# Synthesis Fundamentals

**Track:** Audio-Visual & Generative Music — Advanced Creative Coding — proposed (50)
**Framework / surface:** Tone.js
**Level:** Medium
**Prerequisites:** Functions & Modularity

**In one line:** Oscillators, ADSR envelopes, filters, FM/AM.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

Sound synthesis begins at the oscillator — sine, square, saw, triangle — whose raw harmonic content is then shaped. Subtractive synthesis, the architecture of Robert Moog's Minimoog, carves a bright waveform with a resonant filter, sculpting timbre by removing rather than adding. An ADSR envelope — attack, decay, sustain, release — governs how amplitude and brightness evolve across a note, the difference between a plucked string and a swelling pad. Modulation routings such as FM and AM, the basis of John Chowning's frequency-modulation work, fold spectra into metallic and bell-like tones. Built on the Web Audio API through Tone.js, these primitives compose the full vocabulary of electronic timbre.