Designing Your Voice: Synthetic Sounds From Circuits

Catalog description

This course will explore sound synthesis fundamentals while students build a hardware synthesizer composed of 4-6 distinct components. The course will introduce a new synthesis component every two weeks, which by the end will result in a cohesive and complete synthesizer voice designed by and to the specifications of each student/pair. The term ‘voice’ in this context is used to describe a collection of components that define the signal path of a synthesizer. The most simple, yet flexible synth voice requires an oscillator, filter, amplifier, and envelope. This course will be structured around these core components for 8 weeks (2 weeks each), while teaching the fundamentals of sound design as well as hard lab fabrication skills. The remaining weeks will introduce other components such as input mechanisms (e.g. p5.js -> control voltages), or effects, which students can then dive deeper into for incorporating into final projects. This course will result in a standalone microcontroller centered hardware synthesizer. In essence, students will design and fabricate a tool (the synthesizer) with which they can then use to navigate the other core functions of the class (sound synthesis).