Further Advances in Hardware Design
Peter Manning · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
The early 1990s saw the peak levels of activity in the design of MIDI synthesizers and samplers, with just a few exceptions now based on all-digital technologies. Manufacturers continued to refine the functional characteristics of their products, for example improving the fidelity of samplers and expanding the repertory of synthesis algorithms and signal processing facilities. As the decade advanced, increasing attention was paid to the possibilities of retro-synthesis, whereby older predominantly analog methods of electronic sound production are modeled using modern digital technologies. This quest for more innovative approaches to hardware design was to prove timely, for it became increasingly apparent that the personal computer was coming of age as a facility for music synthesis in its own right. As a consequence the future prosperity of the hardware manufacturing sector became increasingly less assured.