Subtractive synthesis

Subtractive synthesis is like baking a cake. Imagine you have a big bowl of cake batter that includes all the ingredients such as flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. But you want to make a specific kind of cake that only has chocolate flavor. So, you start taking away some of the ingredients that you don't need, like the vanilla extract and milk. This is called "subtracting" or removing things from the cake batter to create a different sound or taste.

Similarly, subtractive synthesis is a way of creating sound by starting with a "big bowl" of sound, called a waveform, that includes all the frequencies and overtones. Then, you use tools, like filters, to "subtract" or remove certain frequencies from the waveform. This allows you to sculpt the sound and create new, unique sounds that you want.

It's like having a giant box of crayons with all the colors mixed together, and then using a white crayon to remove some colors to create a new color. Subtractive synthesis is all about taking away pieces to create something new, just like baking a cake or coloring a picture.