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[The material below is excerpted from Software Synthesizers, published in 2003 by Backbeat Books.]


When Is a Synthesizer Not a Synthesizer?

While this book covers several types of software instruments -- electric piano simulations, drum modules, and samplers -- that aren't strictly synthesizers, a number of types of sound-producing software are not covered.

To qualify as a software instrument for our purposes, a program has to be able to respond to realtime MIDI input by, at the very least, starting and stopping notes. This leaves out multitrack audio recorders, as well as groove-oriented sample playback programs like Sonic Foundry Acid.

Programs that create sound primarily by writing it to disk (renderers) and playing it when you click on the play button with the mouse are not included. U&I Software Metasynth, for example, is a very powerful program but not a realtime synthesizer.

I've also had to exclude programs that run on hardware accelerator boards plugged into the computer. The most powerful instruments in this class are those that run on the Creamware Pulsar and Scope systems, but synths burned onto soundcard chips (as in the Soundblaster line) are far more numerous. Neither type is included in these pages. There are also some instruments that use external hardware attached to the computer -- Symbolic Sound Kyma and the Clavia Nord Modular, for instance -- to make sound. You won't find them in this book, even though a computer is required for programming them.

Only software for Windows and the Macintosh is covered. There are some decent softsynths for Linux (if you're curious, a great site to poke around in is run by Dave Phillips at linux-sound.org), and I believe there are a couple for BeOS. None is covered here.

Finally, I've ignored the whole world of mod files and tracker software. The mod/tracker scene developed in the early days of computer audio, when computers weren't as fast as they are now. Mod files are compact, creating them is inexpensive, and they'll play on many different computer systems, including obsolete platforms like the Commodore Amiga. If you want to know more, go to Google and search for "mod tracker."

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