THis guy is my favorite professor from my school. He has posted online lectures because of COVID and decided to put it up on his youtube channel so people can watch.

back in the day this course had like 25 official seats but like 40 people would show up every day to "unofficially" audit the course.

I particularly loved how he was able to be vulnerable and admit that, even with a PhD in EE/CS, he had no idea what was happening in most circuits when he started.

Mad props to that. I don't know a lot of PhDs who'd cop to not knowing something.

I've been interested in audio. I have no electronics background, so I am overwhelmed by the topic. I find there's a lot I don't understand, and a lot of tutorials online don't quite give me an understanding I'm looking for.

If anyone is looking to be inspired (rather than be informed, necessarily), check out the crazy English guy (is there any other sort?) who runs the channel Look Mum No Computer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafxR2HWJRmMfSdyZXvZMTw

He's got quirky things like a Furby Organ, a 1000 oscillator megadrone, and a cryptocurrency synthesiser. He is also opening a museum soon: The Museum Of Everything Else, dedicated to old music and electronic stuff. It even includes a telephone exchange and his Googol clock, which he plans to never turn off. He also has a flamethrower synth, which he uses indoors. And he has a safety pin for an earring.

Love it.

Thanks for this

If you get into synthesizers and music production, I highly recommend picking up a couple of Korg Volcas. They're not fancy, you won't impress any synth musicians with them, but their design is wonderfully fun. They often get overlooked by "serious" bloopmakers; they're a bit limited in capability, inexpensive, and the sound quality (noise floor especially) is not that of a high end synth. But their immediacy, learning curve, and common design makes it very easy and fun to play with. I can get someone who's never played any music in their life to start making beats and dance rhythms with me in under an hour. Elektron has some similar devices in the Models line, but their learning curve (and capabilities) are greater.

If I had $800 to spend on gear, I would much rather have 3 volcas covering rhythm, bass, and lead, and a mixer and recorder, than a single mid-range synth. I'd be able to make more professional sounding tunes with just a license for a major DAW (and maybe one piece of hardware with the leftover cash), but the fun factor and joy of beat crafting would be far greater.

Basically I'm a huge fanboy of Tatsuya Takahashi, a man who went to Korg with a home-built synth from his engineering degree's final year, got a job, and ended up causing a relatively large shift in the industry. There's an interview with him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb_-q5GKxK4

I also recommend the Keystep 37[2] from Arturia as a MIDI controller -- super interesting sequencer and arpeggiator plus decent quality mini-keyboard and some assignable knobs -- but must point out that it's only "bus powered" on a computer, your iPad or smartphone probably won't power it without an additional power bank.

[0]: https://www.korg.com/products/dj/volca_modular/

[1]: https://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/volca_keys/

[2]: https://www.arturia.com/products/hybrid-synths/keystep-37/ov...

I have “a few YouTube videos” worth of interest. Not ten channels of subscription level.

And try installing Audiokit Synth One (it’s free) on your iPhone or iPad to mess around with. Best to learn how oscillators, filters, envelopes and LFOs work from just messing around with a synth.

1) Hardware is a lot more fun than software. Being able to twist knobs two-handed, live, not using a mouse, is pretty freaking cool, and is a big part of the experience, IMO

2) If you do spend money, don't write off the volcas. They may offer less sound design, but they're a great capturing of that experience essence. You can syncronize a few, put in a mixer, and jam with a friend or two very easily. It's an expensive hobby if one falls into it's rabbit hole, but this particular model line is both inexpensive and good.

It's a personal preference but there's just something about the physical hardware that I like better than software

There's a whole world to explore in subtractive synthesis, but you may find yourself at some point wanting to go outside that paradigm, and if so, it's easier to explore in the digital realm.

If you wish to train your ear and learn subtractive synthesis I'd highly recommend https://www.syntorial.com/, which makes you recreate various sounds in a very structured and interactive way, slowly building up complexity.

Syntorial will get you far down the road of listening to the elements of subtractive synthesis. It’s a happy journey and one that gives you subtractive synth skills that can be applied to any of the hardware recommended here.

Almost all early sound cards had an FM chip, so I forget that people today might not have been exposed to this tech.

Also, there is the interesting area between the AdLib ROL/MIDI synthesis and full blown digitized audio such as wav/mp3... the demoscene was sampling digital audio, chopping it up (MOD/S3M/etc. file format). The result was a wav-like audio file in a tiny file size. Some of the tracker formats, such as Scream Tracker I believe, could do both FM synth and PCM output[4]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USNTZl7DGls

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_g7WQMnFE

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQa7uSFA0Zg

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lFNYJ7B820

This is typically called wavetable synthesis. You generate the (typically complex) waveform using other means, then load it into the synth and do stuff with it.

I remember ripping .MOD files from DOS games and marvelling at how well they were composed/crafted. In particular, I still remember some amazing work by Andrew Sega, aka "Necros" [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sega

Thank you for your comment, it brought back wonderful memories.

Getting "the sound in your head" coming out of the machine takes lots of practice, but this really, really gives you a running start.

[UPDATE] Here we go: https://learningsynths.ableton.com

https://vcvrack.com/

oscs, filters, lfos, envelopes, vcos . . . for a beginner, this is all hard enough without adding control signals and fancy routings to the equation.

Rack is amazing; I don't mean to criticize it in any way. But if you're trying to learn to fly, you might want to start with a Cessna instead of trying to jump into the cockpit of a 787.

I got VCV Rack (via MiRack on iOS) because it has clones of some popular open source modules like Clouds that I really wanted to play with. And what I learned is…maybe full modular is not actually a good fit for me. Some of that is lack of experience with it for sure, some of it is that it ain’t physical.

It just takes SO LONG to get anything interesting to happen. Wiring a sequencer and a gate to an osc and envelope, throwing in other control signals for texture and effects, making it all sound good, all takes ages.

I haven’t given up on it, and I’m very excited to see what happens in the next few years with VR. If someone remakes VCV Rack with a VR front end, it’ll probably convince me to finally buy a rig. Synthspace [1] looks like fun, and is a great proof of concept, but relying on one person for modules might be a dealbreaker for me.

I think if I ever get into modular, it’ll be to build a small system to mostly work with (and sometimes against) live sampled input, like this setup from Knobs. [2] I might be able to start even smaller by picking up something to enhance my Subharmonicon… (Danger! Rising expenses ahead!)

[1] https://www.engadget.com/synthspace-vr-modular-synth-0201085...

[2] https://youtu.be/i7e58SE0gU4

Virtual modular isn't going to sound quite like real analog but it's a great way to learn and experiment at very low cost.

I have promised myself to get VCVRack working before I spend any real money on modular gear.

[0]: https://mirack.app

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfJ9Dbjz6cs

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNk-lIFq7ms&t=1301s

Neither of the books that I'll recommend here are specifically about learning to play analog synths, but they both give a bunch of background to understanding analog and digital synthesis:

I read an earlier edition of this when I was getting into working in electronic music, and found the background very useful and a pleasure to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music-Thom-Ho...

This one is specifically not about analog synthesis (but rather digital synthesis and sound processing), but is kind of a classic in the field:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computer-music-tutorial

The most common physical analog synths have two to three oscillators and a resonating filter. The first book would give you enough info to know what that means and begin to explore the space a little more intelligently.

Assuming you're a programmer, you can also do a lot of things by creating synths using either a visual or code-based synths on your own. I'm partial to ChucK, but there's also Supercolider, CSound, Max, Pd, Reaktor, ...

https://omricohen-music.com/index.php/2019/09/05/new-to-modu...

VCV is an amazing tool, seriously amazing. I would have never dove into modular without it as the cost to entry is just too high. VCV also nice because you can play with what you want and just ditch it if you don't like it. Can't say that when you buy a $550 module.

Highly recommend VCV + Omri videos.

This guy has a channel where he builds up analog synths from basic components. He does a great job explaining the intuition.

[1] https://youtu.be/l1B7ym59VJs [2] https://tinyurl.com/cubase11book

It sounds more like the former; in that case Puckette's book is a classic (and free) http://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest/book.pdf

If you want to follow along with your own synthesizer, there's a breadth of options ranging from software recreations of the 2600 to a licensed hardware reissue, but for $25 you can get Cherry Audio's respected CA2600: https://cherryaudio.com/instruments/ca2600

So if you go the route of buying a broken one and restoring it make sure you refresh all of the caps that are across the voltage rails (of which there are quite a few).

There are really only 4 main waves: Sine, Square, Triangle, and Sawtooth. The "complexity" comes from using these waves to modulate and transform each other. Apply Volume: labeled as Attack, Sustain, Decay, and Release; and you have yourself a patch! Find any synthesizer plugin, load up some of the patches, and start twiddling knobs: Disable things and break each patch down to it's individual components. You can get a feel for how complex sounds are built with "digital VCO's".

Music isn't an exact science: You just have to play with it until it sounds good to you. Have fun =)

These are the main shapes from a user standpoint =)

I see that sine are "no harmonics", sawtooth are "all harmonics", square are "odd harmonics" but a triangle wave is also all odd harmonics. Okay.

Why these 4 forms? There are lots of other forms, like a cycloid.

Last question: is a sawtooth heard as an octave lower than a square wave, because there is only one pulse per cycle, whereas a square has two pulses per cycle?

The original big modulars included oscillator sync - which locked a bank of oscillators together - and waveform mixing. So you could create more complex shapes. (With some effort and imagination, and not in a particularly intuitive way.)

When digital started to become a thing in the 80s you could start using any shape, including your own hand-drawn waveshapes or a custom mix of overtones.

But that turned out to be less exciting than expected, so most people just switched to samples instead.

A sawtooth is not heard an octave lower. The fundamental is the same for both shapes, because the Fourier decomposition has the same f0.

There are some unexpected psychoacoustic effects which change the perception of fundamental pitch. E.g there's almost no fundamental in the lowest octave of a piano, but our ears fill it in anyway.

But simple repeating shapes tend to do what it says on the label. (And in the textbook.)

Overall, nice stories, thank you. I'd be surprised by the lack of the fundamental in a grand piano. However, I've heard that's true of small headphones, where they simply mechanically can't produce large wavelengths. Yet they are heard!

In the early days of synthesizers the goal was to emulate non-electronic instruments, so familiar waveforms were desirable. Then Bob Moog came along and said "Synthesizers are instrumemts in their own right and should not be considered as imitating something else" and then Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach and the rest is history.

I’d argue that Don Buchla pushed synthesizers further than Bob Moog did when it comes to being their own instrument vs imitating something else, but he was also pushing for a radical departure from 500 years of western music in general. (Read: “what is this godawful noise, and why are you subjecting me to it??”)

Why include a piano keyboard at all? Why think of “playing measures in a score” when you can wire up and interact with something that feels like a living system and see what happens? It’s the musical equivalent of “what is THAT thing!? What if I try to pet it, or poke it with a stick?” You might get bitten.

This gets close to the heart of the East Coast (Moog) vs West Coast (Buchla) styles of synthesis. I’m not dissing Bob Moog in the slightest here: I’d rather listen to more conventional western music the vast majority of the time, and he was integral in carving out synths as a legitimate instrument. You’re not wrong.

Sometimes I just gotta let go and let something like Silver Apples of the Moon [x] roll through my head. Not often, maybe not even all the way through, and I almost always skip the first two minutes. I love being reminded that synths have had this wild streak running through them since basically the beginning though.

One of the cool things that’s happened with the rise of Eurorack and the splintering of musical genres is that you can find much more music that ignores the East/West coast divide, taking elements of each and using them wisely to serve the purpose of song. Silver Apples around 23:00 could easily fit in a Nine Inch Nails track, for example. This has been going on for decades; the Eurorack standard just makes it more likely to continue, for which I am thankful.

[x] https://youtu.be/3G1hRNLlYpg

As to Silver Apples, I just could never get into that style of music. When I was studying this stuff in college our instructor was very enamored with the Subotnick/Stockhausen "bleeps and bloops" style. We had a giant E-mu modular in the lab and he wanted us to avoid using its keyboard. But whenever I was on my own I of course used the keyboard. Then one day a truck rolled up to the lab and dropped off a crate labeled "Fairlight" and I fell in love hard but that's another story.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karplus%E2%80%93Strong_strin...

It has to do with Voltage Control Oscillators, or VCO's, and actually controlling Voltages with physical components: These are the shapes you can actually make. Modulation is applying a waveform to another, so, if you apply a Triangle wave to a Sine wave you'll get another more complex wave that looks and sounds like neither of the two. You can theoretically make infinite shapes by modulating these forms with each other again and again. This is the bread and butter of analog synthesizers.

I don't think a square, or any wave, is measured in groups of two pulses. "Pitch" is just how many times the pattern repeats per second, the same as how many times a string would vibrate back and forth on a guitar when you pluck it.

Harmonics is a deep rabbit hole that i don't quite understand myself, so, i don't feel comfortable speaking to that.

It teaches the basic building blocks of subtractive synthesis like oscillators, filters, envelope generators and how to combine them into a working synthesizer.

You have to navigate through the tutorial using the sidebar on the left, current page is not highlighted, the page i linked to is called SIMPLE SYNTH...

[1] http://write.flossmanuals.net/pure-data/simple-synth/

[2] https://puredata.info/

https://learningsynths.ableton.com/

Step 2 Learn what is possible with an easy to follow advanced tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipTFNhniMo

Step 3 use the sound on sound inside synthesis as a reference

https://www.soundonsound.com/series/synth-secrets

Step 4 Do it yourself.

vcvrack.com can be a good start once you understand the fundamentals.

https://learningsynths.ableton.com/

Let me save you some $:

https://vcvrack.com/

Designing those "fat" analog sounds from the 70's requires a subtractive synth which starts with a harmonic rich waveform (like a sawtooth) and then applies filters to it that are modulated by an ADSR envelope.

Dr. Chowning over at Stanford invented (or at least documented) using FM modulation (mixing) of multiple sinusoids to achieve interesting sounds. That was the basis for the Yamaha DX-7 and you can hear it on a lot of 80's and 90's band tracks. His book is somewhat dry but it goes over the theory well and with something like the Yamaha TX81z sound module you can put his ideas into action and hear the results.

Later synthesizers went full on DSP which allows you to effectively emulate that other forms and also to do things that they can not (like phase coherent modulation schemes).

All said, for me at least, playing with the model 15 in college and playing with my Arrick 22-slot modular synth since, has been the only way for me to internalize the connection between the sound I wanted to hear in my head with how to set things up to produce it.

This is totally a shameless self-plug, but I think it could be interesting for you:

I'm working on a project called Elementary Audio [1] which is a javascript runtime + framework for writing native audio software. It's like the Web Audio API in that it's javascript+audio, but unlike Web Audio in that it aims to target true native audio apps, like plugins for your DAW or hardware projects.

The API that it offers feels to me very much like thinking and working in analog synths, which is why I think you might find it interesting. You can describe and wire up signals and just see what they sound like without having to worry about what needs to happen under the hood for you to hear it.

I put together a guide for dipping your toes into making sound [2] and you'll find there a bunch of other resources that I recommend for getting into the topic.

I should note too that it's currently in beta and only supports macos and linux (windows coming soon!)

[1]: https://www.elementary.audio/ [2]: https://docs.elementary.audio/guides/making_sound

Once you get the basics down, when it comes to real sound design I've found the best tool is to get on YouTube and search for "<name> sound design" where <name> is the kind of sound you want to make: spacey pads, EDM pluck, dub techno stab, 90s synth bass, etc.

Over time, your ear will get better at hearing a sound and understanding how to build it in a synth. You'll learn to hear the difference between a sawtooth and square, what different filters sound like, and how detuning, unison, PWM, etc. all affect a sound. Tutorials are a good way to build up that knowledge.

Also, just like programming, there is absolutely no substitute for just sitting down and noodling with it yourself and trying to make sounds. Like cooking, much of the learning happens in the intuitive non-verbal part of your brain. You don't just need to learn the words for things, you need to develop a deep auditory intuition around sound. You need to feel it. Books will only get you so far with this. Making sounds yourself is key.

You can do this all on a computer using software synths if you want. You can get a free or cheap DAW like Reaper or Ableton Lite and then a free soft synth like Tytel's Helm.

But, personally, I think it's more fun and easier to learn on hardware. That lets you engage your sense of touch and muscle memory, which helps really lock in the learning. The Korg Monologue is a great analog subtractive synth to start with, or a Minilogue if you want to play chords. Hardware holds its value really well, so you can always sell it and recoup most of your investment if you lose interest.

Note that subtractive synthesis is just one way that machines can make sound (but it happens to be one of my favorites). Over time, you'll want to explore FM, wavetable, additive, granular, etc. There's a ton of fun to have.

I think for a beginner it’s more helpful to have as many controls as possible accessible hands on, rather than having to go to different pages and have different knobs do different things depending on context.

Analog Four is awesome as you get more experienced though as you can create a whole track on it if you are creative!

I’d personally probably go for a Korg Minilogue as a beginner these days…

But I am not that committed. At least yet.

I try to avoid starting by shopping when I can. This seems like one of those. A browser is probably enough to gauge the stickiness of my current interests and avoids figuring about where to put “the damn thing.”

Or to put it another way, I give this kind of interest time. It might have been awesome to have lived circumstances that encouraged my interest of forty five years ago. But I don’t let that put me on a rush.

In my other comment I suggested that you won't find a bargain in vintage gear. That's true. However, if you don't want to be financially committed, you might do well do buy a vintage synth because you should get your money back - or maybe more - if you decide you're not that interested after all and want to sell it. Whereas with a new piece of gear, it will depreciate.

As I say, the market for these things is pretty hot now. I'm weeping that I didn't pick more gear up 10 or 15 years ago before it all became so popular. Of course, I didn't have any spare cash back then so there's that.

It’s not the spending money.

It’s that spending money can seem like progress. But not really. At least not at first. Doing the thing is progress and I can spend what time I spend that way without product research and bargain hunting and shipping and unboxing and making room for another hobby object.

And accessories.

If I find myself at the point where buying something is progress, then that’s the time, but that is statistically less likely.

I got back into making music during the pandemic, partly as a deliberate choice where I turned my formerly chaotic and cluttered office/music room into something actually usable, but also through watching a lot of YouTube videos, researching, listening, and looking for a synth to buy.

The key is to get something with all physical controls so you get that immediacy of feedback in terms of the sound changing. You can hear the effect of switching between different wave forms, playing with the pulse width, maybe using an LFO to modulate pulse width, applying a filter and so on. Avoid anything that involves menu diving or relies heavily on a touch screen where you're not getting realtime feedback.

Analogue synthesis is super-popular at the moment so bargains are hard to come by - you are not going to get a used Prophet of any era for a couple of hundred quid, and basically forget anything vintage - but you can get some really good synths for not that much money, particular if you go the monosynth route. The Arturia MicroBrute is great, for example. They're about £260 new and I've seen them for £160 - 200 used on Reverb and eBay. If you're happy to spend a bit more, something like the Behringer Deepmind 6 packs a lot of punch for about £400, and the Deepmind 12 is available for around £600. (Behringer had a sketchy reputation for quality but their synth division seems to absolutely nail it - I have a TD-3, which is a clone of the original Roland TB-303, that costs about £100 new as opposed to £3-4000 for an OG 303 on the used market. Sounds spot on. Couldn't be happier.)

I'd also recommend easing yourself into it. One day I'll get into modular (it's inevitable) but I'm not there yet, and it would have been a mistake to start there as it would have been a bit overwhelming for me. You might be different but I'd say get something that, again, gives you results and immediacy - something that you can tinker around and learn and have fun with, and then take that knowledge and use it with other synths.

Sorry, not really a tutorial, but there are plenty on YouTube, which will help, but what you really needs is hands on time with synths, and lots of it. Try programming patches that you've heard on different tracks you like from scratch. For example, I really felt like I was getting somewhere when I managed to program a decently credible Tom Sawyer bass patch with a really dirty vintage-ised filter sweep. It's one of the few events during the last lockdown that brought me some proper joy.

And that's really the final piece of advice: have fun and don't be afraid to experiment. You will probably create some really awful sounds, along with some really interesting ones, but just embrace it all as part of the journey.

It has its shortcomings, but in many ways mimics the logic of a real synth. They’ve got a synth[1] tutorial that works and if you search “webaudio synth” a bit, there are other helpful write-ups to start learning or playing with concepts you learn about from other resources.

0: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A... 1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...

https://www.soundonsound.com/synthesizers/synth-secrets

https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2858814#p285881...

https://youtu.be/atvtBE6t48M

https://youtu.be/gJkxGvhOS-M

I think it is superior to any book.

If you play with a wave generator and a Low Pass Filter and try the different wave types (Sine, Saw, Triangle, Square) you will quickly recognise all kinds of synths sounds that you already know, e.g. you'll recognise the distinctive sound of a square wave bassline. Or the pure sound of a sine wave (think classic Doctor Who theme)

In Propellerheads Reason, there's a device called 'Subtractor' which is basically a classic synth. This page explaining how the use the Subtractor covers a lot of the different things that analog synths do.

https://www.reasonexperts.com/subtractor-basics.html

On top of all this, the license includes free add-ons for popular softsynths like Massive and Serum that go into specific detail about applying what you learn to those synths if you're interested in that.

And there's a hands-on demo! https://www.syntorial.com/

It is pretty expensive, but the combination of brilliant hands-on implementation and sheer volume (no pun intended) of learning content warrants it IMO if you're invested in learning the topic.

Also, not directly related to this, but they have a forum as well where people will share sounds they hear in popular songs and ask each other for tips on programming what they're hearing, which can be a neat resource as well, though I've personally not got as involved in that.

Warning that modular synths are typically not cheap. However, most of the physical standalone synths that exist today use the same principles.

Physical hardware can be really fun if you don't end up going with VCV rack or syntorial as mentioned in this thread.

Good pieces of hardware for a n00b:

- arturia microfreak

- korg minilogue

- any of the korg volca lines

However, a lot of musicians prefer the practical way of using synths by getting familiar with the presets which often accompany the synths. Sure, someone had to design those presets somehow. Well, it's also possible to learn that from these presets created by the pros.

Meanwhile for the purposes of music production the presets could be tweaked to better blend with the intended soundscape.

So the question is what's the driving reasons for getting into synths.

As for the resources, there's a nice collection of vintage synths emulators - Bristol https://sourceforge.net/projects/bristol/

Bristol runs on Linux, and supports MIDI. The filters are not very true to original hardware, but good enough for synth explorers.

Also there's a nice set of original manuals that were accompanying the classic ARP synths. They give a theory intro and then detail the presets, mostly how to synthesize acoustic instruments.

There's also a dub of ARP Odyssey original audio tapes by Roger Powell which follow the construction of the described patches https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu2JwwG3bjA

IME the key concept while learning analog synthesis is understanding control signals. For most synthesizers, this mainly means envelopes (for one-shot changes), LFOs (for cyclic changes), and maybe the mod wheel (for help with learning how amplitude affects the control signal). Tying the control signals to “what you hear” is the big idea.

You mentioned that you have an iPhone. I’m assuming you have a computer that you can use to watch/read some of these suggestions with, and I encourage you to get the simplest analog-modeling synth app that you can find on the iPhone in order to “play along” and exercise each concept you’re learning. That live exploration and immediate feedback is very important, whether you’re using physical knobs or not. A simpler synth will cut away all the extra stuff and help you grasp the fundamentals more clearly.

Someone recommended Synth One. It is free and quite capable. I just fired up my copy and tried and failed to find an init patch to start building from. Its envelopes are not clearly labeled or intuitively tied to the things they modulate. I think it has multiple screens to navigate through. So I don’t think that’s the best option for your purposes.

This leads to the question: does anyone know of a simple stripped-down synth engine, preferably one that fits all on one screen, that brudgers can use along with a guide to dig into the basics? Asking for that on a phone might be too much; you may be better off using the phone to read/watch and the PC to play with a simple JS synth. If you have multiple screens, that would work just as well.

Key features:

  1 or 2 voice oscillators (the available waveforms don’t matter)
  Keyboard- or mouse- or touch-triggered note input option (sequencers muddy the waters)
  Amp tied to an ADSR Envelope
  Filter tied to an ADSR Envelope
  LFO tied to something (pitch or filter cutoff)

As mention previously, Reverb.com is an excellent place to find a great deal on a used synth.

to be fully pedantic, simulation is often called virtual analog :)

random thoughts:

- ableton had some synthesis lessons with interactive demos.

- modular is great to learn cv/patching basics

- moog werkstat is cheap and patchable

- you can certainly find old second hand doepffer modules for a bargain (modular is very expensive)

- VCV rack will give you the same experience, on your computer, for free

- not exactly the same experience actually, turning a knob and having 1000 dancing and shooting in front of u is always a nice experience, try that sweep with a mouse cursor

- similarly, having a failed cable, among many, in front of same audience is nicely terrifying:)

- if you're ready to spend nights burning yourself with a soldering iron, there's a lot of ressources for "synth diy".

- analog used to sound better due to non-linearities and harmonics, nowadays good (and expensive) plugins achieve impressive results but requires massive cpu

- it's much funnier to travel with suitcases full of very expensive gear rather than just a computer. who doesn't dream of TSA destroying your most valuable belongings:)

And with Stoermelder's Sail module, the knob can be dynamically assigned to wherever the mouse is, which sometimes feels even easier to use than actual modular.

Remember that you can generally only operate 2 knobs at once with your hands, but can get good at using 8 faders at once.

> analog used to sound better due to non-linearities and harmonics,

It sounds different, not better.

> who doesn't dream of TSA destroying your most valuable belongings

Given what TSA did to Ballaké Sissoko's hand-made kora (a west African stringed instrument), I'm not sure that anything is safe.

much, much, much respect, Sir!

(sorry writing that too quickly)

never used Sail, but sounds good! thanks reminding me i miss 8 hands and 3 brains when performing live :)

i have a midibox 8 motorized fader project waiting for an enclosure somewhere, but never really thought of it as more simultaneous controls. but indeed. will probably write a m4l patch to handle long sweeps while doing other stuff too.

> it sounds different, not better

agreed, sry

> Given what TSA did to Ballaké Sissoko's hand-made kora (a west African stringed instrument), I'm not sure that anything is safe.

i was thinking of a story by Underground Resistance, but the one you mention is even worst.

well, not really :) There is still a fairly big difference between having all the knobs for module A as part of the faceplate of module A rather than just mapped to some generic MIDI knob surface. Maybe not as much as some people claim, but not zero.

I just think it's a lot easier to learn what each component does independently (as much as possible...can't have a filter without something to actually filter) and how they interact without adding the complexity of everything at once. Kind of "additive learning" which is easier than "subtractive learning" :)

[0]: https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/book/synthesis/

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Synthesizer-Four-Volumes-Roland-Corpo...

On the hardware side, it depends a lot on what you're looking for. If you want to take some time to explore the theory, and do so with premium gear, Moog has some great options. Their Subsequent 25 could be a good entry point.

If you see yourself progressing from crafting sounds to arranging them into songs/sketches, the Elektron Digitone is really a blast to work with. Great synth engine, workflow, effects, and build quality. I picked up one earlier this year, and I reach for it now more than any other gear or instrument.

As others have mentioned, Bjørn and Meyer and the Ableton tutorials are excellent.

https://encyclotronic.com/books/theory/synthesizer-basics-th...

Ableton have excellent learning resources all online for free. They have web based demos for most things.

This covers synths but they have other sections for more general music creation too!

It has been exceptionally difficult to teach modern sound design to people without forcing them to buy expensive digital (or physical) synthesizers to learn on. Vital changed that. It democratized nearly every feature you might come across in a modern synth, and it does so better than the industry leaders (Vital kicks Massive's ass, same for Serum). If you only download one synth, make it Vital. If you're downloading two synths, you should also grab Helm[1], the creator's other freeware synthesizer.

[0] https://vital.audio/ [1] https://tytel.org/helm/

This was my first classic hardware synth and compared to a software synthesizer I really like that I can feel how my hand movements change the sound and that I can use both hands to adjust parameters. It has an unusually good sequencer for a synth, so I can either record a series of notes live or take my time punching them in and then once I start the sequencer I can focus on tweaking the sound.

Now this synth is a classic subtractive synth which is great because it makes a lot of sense for beginners, while at the same time offering many possibilities for those that are more experienced. The interface is clear and simple - you have your two oscillators with switches for selecting the waves, then the mixer/volume section with one knob per oscillator and of course the low pass filter with resonance. The envelope section is a simplified attack + decay, but you have a switch which allows you to select between no or full sustain. And this is all you need to be able to put together sounds! But the monologue offers more: the oscillators waves can be shaped, there's a drive knob and it also has an LFO. And the sequencer can record automation, so that all your tweaks are stored with the pattern.

Now there's also other interesting features that I didn't mention, but one thing that I think is unique (some other Korgs aside) is the oscilloscope, which shows you how your sound looks like and how it changes as you adjust the various knobs and switches. Seeing the effect of resonance, oscillator shape and even different oscillator mixes live was particularly interesting to me.

This is probably the best beginner synth on the market right now and it's also a good synth in general at an unbeatable price. I can recommend this series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ReoNK_0eI) which explains every parameter of the Monologue in detail.

And once you have a synth and know how the parameters work, you should probably experiment until you think you've exhausted your possibilities before touching a book on sound design...

I started with Generator in 1999, the precursor to Reaktor. I want to say it was on a 150mhz Pentium.

Reaktor is so much fun but when I think of all the time I spent on it, something more productive would have been better.

If I was going to start right now I would get a Waldorf Blofeld. Just hard to beat that synth for the price, sound and features.

I search for the latest Blofeld videos some times on youtube to get a little synth fix but that is the closest I will let myself get. If I bought a Blofeld I would do nothing all day but make weird sounds for the next 5 years.

In order to learn things, I would recommend a semi-modular synth like the Moog Grandmother. It's great for learning all the basics and sounds absolutely phenomenal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Gv7SR0Nrk

It's very easy to get started, and extremely powerful. Not sure how well it covers your use case, but it's fun.

There's a great introduction to PureData called Designing Sound by Andy Farnell.

SuperCollider is another alternative, but that's a whole other discussion, really.

Ultimately, I think using synthesizers does entail a lot of exploratory knob turning, even if understanding the effect of different components can help guide you to the sound you are looking for.

There is a lot of science behind audio and if you are that way inclined, learning about it is really worthwhile. All those effects create the sound they do for a reason.

That way you're doing the same stuff you would in a pure analog synth, and getting similar sounds. In the digital realm there are lots of other ways to make sounds: FM, additive, samples, physical modeling, etc.

Pure analog synth hardware had fallen out of favor by the turn of the century but since then it's made a comeback.

I know that there is a semantic difference in technical contexts. It doesn’t bother me. It’s a true-enough Scotsman.

The distinction for me is with sampling synths (which can also, though rarely be analog)…I mean I have a forty plus year passing interest and the personality to gravitate to HN.

I am more interested in the empirical part. And digital has some practical advantages like using my iPhone.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellotron

- Learn some music theory

- Learn some signal / information theory

- Synthesize!