Synth Guts: What's inside my Synth?

[SynthWizard]

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Synth Guts: What's inside my Synth?

I was inspired by a recent post where someone asked why there is a paradigm of only 8 modulation slots on a lot of synths. Also, I have noticed that a couple of my synths sometimes feel as though they are lagging - system functions can feel slow, like they are overburdened.

So, what are these machines running on? What are the specs of the processors? Are they using custom, specialized chips (I am assuming some are) or generic DSP processors or ARM or something? What sort of ram are they using? I am sure there is a combo of specialized chips and regular parts just like everything else electronic. The only discussion I have seen about processors was caused by the Waldorf Kyra and it's use of an FPGA, (although now I know there are other FPGA synths out there).

Are synths very demanding in terms of processing power? I never really thought they were, to be honest.

Someone also commented in the 8-modulation-slot thread that 90's digital synths put our current ones to shame in terms of multi-timbrality, etc. So clearly, technologically, we could have some amazing digital synths right now, but the industry just doesn't want to do it, even though they USED to do it.

There are many Youtube channels that do videogame, Iphone, Gadget, teardowns - It would be cool if there was one that did that to synths.

submitted by /u/Altwolf
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