Music & Audio Advice Synthesis and Sound Design 3

Question 1

Which synthesis method builds sound by adding together sine waves?

Accepted Answer

Additive

Answer

Additive synthesis constructs timbres by summing many individual sine partials.

Question 2

Granular synthesis generates sound from what building blocks?

Accepted Answer

Tiny grains of sampled audio

Answer

Granular synthesis splices audio into micro-grains and replays them in clouds.

Question 3

What does a wavetable synthesizer let you do that a single oscillator cannot?

Accepted Answer

Sweep through a series of stored waveforms

Answer

Wavetable synths scan across a table of different waveshapes to create evolving timbres.

Question 4

In an ADSR envelope, the sustain stage controls what?

Accepted Answer

The level held while a key is pressed

Answer

Sustain sets the steady level maintained as long as the key is held down.

Question 5

What characterizes white noise?

Accepted Answer

Equal energy per frequency

Answer

White noise contains equal power across all frequencies, sounding like a hiss.

Music & Audio Advice Practice Test