What is a Musical Synthesizer & What Does it Do?
The invention of the musical synthesizer revolutionized the world of sound recreation. A performer who wanted to recreate a particular sound on stage used to rely on old-fashioned recordings. Today, thousands of sounds, notes and frequencies can be generated in real time on stage at the touch of a button. A synthesizer is an electronic instrument that can produce various sounds. Its name comes from what it does: it “synthesizes” sound. It works by generating and combining different frequencies. It can produce thousands of different sounds and sound combinations. Performers who want to add the sound of a car horn to a performance need not use an audio tape of a car horn. Instead, the sound can be generated with the push of a button. The synthesizer can even produce multiple sounds simultaneously, like a horn honk and a bird call, for example. The earliest known synthesizer was invented by Elisha Gray in the late 1800’s. Gray is more well-known for some of his other inventions, most nota
