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Learning Synths

learningsynths.ableton.com

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Re: Learning Synths

#101

Post by xtagon »

56j56n65u656 wrote: post #57
weatherlight wrote: post #30

If you want to understand (Subtractive) synthesis. The best way is to get copy of VCV rack and follow a few tutorials. If you patch one subtractive mono synth voice once, you understand 80% of all subtractive synth architecture moving forward. https://vcvrack.com (open source and wonderful) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35OhojjqDs Happy patching :) There's a bunch of other really interesting types of synthesis and…

Good lord what a horrible recommendation. This is like telling someone to learn programming by starting with assembly. If you want to actually learn subtractive synthesis minus the complexity use an all in one synth VST like Surge which is free and open source and you won't have to worry about tedious fundamentals that don't actually matter unless you're doing modular synthesis. Helm is another great VST. Once you un…

> This is like telling someone to learn programming by starting with assembly.

Believe it or not, this is some people's preferred learning style. See also: Nand2Tetris, Linux From Scratch

Re: Learning Synths

#102

Post by Crunchified »

bodge5000 wrote: post #97
weatherlight wrote: post #30

If you want to understand (Subtractive) synthesis. The best way is to get copy of VCV rack and follow a few tutorials. If you patch one subtractive mono synth voice once, you understand 80% of all subtractive synth architecture moving forward. https://vcvrack.com (open source and wonderful) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35OhojjqDs Happy patching :) There's a bunch of other really interesting types of synthesis and…

Personally I'm not sure I'd use VCV rack as an entry into subtractive synthesis, simply because there's so much to modular synthesis it could be hard to untangle one concept from another. That being said, I think it is a great intro to synthesis as a whole. For me, it was the microbrute which really taught me subtractive synthesis, simply because of how stripped back it was, I couldn't just add a new module to cover…

I did exactly that as well. I wanted to figure out what a synthesizer does/is, so I bought a MicroBrute and had a great deal of fun with it.

So much fun, in fact, that I bought a MatrixBrute not terribly long afterward. Now _that's_ a monosynth to last me a lifetime!

Re: Learning Synths

#103

Post by IAmGraydon »

The presentation is cool but the order here is pretty bad. When teaching subtractive synthesis, you really should start with the oscillators and their waveforms (sine, tri, saw, square), then talk about filter, then amplitude. That’s really all there is to it - create a fundamental and a series of harmonics, carve it away with a filter and then give it an amplitude envelope. I love Ableton, but I think they may have been a bit too focused on making this look nice.

Re: Learning Synths

#104

Post by IAmGraydon »

an_aparallel wrote: post #100

I'd recommend a simple subtractive synth as a first: >Behringer Model D >Novation Bass Station 2 Recommending VCV is horrible advice - unless your idea of learning synthesis is getting RSI...I think VCV is a great testing bed for trying modular ideas...once you understand synthesis...i think a huge draw back of VCV is the plethora of choice - it's just way way too much. I learnt modular on a real life Doepfer modular…

I would challenge what you’re saying. An integrated synthesizer like the Model D doesn’t make the normalled signal path apparent. On the other hand, modular forces you to see exactly what’s happening. You wire an oscillator to a filter. You wire the filter to the VCA. You trigger the VCA with a voltage envelope. You need a good teacher or tutorial, but if you have that, modular or virtual modular is a far better teaching tool IMO.

Re: Learning Synths

#105

Post by alfiedotwtf »

alexjplant wrote: post #75
weatherlight wrote: post #30

If you want to understand (Subtractive) synthesis. The best way is to get copy of VCV rack and follow a few tutorials. If you patch one subtractive mono synth voice once, you understand 80% of all subtractive synth architecture moving forward. https://vcvrack.com (open source and wonderful) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35OhojjqDs Happy patching :) There's a bunch of other really interesting types of synthesis and…

I bought a Moog Mother-32 and read the manual - I remember it being very thick (for modern music gear) and informative. I didn't do too much patching but by the time I was done I understood the basics of subtractive synthesis. A few years earlier I also had a DX9 that I foolishly used to try and emulate analog sounds. Somehow I stumbled across an article on Fourier series and how infinite sinusoidal summations could…

Yes! The Minilogue was where it clicked for me - solely because is its oscilloscope

Re: Learning Synths

#106

Post by brudgers »

weatherlight wrote: post #96
brudgers wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they may make some cool noises That is the point of making music. The rest is exhaust fumes. You don’t have to know how something works to know how it sounds. And nobody ever danced to a lecture on signal flow.

Again, the OPs post is an introduction to synthesis. Good luck finding those “sounds.”

You don’t have to know theory to make acid with a TB-303, i.e. the subtractive synth that changed music the most.

Re: Learning Synths

#107

Post by aecorredor »

Ableton is awesome for putting this type of stuff out. The learning music section is also great. And, it's a perfect post for a shameless plug: I built a u-he Diva (my favorite VST synth) tool for generating presets with AI. It's called Diva Copilot and it can be accessed at https://divacopilot.com - I started out by offering a free trial with 10 free presets and then a monthly $20 plan with 50 presets. You can also buy on-demand credits. It works on top of a custom built RAG system that then uses GPT-4o for actually generating .h2p files. I'm mainly working on improving the knowledge base so that results get better and better. Still, you can already get some super good results. I put some examples in the landing page. Would love to get some feedback!

Re: Learning Synths

#108

Post by mtizim »

56j56n65u656 wrote: post #57
weatherlight wrote: post #30

If you want to understand (Subtractive) synthesis. The best way is to get copy of VCV rack and follow a few tutorials. If you patch one subtractive mono synth voice once, you understand 80% of all subtractive synth architecture moving forward. https://vcvrack.com (open source and wonderful) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35OhojjqDs Happy patching :) There's a bunch of other really interesting types of synthesis and…

Good lord what a horrible recommendation. This is like telling someone to learn programming by starting with assembly. If you want to actually learn subtractive synthesis minus the complexity use an all in one synth VST like Surge which is free and open source and you won't have to worry about tedious fundamentals that don't actually matter unless you're doing modular synthesis. Helm is another great VST. Once you un…

I don't agree at all, vcv rack helped me understand synthesis in a much deeper way than I would have otherwise. What's a retrigger? Oscillator drift? Why do you modulate with a lfo? These are much simpler to understand when you're patching modules by hand in vcv, especially when you start with a blank slate.

On the other hand, before vcv, seeing a vst synth just had me overwhelmed instead.

I'd recommend everyone reading this to get free vcv + the surge vcv library, and just play around with it.

Re: Learning Synths

#109

Post by weatherlight »

adriand wrote: post #99
weatherlight wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original post is about synthesis and learning about synthesis. Not music theory or how to program an acid patch. Those are separate skills.

No it isn't, the original post is "Learning Synths", not "Learning Synthesis". It actually is a tutorial on how you might go about programming an acid patch (or a bass, or a wind instrument, or whatever).

The first two-thirds of this tutorial seems to be focused on breaking down the components of a standard subtractive synthesizer (essentially the synthesis process itself). However, it doesn’t really delve into how these components are interconnected or how they operate as a cohesive system. The latter part of the tutorial is more aligned with what you're referring to. That said, the knowledge gained here isn’t universally applicable to all synthesizers, it's only applicable to Subtractive Synths. If the tutorial took just one additional step, it could provide a more complete foundation, but as it stands, it leaves you wanting more (or worse, not know you need to know more). For a more versatile pointed approach, I suggested using something like VCV Rack, because Its modular interface allows you to import only the modules you need to explore or explain a specific synthesis method. This hands-on method enables you to experiment and internalize the concepts, which can then be applied to the synthesizers you have on hand.

Most tutorial videos are 5-10 minutes long, and completely reproducible and it's very clear the signal flow from one part to the next.

Re: Learning Synths

#110

Post by weatherlight »

brudgers wrote: post #106
weatherlight wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the OPs post is an introduction to synthesis. Good luck finding those “sounds.”

You don’t have to know theory to make acid with a TB-303, i.e. the subtractive synth that changed music the most.

Not every one has a 303, Maybe they want to take that cheap Behringer mono synth and do acid on that?

one could argue what made it great was that it only has 5 parameters that affects it's sound and it's sequencer, (and it was a total flop financially for Roland and could bought 2nd hand for like 50 bucks in Detroit. and dance music is better for it!)

and as per the subtractive synth that change music the most...I'm going to go with Moog or mini-Moog, without them there's no 303, 101, Juno, Jupiter, etc.

I love me some good acid-house though, and much rather have a 303 then a mini-moog. :)

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