Using the Envelope Filter on an Analog Synthesizer or Keyboard

Video Transcript

"My name is Dan Rapport. Today we are going to be talking about analog synthesizers. One of the last sections of the analog synthesizer is the envelope modifier section or VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier) and on this particular synthesizer and on many synthesizers you will find two sets of the envelopes, one for the specific volume of the note that you are generating and one for the control of the filter, which we talked about it in our last section. So the basic form of the envelopes follow the basic form of really any envelope on any acoustic musical instrument that there is attack, decay, sustain and release and I can show you a good example of that, here we have a very short attack, a medium decay, a medium sustain and a long release. Listen to what happens when I turn the attack control up, opposed to ... So lower attack setting will give you more of a percussive effect. You can also set the decay lower than the attack creating sort of a backwards envelope sound. The sustain will allow you to hold the note out longer and the release tells you how long the filter holds on to the note. The same is true for the volume envelopes, which control the actual duration of the note. Here it is with the release on high, the note will sustain pretty much indefinitely if you have the release all the way up. If you turn it back the note does not sustain as long. Another control here is the amount to filter control and this controls how much of the envelopes sound goes into the filter and here is with it all the way off, you can hear absolutely no sound at all and as I turn it up the sound is going through the filter. One more switch we have on here is the envelope gate, this allows you to gate the control of the envelopes with either the keyboard or an external source, so when we have it on the keyboard, it is just the envelopes work as normal; we turn it on external, the envelopes have no effect whatsoever and notes will sustain indefinitely."