Synthesizers!

[leeward]

I did a project in college that involved adding up some waveforms to make a synthesizer with a particular sound. It was cool, but also a very long time ago (I don't remember the name of the software I used, but it was on classic MacOS) and to the extent there was once code, it's gone now. I'd like to take a crack at recreating it.

Is there a standard way people tell synthesizers what to play? Ideally I'd like to make a set of patches people could use. The closest I've gotten to the user side of this is loading a different sound font for my drum set in fluidsynth, so treat me like I know basically nothing.

[Basslint]

Well, I don't think there is a "standardized declarative language" for synths - the closest things I know are CSound (text) and PureData (visual).

[sysrqer]

VCV Rack if you know the basics of how synths work, or you want to learn.