@@ -22,9 +22,13 @@ If you don't want to really get into the details, here's a surface-level explana
The technical meanings of these terms are a bit different. And when we talk about analog vs digital synthesizers, what we mean is: in an analog synth, electronic components - capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, transistors, and integrated circuit (IC) chips - are arranged in configurations that create signals that we can turn into sound. Digital synths, on the other hand, replace a lot of these components with a computer (or a microcontroller like an Arduino).
To put it another way, imagine you need to carry out a specific task, like transporting a ball across a room. An analog synth is like creating a Rube-Goldberg machine to do this, setting up an array of different objects that, when placed in exactly the right way, will carry the ball where it needs to go. A digital synth would be more like a robot that you would program to understand the instruction 'carry a ball across the room'.
To put it another way, imagine you need to make breafast. But you don't want to do it yourself - you want a machine to automate the breakfast process. You could, say, design a robot and write code to instruct that robot on how to make breakfast (this is kind of like what a digital synth does), like one of Simone Giertz's robots:
Or you could create an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine out of various different objects, which all work together to make your breakfast (this being kind of like how the analog synth works). Like Yuri Suzuki's Breakfast Machine:
Building digital synths requires coding and less hands-on electronics, and analog synths require zero coding but lots and lots of different components. There's much debate about which is the superior form of sound synthesis, but for me personally I found it satisfying to create circuits the analog way. I've written more about my decision to go the analog route in my [project diary](https://class.textile-academy.org/2019/jessica.stanley/projects/project_diary/week01/)
