Essynth — The Built-In Synthesizer

1. What is a synthesizer?

A synthesizer builds sound from electricity rather than strings or air. Instead of plucking a string and hearing one fixed sound, you shape the wave yourself — deciding how bright, how thick, how animated, and how long it rings. Every knob you turn is a choice: the oscillator chooses the raw color, the filter sculpts its edges, and the envelope decides how it moves through time.

Essynth lives inside every screen in ESSNCE. You can load its sounds onto sampler pads, drop them into drum tracks, or play melodies on the staff. It's not a separate instrument — it's the sound engine underneath everything.

2. Browse vs Design

Essynth opens in one of two modes depending on what you need: Browse to find sounds quickly, or Design to build them from scratch.

Browse Mode

When you first open Essynth from the COMPOSE screen, you land in Browse. A grid of category tiles greets you: Bass, Lead, Pad, Keys, FX, Drums, and All. A search bar at the top lets you type preset names to find exactly what you're looking for. Below the categories, a two-column preset grid shows available sounds with their names and a small category tag.

Design Mode

Tap a preset to load it, then tap it again to open the designer. This is where the full editor unfolds: four macro knobs, five tabs (OSC, FILT, ENV, LFO, MOD), and every parameter within them. From here you can tweak every detail of the sound or start fresh with the blank INIT PATCH — a raw sawtooth oscillator with no effects, no envelope shaping, no movement. It's a blank canvas.

3. The Four Macro Knobs

The four macro knobs — SHAPE, MOVE, BODY, and AIR — are the fastest way to transform any sound. Each one controls multiple parameters at once, so a single twist can completely change the character of a patch. Learn these four and you can dial in any sound in seconds.

SHAPE — Timbre

SHAPE controls the raw tonal color of the sound. It adjusts the oscillator waveform selection, the amount of bitcrushing, and the volume of the second oscillator. Turn right for brighter, harsher tones. Turn left for smoother, rounder sounds.

Try this: Load a sawtooth pad and turn SHAPE hard left — it becomes a mellow sine wave. The buzz disappears and the sound goes soft and pure. Now turn it hard right — it gets gritty, aggressive, almost distorted. That's the bitcrusher kicking in and Osc2 layering in for extra punch.

MOVE — Animation

MOVE controls how much the sound changes over time. It adjusts LFO1 amount, the free envelope amount, and filter contour. At centre, the sound is static — what you hear when you press a key is what stays. Turn right to add wobble, pulse, and filter movement.

Use MOVE on pads and leads to make them breathe. A pad with MOVE at 70% sounds alive — the filter slowly opens and closes, the volume pulses gently, and the note never feels the same from one moment to the next.

BODY — Low-Mid Weight

BODY adds meat. It controls the sub oscillator volume, resonance amount, and amp sustain. Turn right for more bass, more resonance bite, and longer sustain. This is the first knob you reach for when a sound is too thin.

For bass sounds, BODY is essential. A bass patch with BODY at 80% has weight you can feel — the sub oscillator fills out the low end, the resonance adds a growl at the filter's cutoff point, and the sustain keeps the note full as it plays.

AIR — High-End Openness

AIR controls the top end of the sound. It adjusts filter cutoff, key follow, and fine detune. Turn right for brighter, more open sounds. Turn left to darken and muffle.

On a pad that's getting lost in the mix, a little AIR pushes it forward — the filter opens, the high frequencies come through, and the sound cuts through without needing more volume. On a lead, AIR adds sparkle and presence.

4. OSC Tab — The Sound Source

The oscillator section is where sound is born. Essynth has two main oscillators plus a dedicated sub oscillator. Think of each oscillator like a strings section in an orchestra — it produces a raw tone with its own harmonic character. You can blend them, detune them, and modulate them to create everything from a solo flute to a wall of sawtooth fury.

Waveforms

Each waveform is a different shape of electrical vibration, and each shape has a distinct sound:

• Buzzy, bright, rich in harmonics. The classic synth sound — think supersaw leads, Reese basses, and pad layers. It's the most versatile waveform.
• A softer version of the saw wave with fewer upper harmonics. Warmer and less piercing. Great for pads that need body without harshness.
• Hollow and nasal. The character changes dramatically with the pulse width control — narrow pulses sound thin and reedy, wide pulses (square waves) sound fat and round. Think 8-bit games, dubstep bass, and vintage video game sounds.
• Pure and smooth. No harmonics at all — just a single frequency, like a flute or a tuning fork. Perfect for sub bass, soft leads, and adding weight without adding brightness.
• Hiss — all frequencies at once. Not a musical tone, but essential for percussion, wind effects, texture layers, and adding sizzle to drums.

OSC Mix XY Pad

The XY pad lets you blend Osc1 and Osc2 by dragging the dot. Horizontal controls the Osc1-to-Osc2 balance; vertical controls overall level. Top-left is pure Osc1, bottom-right is pure Osc2. The space between is where character lives.

Try 70% saw + 30% pulse for a thick lead — the saw provides body, the pulse adds a hollow edge that cuts through a mix. Or try detuning Osc2 by 7 cents and setting both to saw for the classic supersaw width.

Oscillator Parameters

Below the XY pad, each oscillator has its own parameter row:

• Semitone offset, ±24. Shift an oscillator up or down by octaves or fifths for instant intervals.
• Cents, ±100. Tiny pitch adjustments. Detuning two oscillators by 5–15 cents creates the thick, chorused sound heard in virtually every modern synth lead.
• Pulse width — only affects the pulse wave. Sweep from thin and nasal (10%) to square and hollow (50%) to fat and round (80%). Modulate this with an LFO for that classic PWM (pulse-width modulation) sound.
• Osc2 modulates the frequency of Osc1 at audio rates. Results range from metallic and bell-like (small amounts) to clangorous and chaotic (large amounts). Think ring modulator meets FM synthesis.
• Ring modulation — multiplies the two oscillator signals together. The output is disharmonic, dissonant, and metallic. Perfect for robot voices, sci-fi effects, and aggressive leads.
• Reduces the bit depth of the signal, introducing digital distortion and lo-fi crunch. Subtle settings add warmth; extreme settings turn your sound into a 1980s video game.

5. FILT Tab — Shaping the Tone

A filter removes frequencies. It's like an EQ, but with character — the resonance adds a peak at the cutoff point that makes filters sound musical rather than clinical. Where the oscillator creates raw sound, the filter sculpts it into something you actually want to listen to.

Filter Types

• 4-pole low-pass filter. Steep (24 dB/octave), warm, and classic — this is the Moog-style filter sound. It rolls off highs aggressively. Use it for bass, thick leads, and warm pads.
• 2-pole low-pass filter. Gentler slope (12 dB/octave). More of the original highs bleed through. Great for sounds that need filtering without completely losing their top end.
• High-pass filter. Removes bass instead of treble. Makes sounds thin, airy, and distant. Use it on percussion to tighten the low end, or on pads to create a telephone effect.
• Band-pass filter. Isolates a narrow band of frequencies, cutting everything above and below. The result is nasal and focused — think vintage telephone, lo-fi radio, or a wah pedal stuck in one position.

Cutoff × Resonance XY Pad

The XY pad is the heart of the filter section. Cutoff runs horizontally (left = darker, right = brighter). Resonance runs vertically (bottom = smooth, top = bite and squelch). The curved line visual on the pad shows you the filter shape in real time — you can see how steep the roll-off is and where the resonance peak sits.

Try this: Set LP24 with cutoff at 40% and resonance at 70%. Play a note and slowly drag the cutoff right. The sound goes from muffled to bright, and at the point where the resonance peak passes through the note's harmonics, you'll hear a musical howl — that's the filter singing.

Key Follow

Key follow makes higher notes open the filter more. At 100%, the cutoff tracks the keyboard exactly — play an octave up and the cutoff doubles. Use this to keep high notes from sounding dull. Without key follow, a bright bass sound can turn muddy when you play it up the keyboard.

Filter Contour

Filter contour controls how much the filter envelope opens the cutoff. At 0%, the envelope does nothing — the cutoff stays wherever you set it. At 100%, the envelope fully sweeps the cutoff range on every note. This is how you get plucky, percussive filter effects — set a fast attack, a short decay, and high contour, and every note punches through with a filter sweep.

6. ENV Tab — How Sound Changes Over Time

An envelope is a shape that controls how a parameter changes from the moment you press a key to the moment you release it. Every sound you've ever heard has an envelope — a piano note fades gradually, a guitar note swells and then decays, a snare drum hits instantly and dies quickly. Envelopes give sounds their sense of movement and physicality.

AMP ADSR

The amp envelope controls volume over time. Its four stages are:

• How long the sound takes to reach full volume after you press a key. 0 = instant (percussive). 2000ms = slow swell (cinematic pads).
• How long the sound takes to drop from peak to the sustain level after the attack phase completes.
• The volume level held while your finger stays on the key. 0% = the sound fades to silence (pluck, piano). 100% = the sound stays full (organ, pad).
• How long the sound takes to fade after you release the key. Short = tight and dry. Long = trailing tails and ambient washes.

For a pluck: attack 0, decay 200ms, sustain 0, release 50ms. The sound hits hard and dies immediately — perfect for bass plucks and pizzicato strings.

For a pad: attack 300ms, decay 500ms, sustain 80%, release 800ms. The sound swells in slowly, holds a rich body, and fades out gracefully when you let go.

FILTER ADSR

The same four-stage envelope but applied to the filter cutoff instead of volume. This is where movement lives. Set filter attack to 300ms and the sound goes from dark (filter closed) to bright (filter opens) on every note. Set a short decay for a wah-like bite at the beginning of each note — the classic funk clavinet sound.

Filter envelope amount (combined with the contour on the FILT tab) determines how much the envelope opens the filter. A positive amount pushes the cutoff up; a negative amount (if available) pulls it down for inverted sweeps.

FREE AD — The Extra Envelope

The free envelope is an additional attack-decay envelope (no sustain or release) that you can route to various destinations:

• Creates pitch dive bombs and chirps. Set attack to 0, decay to 120ms, route to PITCH with amount 60 — every note starts sharp and drops. Classic 808 kick drum effect.
• Extra filter movement on top of the main filter envelope. Stack them for complex, evolving filter shapes.
• Volume swells shorter than the main amp envelope. Use it for rhythmic accent patterns.
• Stereo sweeps — the sound moves left to right on each note.
• Modulate the modulator. The free AD speeds up or slows down LFO2 at the start of each note. Gets chaotic fast — great for sound design.

7. LFO Tab — Automatic Movement

An LFO — Low Frequency Oscillator — is a wave that moves too slowly to hear as a tone but fast enough to create audible change in other parameters. Think of it as an invisible hand turning a knob back and forth for you, automatically and precisely. LFOs are what turn a static sound into something that breathes, pulses, and evolves.

Two Independent LFOs

Essynth has two LFOs, each with its own rate, amount, waveform, destination, sync, and key trigger settings. You can use them together for complex modulation — LFO1 on the filter for a slow sweep, LFO2 on the amp for a faster tremolo, for example.

Waveforms

• Smooth back-and-forth motion. Natural vibrato, gentle filter wobbles.
• Like sine but with sharper peaks at the extremes. More pronounced modulation with the same amount setting.
• Rises slowly and snaps back to zero. Creates a helicopter or rising-sweep effect. Great for build-ups and tension.
• On/off square wave. Instant switching between two states — trance gates, rhythmic chopping, and stutter effects.
• Sample and hold — random stepped values. Produces the classic sci-fi computer sounds. Route it to pitch for bleeps, or to filter for robot vowel effects.

Animated Preview

Each LFO has a small display that shows the actual wave shape at the current rate. Watch it cycle as you adjust the rate knob — the visual shows you exactly how fast or slow the modulation will be before you even assign it to a destination.

Destinations

• Vibrato. Classic guitar or violin vibrato effect. Small amounts (2–5%) sound musical; large amounts sound like a siren.
• Filter wobble. The signature sound of dubstep and electronic bass music. Sync it to tempo for wobbles that lock to the beat.
• Tremolo. Automatic volume pulsing. Great for organs, Rhodes-style electric piano, and rhythmic pads.
• Auto-pan. The sound moves left and right in the stereo field. Slow rates create a sense of space; fast rates create a helicopter effect.
• Modulate the speed of the other LFO. Routes from LFO1 → LFO2 rate create chaotic, evolving modulation — the modulation itself is being modulated.
• Uses the amount set in the free envelope for hybrid ADSR + LFO modulation. Complex patches use this to create one-of-a-kind envelopes.

Sync

Locks the LFO rate to your project tempo. Choose note divisions: 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, or triplet variations. With sync on, the LFO pulse is always in time with your beat — essential for rhythmic wobbles, trance gates, and any modulation that needs to lock to the grid.

Key Trigger

Key trigger restarts the LFO waveform from zero on every new note. Without key trigger, two notes share the same LFO phase — press a key in the middle of the LFO's cycle and the modulation continues from wherever it is. With key trigger on, each note gets its own fresh wave starting at the beginning. Essential for consistent bass wobbles and rhythmic patches where every note needs to start the same way.

8. MOD Tab — Performance Controls

The MOD tab contains the controls that make Essynth respond to how you play — velocity, pitch wheel, and portamento. These are the difference between a sound that plays notes and a sound that performs.

Velocity Routing

Velocity is how hard you play a note. Essynth lets you route velocity to three destinations with independent amount sliders:

• Dynamic expression. Play softly for quiet notes, play hard for loud notes. This is the most natural and essential velocity mapping — without it, every note is the same volume.
• Harder playing opens the filter more. Bright, aggressive notes when you dig in; soft, dark notes when you play gently. This makes your performance feel alive and responsive.
• Harder playing increases the envelope amount. The result is more filter bite, more snap, more attack on loud notes. Combine this with velocity → cutoff for expressive, dramatic dynamics.

These three sliders give you expressive, touch-sensitive control over any sound without ever touching the screen.

Pitch Wheel

Two controls for the pitch wheel (or pitch bend on a connected MIDI controller):

• How many semitones the pitch wheel bends. 2 semitones is standard for realistic instrument bends (guitar, sax). 12 semitones bends a full octave — great for synth sweeps and dramatic drops.
• How much the pitch wheel also opens the filter. At 50%, pushing the wheel up both raises pitch and brightens the sound. Creates a unified, expressive gesture.

Portamento

Portamento — also called glide — makes notes slide into each other rather than jumping instantly.

• The speed of the glide. 0 = instant (no glide). 50 = slow and smooth. 100 = an extremely slow slide that takes seconds to reach the next note.
• Glide only happens when notes overlap (you press the second key before releasing the first). Monophonic glide — classic synth lead behaviour.
• Every note slides from the previous pitch, even if you play staccato. Creates the classic portamento effect heard in 80s synth solos and bass slides.

Try this: Set portamento rate to 30 with LEGATO mode, play a slow melody with overlapping notes — you get that smooth, liquid 80s synth lead feel instantly.

9. The Keyboard

The Essynth keyboard spans two octaves (C3 to C5) and supports multi-touch for chords. It's also velocity-sensitive — press higher on a key for quiet, lower for loud. The keyboard appears at the bottom of the Essynth screen whenever you're in the synth.

Above the keyboard sits the A/B hold button. Press and hold it to hear the original preset; release to hear your tweaks. This is your before/after comparison — an essential tool for knowing whether you've actually improved the sound or just made it different. Use it every time you make a change.

10. Save, Bake, Export

Once you've designed a sound you love, Essynth gives you three ways to capture it:

Save Preset

Your sound is saved as a preset and appears in the Browse library under the category you chose, as well as under a Custom section. It will be there every time you open Essynth, ready to load and play.

Save as Template

Templates are starting-point presets. When you create a new voice, your saved templates appear as seed options alongside the blank INIT PATCH. Use this for sounds that are the beginning of a family of patches — a basic saw lead, a simple bass, a clean pad — that you'll build on later.

Bake to Library

Baking renders the current preset as an audio sample (WAV file) and stores it in your Library. Use this to turn a synth sound into a sampler pad — now you can chop it, loop it, reverse it, or throw it on the timeline. Baking is how you move from synthesis to sampling in one step.

Export Voice Pack

Exports your preset as an SFZ format zip file. SFZ is an open standard for sample-based instruments. Share your sounds with other ESSNCE users or open them in any SFZ-compatible sampler — Sforzando, Decent Sampler, or any DAW that supports the format. Your sound travels anywhere.

11. Suggestions to Try

The best way to learn synthesis is to build sounds. Here are six starting points — each one teaches a different technique:

1. Load the INIT PATCH (a raw sawtooth). Add a second sawtooth oscillator detuned by 7 cents. Set filter to LP24 with cutoff at 40% and resonance at 60%. Set amp attack to 100ms, release to 400ms. You now have a classic supersaw lead — the foundation of countless electronic music tracks.
2. Take a bass preset. Turn BODY to max. Set FILTER ADSR decay to 200ms and amount to 60%. Now every note has a punchy filter bite at the start — the filter briefly opens wide and then closes, giving each note a percussive snap.
3. Use LFO1 on SINE waveform, destination FILTER, rate synced to 1/4, amount 30%. Instant breathing pad. The filter opens and closes every beat, making the sound feel alive and locked to your tempo.
4. Route FREE AD to PITCH with attack 0 and decay 120ms. Every note now has a quick pitch dive at the start — like a kick drum or 808. Try it on a bass patch and hear the difference it makes to the attack.
5. Set both oscillators to PULSE, detune by 15 cents, add LFO1 (TRI) to OSC1 pitch at rate 2Hz with amount 5. Classic detuned pulse lead — thin, hollow, and slightly wavering. The sound of 80s synth-pop.
6. Use the S&H LFO waveform on FILTER at a fast unsynced rate. The filter jumps between random cutoff values. Sci-fi computer sounds, perfect for texture layers and background atmospheres.