ABSTRACT
Since their inception in the early 1980s, MIDI-based electronic instruments have played an important role in the development of music technology and production. Although electronic instruments often differ from one another in looks, form and function, they almost always share a common set of basic building block components, including: central processing unit, performance controllers, control panel, memory, voice circuitry, auxiliary controllers, and communications ports. This chapter focuses on the various types of MIDI instruments that are currently available on the market. A synthesizer (or synth) is an electronic instrument that uses multiple sound generators, filters and oscillator blocks to create complex waveforms that can be combined into countless sonic variations. Synthesizers use a number of different technologies or program algorithms to generate sounds, such as: FM synthesis, wavetable synthesis, additive synthesis, and subtractive synthesis.
