the hundreds of cultures that have embraced it. It may be one of the first devices to be considered as having a “user interface ...

Miniature electronics kits like the Raspberry Pi have ushered in a new generation of DIY tinkerers. And while most of these builds emulate classic gaming systems, there are plenty of other ...

You might think that the talents of the legendary synth pioneers – Bob Moog, Tom Oberheim, Dave Smith, Wolfgang Palm, and many others – lay in their deep knowledge of electronics and sound synthesis.

Modal Electronics out of Bristol, UK, has announced an upcoming portable synthesizer that's based on the voice architecture of its Craftsynth. The Skulpt polyphonic synthesizer rocks 32 oscillators ...

Three years ago, Korg announced an affordable polyphonic analog synthesizer called the minilogue. Now, ahead of the NAMM 2019 music industry expo, the company has revealed the next generation model – ...