First ideas towards synth creation

In researching synth sounds to recreate, i got a chance to go through my old school techno and electronic music libraries, and figure out what would be a challenge to make but within reach.

I started looking at the obvious pop records with Brian Eno at the helm, and am considering either Ladytron by Roxy Music's very huge, wishy washy opening synth section intro.


Or, the very cool and personal favourite early Techno record, Tour de France by Kraftwerk.

Synthesis Handbook/Glossary.

In class, we discussed:

Tuning Oscillators by various cents off each other to create a phased effect.

Square wave: Closest to the traditional 8Bit tones, hollow, and fuzzy.

Triangle Wave: Somewhat thinner and more nasal than the Square, more distorted in nature, featuring Odd harmonics.

Sine Wave: round, full and "pure" tone - used in conjunction with other waveforms to add body or a naturalness to the tone.

Envelopes can be triggered by a signal or by an LFO (low frequency oscillator) to sculpt the tone.

LFO: Useful for creating a rhythmic pulse on a waveform. Generally bombards it with frequencies beneath our hearing (20hz or less) and causes a throb.