Can you hard sync two synths?

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1

Can you hard sync two synths? You know, like with an analog synth.

Sorry to ask, but searches for ‘sync’ here bring up other subjects :smile:

2

Hi there,

unfortunately I’m not sure what you mean.

Calls to play, synth and midi (and any other function other than sleep or sync) are automatically “hard synced” if they happen at the same time. By same time, I mean specifically that they’re not separated with a call to sleep or sync.

So:

play 70
midi 70
synth :tb303, note: 70

are all hard synced automatically.

Hope that this helps.

3

Ah, sorry no I mean the modulation technique like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillator_sync responsible for some of the classic synth sounds.

4

Hello @soxsa,
If by ‘hard sync two synths’ you mean two oscillators, then:
Short answer, no, you cannot hard sync this way with any existing Sonic Pi synths.
Longer answer:
The synths that are built for Sonic Pi are ultimately designed in and meant to be run by SuperCollider, Sonic Pi’s sound engine. SuperCollider unfortunately has barely any ‘out of the box’ components for creating hard syncing synths. The one or two that do exist are not ‘band limited’, which means they can produce undesirable noise artefacts in certain situations.
There have been a few discussions previously about making hard syncing easier, which would likely involve creating new ‘UGens’ (synth building blocks) to allow it. However, I’m not sure that much has progressed since that point a few years ago. See below:

I myself have also been interested in creating synths which allow hard sync - I’ve just never gotten to the point where it was a huge priority is all. I’ll follow up with the folks involved in the above discussion and see if there’s a possibility of things developing :slight_smile:

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5

Thanks Ethan. It’s a nice-to-have, not a showstopper though. I’m exploring the space.