Talk:Synthesizer

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A waveform generated by a synthesizer

This isn't very informative. It appears to be a bass sawtooth wave without any modulation added. As a result, it doesn't explain much about synthesizers. There should be something more suitable than this, but I couldn't immediately find anything after looking around on Commons.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm, yeah it sucks. It requires someone capturing a good range of sounds to demonstrate different modes of synthesis, which would take a bit of thought. Popcornfud (talk) 10:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

"First mass produced synthesizer, the Yamaha DX-7"?

I reckon Roland, Korg, Oberheim and even Yamaha themselves would have a few things to say about that. SamXT (talk) 17:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it's plausible, depending on what you consider "mass produced". From the DX7 page: The DX7 was the first commercially successful digital synthesizer and remains one of the bestselling synthesizers in history. According to Bristow, Yamaha had hoped the DX7 would sell more than 20,000 units; within a year, orders exceeded 150,000, and it had sold 200,000 units after three years. It was the first synthesizer to sell more than 100,000 units. Yamaha manufactured units on a scale American competitors could not match; by comparison, Moog sold 12,000 Minimoog synthesizers in 11 years, and could not meet demand.

Do you have reliable sources showing other synths were mass-produced before? Popcornfud (talk) 17:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Around 6,000 Prophet-5 synths were made in their heyday. This would count as some degree of mass production, but it's nowhere near the sales of the DX-7.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Please, write the lead for folk comprehension

It shouldn't take expert knowledge of synthesizer technology to understand the lead. If there are technical terms, then they ought to be tersely explained, at least by explanatory footnotes, especially if the wikilink'd articles are written like this article. — Occurring (talk) 07:03, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to Synthesizers generate audio through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis, and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be shaped and modulated by components such as filters, envelopes, and low-frequency oscillators. These are indeed technical terms, but I think it's sufficient for the lead to merely say they are means of generating audio and means of shaping and modulating the sounds; readers don't have to understand all of them at this point. The article body (and the linked articles) go into greater explanatory detail about what they mean and how they work. Popcornfud (talk) 15:08, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I've boldly removed the jargon. Let me know if you think I've cut too deep. ~Kvng (talk) 02:37, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort to make the article more readable, but I don't think the change is an improvement.

• "an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals elecronically" - apart from the typo, it's tautological to say an electronic instrument produces audio electronically.
• It removes important information about the article subject from the lead. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarise the article body. These concepts are referred to extensively in the article so we shouldn't leave them out of the lead. It's right to include them as they are critical synthesizer concepts - they explain how synths produce sound.

As a random point of comparison, look at the Albert Einstein article. The lead there references several complex ideas, such as These outlined the theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced special relativity, and demonstrated mass-energy equivalence, which the average reader cannot be expected to understand or know about. But this is just a summary, so it's OK - the reader has opportunities to learn about these things in detail by reading the article or following the wikilinks. Popcornfud (talk) 12:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think that edit cut too deep. This is an encyclopedia, not "My Little Golden Book of Musical Instruments", for Pete's sake. Hyperlinks are IMO the best thing ever introduced for technical writing; they provide easy opportunity to look into unfamiliar terms, while not cluttering the text with wordy inline explication. Just plain Bill (talk) 13:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Bill. My edit was bold and hasty. I still think the second sentence that is basically a stack of technical terms is tough to get through. Is there a way to summarize this without listing and hyperlinking all possibilities? ~Kvng (talk) 12:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I should be thanking you for the systematic review process you've been chipping away at. I've got an idea or two, but the sun is just now coming up here, and it may take a while to put together something coherent. Cheers! Just plain Bill (talk) 12:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

4th paragraph of the intro and the start of impact are very similar/directly copied

I think the 4th paragraph of the intro could be removed or altered so that it separates the content that only fits well in the impact

The lead of the article is a summary of the main points of the article, so that's why elements are repeated. Popcornfud (talk) 18:48, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

oh never mind then 198.110.115.186 (talk) 14:27, 18 May 2022 (UTC)