A polyphonic synthesizer can play more than one sound, or "voice," at the same time. This ability allows you to create unison effects and incorporate portamento, or gliding, into a melody line. Cubase SX3 includes two polyphonic synthesizers: A1 and Embracer. The A1 is an all-purpose synth; it includes both pulse width and frequency modulation, as well as configurable filters and low-frequency oscillators, or LFOs. Embracer is designed to create ambient and background synthesized sounds. It features an intuitive "eye" controller that uses a visual representation of the stereo field to control the instrument's parameters.
A monophonic synthesizer can play only one sound at a time. Monophonic synths are more limited than polyphonic instruments; however, they also consume fewer system resources when loaded into memory. Cubase SX3 comes with the Monologue monophonic synthesizer, which can generate saw waves, square waves, triangle waves and white noise. Use its two filters and one LFO to shape the generated waves into a synth lead or bass sound.
Cubase SX3's built-in drum machine allows you to load up to 12 drum samples into the instrument, then control them through MIDI. Once you've loaded the samples, you can adjust their volume, velocity and pan settings; you can also tune the drums to bring them into the key of the song you're composing. The LM-7 comes with six sets of drum samples, including a bank that emulates the classic Roland TR-909 drum machine.
The VB-1 bass synth uses physical modeling, which simulates the sound of an actual instrument through the use of mathematical equations, to create realistic electric bass guitar sounds. It has a limited set of configurable parameters; however, you can adjust the sound's attack and release settings, as well as the shape of the base wave that controls the physical modeling equations. You can also move the virtual guitar pickup to alter the sound's character.