Today’s lecture from Gareth was informative. Although I knew quite a bit of all the information presented in today’s class, it was good refresh myself on the basics of the topic.

I mainly work with East Coast subtractive synthesisers, and even though I was aware of additive and FM synthesis it was good to delve into the fundamental understanding on how the technology works.

Using Operator in Ableton Live opened my mind to how I could personally access this kind of synthesis as I am unable to afford the likes of hardware additive synths like those produced by Buchla Music Easle. I would like to push myself to develop techniques in sound design through this synthesis technology in order to explore what other complex harmonic tones I can utilise beyond my usual practice in subtractive synthesis. I think it would make a good contrast to the thicker sounds conventionally created from west coast synthesis as additive synthesis tones, at least according to my ears, seem to be quite thinner though very harmonically rich. It would make sense as what often happens with subtractive synthesis is when overdubbing multiple recordings, the composition tends to get full very quickly and over saturate the available frequency spectrum of the piece unless equalisation is used to allow room for all sounds to breathe.

Through this way of working, I will be able to compose pieces with different source audio able to sit comfortably amongst one another similar to a band which has found individual instruments that work well together tone wise.