Synthesis

Why Simpler?

This might seem counterintuitive. Simpler is a sampler, right? It plays back recordings. How does that help us learn synthesis?

Here’s the trick: if you load a single-cycle waveform into Simpler — a tiny audio file containing exactly one cycle of a waveform — Simpler loops it so fast that it becomes a continuous tone. At that point, it is a synthesizer. You have a waveform, a filter, envelopes, and an LFO. That’s all a subtractive synth is.

The advantage of starting here is that you already know the interface. You’ve loaded samples into Simpler before. The filter, the envelopes, the LFO — they’re all right there in Classic mode, waiting for you to use them. No new instrument to learn. Just a new way of thinking about one you’ve already met.

You’ll find single-cycle waveforms in the Browser under Samples > Synth in many of the included Packs (especially Core Library). Load one onto a Simpler, make sure Loop is on, and you’re ready to go.

The Building Blocks

Every subtractive synthesizer — Simpler with a waveform, Analog, or any hardware synth from the 1970s — works with the same basic components. Learn them once and you’ll recognize them everywhere.

Waveforms

The waveform is your raw material. It’s the starting shape of the sound before anything else touches it. The common ones:

• Sine — The purest tone. No overtones, no harmonics. Just the fundamental frequency. Smooth, round, and boring on its own — but useful as a building block.
• Saw (Sawtooth) — Rich and buzzy. Contains all harmonics (odd and even), which makes it the most versatile starting point for subtractive synthesis. If you only load one waveform, make it this one.
• Square — Hollow and woody. Contains only odd harmonics. Think clarinet, or a classic 8-bit video game tone.
• Triangle — Somewhere between a sine and a square. Soft, with only odd harmonics that fade quickly. Useful for flute-like or mellow sounds.
• Noise — Not pitched at all. Random frequencies, all at once. Useful for percussion, wind effects, and adding texture.

The key insight: waveforms with more harmonics give you more to work with when you start filtering. A sine wave through a low-pass filter sounds exactly like… a sine wave. A saw wave through a low-pass filter can sound like a hundred different things depending on where you set the cutoff. Start rich, subtract to taste. That’s subtractive synthesis in a sentence.

Filters

The filter is where the sculpting happens. It removes frequencies from your waveform, changing the character of the sound. In Simpler, you’ll find the filter section in the middle of the interface. Turn it on and you get:

• Filter Type — Low-pass (LP) is the most common: it lets low frequencies through and cuts the highs. High-pass (HP) does the opposite. Band-pass (BP) lets a narrow band through and cuts everything else. Notch cuts a narrow band and lets everything else through.
• Frequency (Cutoff) — The point where the filter starts cutting. Sweep this knob on a saw wave and you’ll immediately hear what a filter does. This is arguably the single most important knob in all of synthesis.
• Resonance — Boosts the frequencies right at the cutoff point, creating a peak. At low settings, it adds a subtle emphasis. Crank it up and the filter starts to ring and whistle. This is how you get those squelchy, vowel-like sounds.

The filter slope (12dB, 24dB) determines how aggressively it cuts. A 24dB slope is steeper — more dramatic. A 12dB slope is gentler. Experiment with both.

Envelopes

An envelope describes how a parameter changes over time — specifically, from the moment you press a key to the moment the sound dies away. The standard envelope has four stages:

• Attack — How long it takes to reach full level after you press the key. Short attack = immediate. Long attack = slow fade-in.
• Decay — How long it takes to fall from the peak to the sustain level.
• Sustain — The level the sound holds at while you keep the key pressed. This is a level, not a time.
• Release — How long the sound takes to fade out after you release the key.

In Simpler (and most synths), you’ll find at least two envelopes:

• Amplitude Envelope — Controls the volume over time. This is what shapes the basic “feel” of the sound: is it a short pluck? A sustained pad? A slow swell?
• Filter Envelope — Controls the filter cutoff over time. This is what makes the sound move. A short filter envelope with a fast decay creates a pluck-like brightness at the start of each note. A slow filter envelope creates a gradual opening — the classic “wah” sweep.

The filter envelope is where synthesis starts to feel alive. A static filter setting is fine, but a filter that moves with each note is what makes a synth sound like a synth.

LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator)

An LFO is an oscillator that runs too slowly to produce audible sound. Instead, it’s used to modulate other parameters — creating movement, rhythm, and texture. In Simpler, the LFO can modulate the filter cutoff, pitch, or panning.

• Rate — How fast the LFO cycles. Slow rates create gentle movement (vibrato, subtle filter sweeps). Fast rates create more aggressive effects. You can sync the rate to your project’s tempo for rhythmic modulation.
• Shape — The waveform of the LFO itself (sine, triangle, square, etc.). A sine LFO creates smooth, even modulation. A square LFO snaps between two values. A sample-and-hold LFO jumps to random values — great for glitchy, unpredictable textures.
• Amount — How much the LFO affects its target. This is set on the destination (e.g., the LFO amount knob in the filter section).

The classic example: route an LFO to the filter cutoff, set the rate to a slow tempo-synced value, and you get the rhythmic “wobble” that drives entire genres of electronic music. Route it to pitch with a fast rate and a tiny amount, and you get vibrato.

Putting It Together: Making a Patch

Here’s a practical exercise. Load a sawtooth single-cycle waveform into Simpler in Classic mode with Loop enabled.

1. Start with the amplitude envelope. Set a short attack, medium decay, moderate sustain, and medium release. You should hear a basic synth tone that responds to your playing.

2. Turn on the filter. Set it to low-pass (LP 24). Sweep the frequency knob down from the top. Notice how the sound gets darker and more muffled as you cut the high frequencies.

3. Add a filter envelope. Turn up the filter envelope amount. Now set a short attack on the filter envelope with a moderate decay. Each note should start bright and quickly settle into a darker tone — the classic “pluck” shape.

4. Add some resonance. Bring the filter resonance up to about 40%. The filter sweep should now have a more pronounced, almost vocal quality.

5. Engage the LFO. Route it to the filter, set the rate to a moderate tempo-synced value, and bring up the amount. The filter cutoff should now move rhythmically with your project’s tempo.

You just built a synth patch from scratch. Everything you did here — choosing a waveform, shaping it with a filter, controlling dynamics with envelopes, adding movement with an LFO — is what every synthesizer does, regardless of how many knobs it has.

Additional Parameters

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, here are a few more controls to explore:

• Pitch Envelope — Just like the filter envelope, but for pitch. A short pitch envelope with a fast decay creates a “zap” at the beginning of each note — common in bass sounds and percussion.
• Glide (Portamento) — Instead of jumping instantly from one note to the next, the pitch slides between them. Set a glide time and play legato (overlapping notes) to hear it.
• Spread / Unison — Duplicates the voice and detunes the copies slightly, creating a thick, chorus-like effect. Great for leads and pads.
• Legato — When enabled, playing overlapping notes doesn’t retrigger the envelopes. The pitch changes but the sound continues smoothly. Combined with glide, this creates classic monophonic lead lines.

Beyond Simpler

Everything we’ve covered applies directly to Analog, Operator, and Wavetable — they just have more of it. Analog gives you two dedicated oscillators with hardware-modeled waveforms, two independent filters, and more routing options. Operator adds FM synthesis and four operators that can modulate each other. Wavetable lets the waveform itself morph and evolve over time.

But the core is the same: waveform → filter → envelopes → LFO → sound. Once you understand this signal flow, picking up any synthesizer — in Live or elsewhere — becomes a matter of finding where each section lives, not learning a new concept.

For the deeper theory behind synthesis — harmonic series, filter resonance characteristics, modulation routing strategies — see the Mixing and Synthesis Tools.

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