Original article: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/synthsecrets.htm
The characteristic sound of flute-like instruments is complex --- but fortunately not so complex that it can't be emulated fairly successfully with a synthesizer... This is the 52nd article in a 63-part series. Read all parts.
Gordon Reid
Before I ever touched a synthesizer, I played organs. Big ones, mind you... three-manual jobbies with 32-foot pipes that made a sound that you heard with your lungs, not your ears. And on these organs, there were numerous stops called 'flutes'. They sounded nothing like the instruments played by Ian Anderson and James Galway, but produced a softer sound than the strident brass stops, and a rounder one than the nasal reeds. With a following wind and a vivid imagination, you could picture them fulfilling a similar function to orchestral woodwind.
Later on, I bought my first synth and spent endless happy hours setting up the patches I found on the back of its four-page manual. One of these was, inevitably, a flute, but I could never get it to sound like the real instrument. As for the lovely, breathy sound of the pan flute, I couldn't come close. This was very disappointing, but I persevered because I knew that synths could produce good imitations of flutes... I had seen Genesis, and watched Tony Banks use an ARP ProSoloist to play Peter Gabriel's flute parts to remarkably good effect.
Nonetheless, my Korg 700, its replacement the MS20, and later additions such as the Roland SH1000 and SH2000 all failed to deliver, and it wasn't until I bought some rather sophisticated synths in the mid'80s that I managed to conquer these sounds. So, in an effort to save you from my decade of frustration, we'll embark upon the Synth Secrets guide to synthesizing flutes.
The Principles Of The Flute
There are many instruments in the flute family, all of which use a sharp edge to excite a column of air in a cylindrical pipe. The family includes pan pipes, recorders, the Shakuhachi, and organ pipes, as well as the familiar orchestral flute and piccolo.
Figure 1: Energising a column of air in a brass instrument.
Figure 1: Energising a column of air in a brass instrument.