I like to play with the synthisizers at best buy.

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In the beginning, God made one giant batch of candy
corn, and it has been circulating the earth ever since.

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wow!! that's cool and to think they were around in the 80s

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They were much more basic back then. You couldn't come up with NEARLY as many sounds as it was still probably 8 or 16 bit at that point. Everything sounded like a gameboy.

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Educators destroy your brain,
but you don't know, so why care?
Fagotto

there are four basic waveforms: sine, square, triangle and sawtooth. (tried to include site but shit broke pm me if you want it, explains those waveforms in greater detail)

shortening and lengthening these waveforms leads to a change in pitch. there are probably ways you can combine waveforms as well.

(image from http://www.mesaboogie.com/US/Smith/ClassA-WebVersion.htm)
if you hit a note on a guitar, it would look something similar to this. notice there is a sharp attack, followed by a gradual and slow decay. those are two very important principles that develop a characteristic sound. a cello, for instance, would not have a sharp attack, it would be a gradual climb followed by a gradual descent. manipulating this is part of programming presets in a synth.

there used to be a great 3 part set of youtube videos called "discovering electronic music" but it looks like they're gone now.

hope this helped.