KEYS
TIME TO ATTACK ! ADSR FUNDAMENTALS | David Pfaltzgraff
In worship music today , you may find the list of ‘ go-to worship sounds ’ seems to be growing rather exponentially . While you might have been able to get by with a single warm pad and piano sound five or ten years ago , it ’ s a lot less likely today that you ’ d be able to accurately cover the keys sounds from a four song setlist with just one or two presets .
All of this growth and all these new and different textures beg the question : what ’ s really different about any of these sounds ? Oftentimes I notice I can feel that a given pad or synth sound is different more than anything I can clearly articulate at first listen .
To begin to understand the concrete differences between synth sounds and textures it ’ s helpful and necessary to go back to the fundamentals that are still near universally applied to even the most complex synth tones around today .
DON ’ T ATTACK ME
The ADSR values of an Envelope inside your synthesizer are some of the most important parameters you can use to shape your sound . Most modern synthesizers and plugins feature multiple envelopes that you can use to modulate most any other parameter but the earliest and one of the most impactful parameters to modulate to this day is the ‘ Amp ’ or ‘ Volume ’.
Different values for the Attack Time ( A ), Decay Time ( D ), Sustain Level ( S ), and Release Time ( R ) give drastically different results that can turn a super saw lead into a brass synth or string pad with just a few , simple changes .
Let ’ s start at the beginning , with Attack Time . This value dictates how long it will take for your sound to ‘ fade in ’. Values at or close to zero will enter in abruptly and longer values will result in a legato , string-like attack as the sound smoothly ramps up to full volume .
Many , but not all pads rely on longer Attack Times as one of the signature qualities of their sound . On the other hand , oftentimes you can add missing intensity to a lead sound by dialing in a shorter Attack Time .
Small differences in the Attack Time can have a huge impact , so it ’ s often best to spend a minute or two trying different values when you ’ re working on dialing in a sound .
DECAY , EH ?
The next two values in a standard ADSR Envelope work together so we ’ ll discuss ‘ Decay Time ’ and ‘ Sustain Level ’ together here . After the initial Attack Time has passed you can use these two parameters to tell your synth the ‘ long term volume ’ of the sound . That volume is set via the ‘ Sustain Level ’ parameter and the ‘ Decay Time ’ parameter ’ s value sets the amount of time it takes for the volume to transition from the initial volume to the longterm volume I just mentioned .
If you ’ re working in software like MainStage or Ableton Live or with a modern hardware keyboard from companies like KORG , Yamaha , Roland , or Nord you ’ ll find browsing all of the preset synth sounds in these tools a great way to observe the impact different Decay and Sustain values have on a sound .