Novation Super Bass Station Owner's Manual page 15

White noise has no fundamental and all frequencies are at the
Volume
same level. This waveform can be used by itself to synthesise
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explosions or wind and when used in conjunction with other
Noise Harmonic
waveforms can be used to create the illusion of "Breath" in an instrument.
The choice of waveform is important because it determines the basic "Timbre" of the sound you are making. Once the
waveform has been selected you can then "fine tune" the harmonic content of a sound by passing it through a "Filter" to
remove any unwanted harmonics. The filter in an Analogue synthesiser is a very powerful "Tone Control". Like the tone con-
trols on a stereo, the filter can alter how things sound but cannot change the style of music being played on the CD, and so
the filter in a synthesiser can alter the "tone" of a sound but is restricted by the basic "Timbre" of the waveform. For this rea-
son in most Analogue synthesiser's, several waveforms are available at once and it is possible to "mix" them together to
provide more harmonically rich waveforms.
The last major feature that is important when synthesising sound is "Volume". The "Volume" of sounds vary as time goes by
and so an Organ has a very different volume characteristic than that of a Piano or a String section. See the diagrams below
for details.
An "Organ" can be seen to go to full volume instantly when a key is pressed and then stays at full volume until the key is
released, at which point the volume drops instantly to zero.
Key "On" Key "Off"
Volume
Time
About Analogue
Synthesis
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