We want to set up a number of sine wave VCOs for our basic Additive synthesizer.
The containerized layout below will do the job nicely for the oscillators. Although we have a drop down list for the tuner (note the lack of note and fine tune controls). I have also modified the tuner. The only purpose of the tuner in this Plug-in is to set each oscillator to the correct octave. The VCO container is set so that the controls are not visible, the list is just there for setting up the harmonic that this oscillator will operate on.
So the Fixed values in the Tuner are now 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 volts respectively. Fine tune and note controls are removed as they are not needed. The Harmonic drop down list is not visible to the user, we just need this when programming our synthesizer. All the oscillators are left as sine wave, as we don’t really need the waveform to be changeable.
The level control sliders are set with a maximum of 4 volts to prevent clipping when the oscillators are mixed. The mixer is set with a level of 4 volts on the Input2 plug to prevent clipping. The ADSR has been set up so that the synth at this stage functions more like an electronic piano (Sustain = 0).
At his stage although we have a functioning additive Synthesizer it’s still very basic in its operation. Each harmonic has it’s level manually controlled by a slider. There’s no filtering or other sound sculpting.
How far we go with sculpting the harmonic content is dependent on how complex you want your synth to be. You could have a VCA on the output of each oscillator, each with their own envelope generator…
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