Patch (synthesizer)

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A patch, in terms of music synthesizers, is a sound setting. For example, a synthesizer may have patches for a piano sound, a guitar sound, etc.

Modular synthesizers, the first synthesizers, used cables to patch the different sound modules together. Since these machines had no memory to save settings, musicians wrote down the locations of the patch cables and knob positions on a patch sheet (which usually showed a diagram of the synthesizer). After this, an overall sound setting for any type of synthesizer has been known as a patch.