You could theoretically extend that to infinity, but in practical terms, you'd need 30-60 oscillators to approximate a saw wave, each with three control knobs, and that's before you add modulation. To make a saw wave, you'd have to have one sine wave at the fundamental pitch, then another, twice the frequency, out of phase and slightly less in volume, then another, twice the frequency, out of phase and slightly less in volume, then another. You'd have to have a lot of oscillators to make anything interesting that way. In a true additive synth, each oscillator would be a sine wave, and you would control the pitch, phase and level of each one independently. The reason it's called a subtractive synth is because you start with a signal from the oscillator with lots of harmonics - a saw wave, for example - and you use the filter to subtract some of those harmonics to create new sounds.Īn additive synth takes a bit of imagination, because not many exist. It's basically every analog synth, with oscillators, filters and an amp, plus some LFOs, envelopes and other modulation. I've heard Razor described as "a subtractive synth dressed up as an additive synth." I don't really know what that means, though. I'd know a lot more about how synths and frequencies worked if I'd been able to see what Massive was doing for all those years.Īny other users here? Any techniques in particular that you enjoy? I've only started to dive into this synth but the possibilities are tantalizing. For this reason, I would strongly suggest that beginners start with Razor as opposed to Massive. Razor gives you a display of exactly what's going on, and that's just a fantastic instructional tool. I have no idea why more synths don't have this feature, as it's a fantastic way of learning how filters and spectrum modulation works in real-time. I've also heard that you can tune reverb tales, although I haven't used that feature yet.Ī visual display of what the various effects and filters are doing. I don't know what it is, but I freaking love Razor's (many) reverb and space effects. ![]() Obviously, it's ideal to understand how formants produce vowel noises rather than having it just handed to you on a platter, but it's still a great tool. I don't use vowel sounds all too much in my productions, but I imagine this is super helpful for people making super dubby/glitchy stuff. Again, this is the sort of thing you could do manually with the EQ presets in Ableton, but Razor lets you cycle between different vowel sounds (or morph between them, really), with each vowel clearly labeled. This is cool, because I usually do this manually with an instrument rack in Ableton anyways.Ī dedicated vowel filter. From what I can tell, this basically (BASSically, hehe) layers a clean sine wave (maybe with a bit of saturation) below the rest of the synth you're making, without distorting it a bit. While I'm still wrapping my head around all of the various types of synthesizers, I've heard Razor described as "a subtractive synth dressed up as an additive synth." I don't really know what that means, though.Īnyway, some of the features I dig about Razor: I'm very surprised that it's not as widely-touted as Massive while it's not quite as powerful as Massive (you can only put on one effect at a time, you don't have as many LFOs, you don't have a Performer or Stepper, and you don't have like 50 wavetables to choose from), you can still get some really lush, gritty, and huge sounding noises from it. ![]() I bought Native Instruments' Razor during NI's half-off sale a couple of weeks back, and holy hell, what a great synth this is.
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