9 ms·

Subtractive synths explained (2011)

209 points by mr_golyadkin 7y ago

segphault 7y ago
For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.
- gylterud 7y ago
  Software modular synth is really good for learning about sound and signal. I use Alsa Modular Synth[0], which has its faults, but has a simpler interface than VCV Rack. I use it some times even to filter my voice when role-playing monsters on our online dungeons & dragons game (I love how easy these things are to do with JACK on Linux, used to do something similar in PulseAudio with LADSPA filters, but it was much more of a pain). That said, I got myself a Moog Mother-32[1] recently, which is a hardware semi-modular synth, and I found it much more musical than software alternatives. I could immediately create much more musical pieces than I could with the software – even though I have MIDI peripherals for the software and the software can create any module I can imagine. [0] http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/ http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother-32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother-32
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    > Alsa Modular Synth Another good option is SunVox; it's part modular synth, part tracker in a really cool UI. It includes a bunch of simple examples that demonstrate how to use the synth modules. http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/ http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Slightly off topic. I just added a link in that Wikipedia entry to the the Phone_connector_(audio) entry at the first occurrence of phone jack because I'd never seem that connector referred to by that exact phrase. Back to the topic at hand. I've played with software gizmos, and recently picked up three secondhand units from the Korg Volca range. I'm not particularly musically talented, trying to change that over time, I find the physical controls way way way more intuitive.
- xtagon 7y ago
  Since a lot of people here are technical, here's a fun tip: VCV Rack stores the rack as a (somewhat) human-readable JSON file. A couple of friends and I are experimenting with collaborating using Github and pull requests.
  - infogulch 7y ago
    That's pretty cool. How well do merges work if two commits change the same file?
    - xtagon 7y ago
      I tried it and only ran into a couple of issues: 1. I was using VCV Rack on Windows, but I think my friend was not, so you may need to tweak Git's line ending settings 2. Some changes you just don't want to merge. The other person could have different audio output settings. There can also be rounding errors in the knob values so sometimes the values can be edited slightly even if they were 1.0 before, even if you don't think you changed them, which makes merges a little noisier. But `git add -p` made short work of cleaning that up. Edit: This is also assuming that you coordinate who takes turns editing at one given time - "ping pong" is easier than free for all.
- cousin_it 7y ago
  This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillator through a convolution reverb that uses a custom impulse response. For impulse responses, use random sounds downloaded from the internet (like wood strikes), or mixtures of existing instrument sounds. But that felt limiting, so I moved on to Workflow 3: generate an impulse response wav file with Python, and use that in a convolution reverb to filter the sawtooth. This gave me some more interesting and configurable echoes, but then why start with an oscillator at all? So Workflow 4: write code to generate the sound on the fly, as a sequence of samples. This way I can mimic some nice properties of physical sounds, like "the nth harmonic has initial amplitude 1/n and decay time 1/n". Also I can get inharmonicity, smearing of harmonics (like in PADsynth algorithm), and other nice things that are out of reach if you start with periodic oscillators. If I could go back and give advice to my months-younger self, I'd tell me to skip oscillators and filters, and jump straight into generating the sound with code. You need to learn some math about how sound works, but then you'll be unstoppable. For example, here's a short formula I came up with a month ago for generating a pluck-like sound: https://jsfiddle.net/yd4nv5Ls/ https://jsfiddle.net/yd4nv5Ls/ It's much simpler than doing the same with prebuilt bricks. The whole experience made me suspect that there's an alternative approach to building modular synths, based on physical facts about sound (as opposed to either starting with oscillators, or going all the way to digital modeling of strings and bows). It would be similar to physically based rendering in graphics: for example, it would enforce a physically correct relationship between how high a harmonic is and how long it rings, and maybe some other relationship about what happens to harmonics at the start of the sound, etc. But I'm not an expert and can't figure out fully how such a synth would work.
  - Synaesthesia 7y ago
    FM synthesis can generate a very broad array of sounds. A lot of the time you get bad results but if you’re looking for something that can make all kinds of different sounds that’s one option. There are actually so many synthesis techniques, you should download some software synths and take a listen. Really fun stuff
ChuckMcM 7y ago
I have an Arrick synth[1] (22 slots) and it can be fun to just explore the sound space that the filters can create. I also found it fun when I started building some FFT tools that I could use it as a complex signal generator and see the results in the FFTs I was computing. :-) [1] https://synthesizers.com/ https://synthesizers.com/
mr_golyadkin 7y ago
I got this from Brian Eno's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1122355076360572928 https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1122355076360572928
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Imagine for a moment I'm a recommendation engine. People who liked Brian Eno's twitter feed also liked... Have you seen Reactable? http://reactable.com/ http://reactable.com/
  - snaky 7y ago
    > Imagine for a moment I'm a recommendation engine I wish there were one like that. If only we had some companies with big silos of our data, ML tech and server capacities.
- tomduncalf 7y ago
  I think that’s actually an Eno fan twitter rather than the man himself, I also follow it though, there’s some good content :)
djaychela 7y ago
This is a pretty in-depth introduction to Subtractive synths, although I think it's probably a bit daunting for most beginners, particularly as the synths illustrated change, and in my experience showing a complex synth (even if it is made up of modules that a student understands) will make most people shut down in fear pretty quickly! I'd suggest getting a simple synth (such as the ES M shown in the second image, or simple free VST synths if you're on windows, such as the PG-8X [1]) and spending some time playing around with the controls, and getting to know the sounds. There are usually 'Oh, THAT'S what that sound is' moments when playing around with the filters for the first time. Once you're comfortable with that, move onto more complex synths (such as the Superwave P8[2]) and you'll find that many of them are not really more complex, but just have more of the sections you already know - a bit like learning a channel on a mixer, and then moving to a 72-channel mixer from an 8 channel one. Modular synths such as VCV rack (mentioned elsewhere here) are really great for experimentation with the architecture of subtractive sound generation (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), but for many they are intimidating initially, and have setup time cost if you're starting from scratch. I think they are for a certain kind of personality (myself included!), but not for everyone. The reason that the 'standard' architecture which is described in the OP exists is because people habitually used the same setup (osc > filter > amp with lfo and envelopes, as seen to a degree in the 'olympic rings' analogy), and manufacturers wanted to produce simpler, cheaper synths for a wider market. Often you end up making variations on that theme. The great advantage of software modular synths is that you can save (and load!) your setups, and you never run out of cables or modules (or money!). [1] - https://sites.google.com/site/mlvst0/ https://sites.google.com/site/mlvst0/ [2] - http://www.superwavesynths.com/p8 http://www.superwavesynths.com/p8
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  I really liked the Superwave P8 back when I used Windows. Does anybody know if it can work in Linux?
joshka 7y ago
https://www.syntorial.com/ https://www.syntorial.com/ is pretty much the best way to not just learn the technical, but how each part sounds.
- te_chris 7y ago
  Came to say this. It’s amazing software
cageface 7y ago
Subtractive synthesis is sort of like the OOP of synthesis methods. It may not be the most flexible or interesting, but it’s predictable and ubiquitous and something any sound designer needs to learn.
foobar_ 7y ago
What about FM synths ? They seem even wackier to program.
- cageface 7y ago
  FM synthesis is fascinating and extremely flexible but it’s notoriously difficult to master. If you are interested I’d recommend learning basic subtractive synthesis first since they have some concepts in common.
  - foobar_ 7y ago
    Oh, I'm alright with subtractive/additive synths ... I have a Novation. FM puzzles me to no end. I can handle 2 oscillators but 4 or 8 seems maddening. I'm not sure if I need to approach it by trial and error, or there are a few tricks to program it!
    - cageface 7y ago
      If you take apart some more complex patches you can see they’re sort of composites of simpler patches. But then there are also some patches that are just very complex. I think ML and GANs might be interesting to apply to FM patch design.
      - fit2rule 7y ago
        Indeed, one of the most prolific of all synthesists has even established himself as a leader on this particular topic - using ML techniques to create FM patches. And, it is simply bloody awesome: https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimutant-ai-artificial-intelligence-patch-generator/ https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimuta...
- fit2rule 7y ago
  FM is hard. Let the machines do the work. :) https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimutant-ai-artificial-intelligence-patch-generator/ https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimuta...
th0ma5 7y ago
One VSTi I was always infatuated with was Glass Viper. I haven't been able to find anything that sounds quite like it.
8bitsrule 7y ago
More synthesis technical aspects and techniques are well-covered by the dozens of articles in "Gordon Reid's classic SYNTH SECRETS series" on the Sound-On-Sound site. https://www.soundonsound.com/search/articles/%22Synth%20Secrets%22?solrsort=ds_created%20asc&f%5B0%5D=im_field_subject%3A8106 https://www.soundonsound.com/search/articles/%22Synth%20Secr... Now 20 years old, still online, this is pretty much a complete course in theory and practice.
- tretiy3 7y ago
  Here is github repo, containing all the articles: https://github.com/micjamking/synth-secrets https://github.com/micjamking/synth-secrets
superzadeh 7y ago
This has been my favourite course to learn about Audio Synthesis; it's old school but has all you need to know, in a digestible format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M
tomduncalf 7y ago
If anyone is interested in getting started playing with synths, AudioKit Synth One is a great free, open source synth for iOS: https://audiokitpro.com/synth https://audiokitpro.com/synth. iOS is a pretty cool platform for starting to play around because the multi touch nature of a touch screen makes it more fun (IMO) than using a mouse to drag virtual knobs around.
- analogmatt 7y ago
  Thanks for the AudioKit Synth One shout out! We're working hard to improve open-source synths
rcarmo 7y ago
This is timely. I've been getting into music and spent a couple of hours fiddling with the Korg 15 emulator on my iPad.
xyproto 7y ago
Why is it called subtracrive when the signals are added or multiplied?
- hssys 7y ago
  I believe it's named this way because filters are used to subtract harmonic content.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  The sound making starts with creating “all” the spectral content (e.g a saw or square wave is a sum of infinitely many sine waves, up to the nyquist limit) and then the synth uses a filter to subtract some frequencies - typically all frequencies above a certain cutoff. So the term subtractive comes from the fact that it first makes a lot of spectral content, then removes some of it.
  - xyproto 7y ago
    I see, thanks. I never thought of filters like "cutoff" as subtractive, but I guess that's what they are.
tomduncalf 7y ago
I’d highly recommend getting comfortable programming a subtractive synth to anyone interested in making music, particularly electronic music. I’ve been fooling around with music for about 20 years, but the path I took (trackers, which are sample based, then into VSTs with their huge preset libraries) plus a lack of self-discipline meant that I never really mastered making a sound from scratch on a synth. It’s only in the last few years since getting into hardware that I’ve started to learn this, and it has made such a difference to my music making - I can now often dial in the sound in my head without having to trawl through presets, or I can take a preset and either modify it to my taste, or work out what it’s doing and recreate a similar sound. If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be to pick up a basic hardware subtractive synth with knobs for each function on it and master making sounds on it from scratch. Something like the Korg Minilogue would be perfect. Alternatively, a good synth on an iPad or creating a good midi mapping for one VST synth and mastering it would do the trick, but I think there’s something about the hands on design of hardware, plus that you’ve invested money in it, that makes it the ideal learning platform (and a lot of fun!). The skills you learn doing this are transferable to any other synth and other areas of music making.
- justaj 7y ago
  Would you say that it's a good first project for learning programming from the beginning as well or would other (easier) projects be more suited for this task?
  - posterboy 7y ago
    IMHO it's a very worthwhile lesson from a maths perspective, as it may motivate learning the theory, but it has nothing much to do with iterative, imperative, text based programming. A good comparison would be some visual programming environments and modular buzz-machine type DAW programms, that both look very similar, employing the graph metaphor--nets of generators and filters. I'm not sure wgether that's comparable to functional reactive programming, that I have never tried. Writing a synth in C would be very different, at any rate, I guess, something I don't even know how to go about in an ergonomic fashion.
  - 7y ago
kolleykibber 7y ago
We appear to be going through a surge of interest in synths. Maybe due to the those who were dancing back in the day now discovering how the sounds were made. I've become one of those fascinated with the tb303. Which, for all the misty eyes around the sound, is just a simple single transistor oscillator plus low pass filter with a sequencer. The huge amount of diverse info available makes studying the 303 a really fun intro to subtractive synthesis.
mhh__ 7y ago
The world needs a modern LaTeX textbook on the electronics of synthesizers (With lots of math), but I don't think one exists
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  There is Hal Chamberlin's Musical Applications of Microprocessors which is a pretty approachable book and has some good background theory, there is also Chowning's FM Synthesis book.
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    I meant analog Synthesizers, where there are basically schematics, and some lectures from 20 years ago and that's it.
    - ChuckMcM 7y ago
      The circuits aren't all that different than they were 20 years ago, so the lectures are still valid :-). A good linear circuits text book will cover the basics of oscillators, filters, and amplifiers. Pretty much standard EE curriculum for undergraduates. The application for Music is somewhat incidental to their design.
      - mhh__ 7y ago
        The lectures I'm thinking of are literally 360p videos of a guy and a whiteboard, with no notes or legible writing IIRC. And also, the tolerances in Synthesizers are actually fairly small and idiomatic synths use quite a few relatively obscure parts i.e. How many introductory electronics books discuss OTAs in any detail( for a slightly terrible example)? I already know, however it's not easy to find out in one resource: The application for music is sufficiently obscure (Analog synths require much more coaxing than (say) a guitar amp) to warrant dedicated discussion.
        ChuckMcM 7y ago
ff7f00 7y ago
I have a bit of a reversing mindset coming from a security engineering background and find Reverb Machine (https://reverbmachine.com/synth-sounds https://reverbmachine.com/synth-sounds) is a great place to see synth sounds from modern music built up from scratch (usually starting with just a plain old sawtooth init patch).

209 points by mr_golyadkin 7y ago

For those who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend checking out VCV Rack, an open source application that lets you build Eurorack-style virtual modular synthesizers: https://vcvrack.com/ https://vcvrack.com/ I've been going down this rabbit hole lately and it's really fascinating.

gylterud 7y ago
Software modular synth is really good for learning about sound and signal. I use Alsa Modular Synth[0], which has its faults, but has a simpler interface than VCV Rack. I use it some times even to filter my voice when role-playing monsters on our online dungeons & dragons game (I love how easy these things are to do with JACK on Linux, used to do something similar in PulseAudio with LADSPA filters, but it was much more of a pain). That said, I got myself a Moog Mother-32[1] recently, which is a hardware semi-modular synth, and I found it much more musical than software alternatives. I could immediately create much more musical pieces than I could with the software – even though I have MIDI peripherals for the software and the software can create any module I can imagine. [0] http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/ http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother-32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother-32
- pdkl95 7y ago
  > Alsa Modular Synth Another good option is SunVox; it's part modular synth, part tracker in a really cool UI. It includes a bunch of simple examples that demonstrate how to use the synth modules. http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/ http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Slightly off topic. I just added a link in that Wikipedia entry to the the Phone_connector_(audio) entry at the first occurrence of phone jack because I'd never seem that connector referred to by that exact phrase. Back to the topic at hand. I've played with software gizmos, and recently picked up three secondhand units from the Korg Volca range. I'm not particularly musically talented, trying to change that over time, I find the physical controls way way way more intuitive.
xtagon 7y ago
Since a lot of people here are technical, here's a fun tip: VCV Rack stores the rack as a (somewhat) human-readable JSON file. A couple of friends and I are experimenting with collaborating using Github and pull requests.
- infogulch 7y ago
  That's pretty cool. How well do merges work if two commits change the same file?
  - xtagon 7y ago
    I tried it and only ran into a couple of issues: 1. I was using VCV Rack on Windows, but I think my friend was not, so you may need to tweak Git's line ending settings 2. Some changes you just don't want to merge. The other person could have different audio output settings. There can also be rounding errors in the knob values so sometimes the values can be edited slightly even if they were 1.0 before, even if you don't think you changed them, which makes merges a little noisier. But `git add -p` made short work of cleaning that up. Edit: This is also assuming that you coordinate who takes turns editing at one given time - "ping pong" is easier than free for all.
cousin_it 7y ago
This winter I went down this rabbit hole and back up, trying to approximate some acoustic instrument sounds. I went through a succession of different workflows, spending a couple weeks on each. Workflow 1: feed a sawtooth oscillator through filters controllable with knobs. Eventually I realized that it will always sound mechanical, no matter how many filters you stack. That led to Workflow 2: feed a sawtooth oscillator through a convolution reverb that uses a custom impulse response. For impulse responses, use random sounds downloaded from the internet (like wood strikes), or mixtures of existing instrument sounds. But that felt limiting, so I moved on to Workflow 3: generate an impulse response wav file with Python, and use that in a convolution reverb to filter the sawtooth. This gave me some more interesting and configurable echoes, but then why start with an oscillator at all? So Workflow 4: write code to generate the sound on the fly, as a sequence of samples. This way I can mimic some nice properties of physical sounds, like "the nth harmonic has initial amplitude 1/n and decay time 1/n". Also I can get inharmonicity, smearing of harmonics (like in PADsynth algorithm), and other nice things that are out of reach if you start with periodic oscillators. If I could go back and give advice to my months-younger self, I'd tell me to skip oscillators and filters, and jump straight into generating the sound with code. You need to learn some math about how sound works, but then you'll be unstoppable. For example, here's a short formula I came up with a month ago for generating a pluck-like sound: https://jsfiddle.net/yd4nv5Ls/ https://jsfiddle.net/yd4nv5Ls/ It's much simpler than doing the same with prebuilt bricks. The whole experience made me suspect that there's an alternative approach to building modular synths, based on physical facts about sound (as opposed to either starting with oscillators, or going all the way to digital modeling of strings and bows). It would be similar to physically based rendering in graphics: for example, it would enforce a physically correct relationship between how high a harmonic is and how long it rings, and maybe some other relationship about what happens to harmonics at the start of the sound, etc. But I'm not an expert and can't figure out fully how such a synth would work.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  FM synthesis can generate a very broad array of sounds. A lot of the time you get bad results but if you’re looking for something that can make all kinds of different sounds that’s one option. There are actually so many synthesis techniques, you should download some software synths and take a listen. Really fun stuff

ChuckMcM 7y ago

I have an Arrick synth[1] (22 slots) and it can be fun to just explore the sound space that the filters can create. I also found it fun when I started building some FFT tools that I could use it as a complex signal generator and see the results in the FFTs I was computing. :-) [1] https://synthesizers.com/ https://synthesizers.com/

mr_golyadkin 7y ago

I got this from Brian Eno's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1122355076360572928 https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1122355076360572928

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
Imagine for a moment I'm a recommendation engine. People who liked Brian Eno's twitter feed also liked... Have you seen Reactable? http://reactable.com/ http://reactable.com/
- snaky 7y ago
  > Imagine for a moment I'm a recommendation engine I wish there were one like that. If only we had some companies with big silos of our data, ML tech and server capacities.
tomduncalf 7y ago
I think that’s actually an Eno fan twitter rather than the man himself, I also follow it though, there’s some good content :)

djaychela 7y ago

This is a pretty in-depth introduction to Subtractive synths, although I think it's probably a bit daunting for most beginners, particularly as the synths illustrated change, and in my experience showing a complex synth (even if it is made up of modules that a student understands) will make most people shut down in fear pretty quickly! I'd suggest getting a simple synth (such as the ES M shown in the second image, or simple free VST synths if you're on windows, such as the PG-8X [1]) and spending some time playing around with the controls, and getting to know the sounds. There are usually 'Oh, THAT'S what that sound is' moments when playing around with the filters for the first time. Once you're comfortable with that, move onto more complex synths (such as the Superwave P8[2]) and you'll find that many of them are not really more complex, but just have more of the sections you already know - a bit like learning a channel on a mixer, and then moving to a 72-channel mixer from an 8 channel one. Modular synths such as VCV rack (mentioned elsewhere here) are really great for experimentation with the architecture of subtractive sound generation (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), but for many they are intimidating initially, and have setup time cost if you're starting from scratch. I think they are for a certain kind of personality (myself included!), but not for everyone. The reason that the 'standard' architecture which is described in the OP exists is because people habitually used the same setup (osc > filter > amp with lfo and envelopes, as seen to a degree in the 'olympic rings' analogy), and manufacturers wanted to produce simpler, cheaper synths for a wider market. Often you end up making variations on that theme. The great advantage of software modular synths is that you can save (and load!) your setups, and you never run out of cables or modules (or money!). [1] - https://sites.google.com/site/mlvst0/ https://sites.google.com/site/mlvst0/ [2] - http://www.superwavesynths.com/p8 http://www.superwavesynths.com/p8

themodelplumber 7y ago
I really liked the Superwave P8 back when I used Windows. Does anybody know if it can work in Linux?

joshka 7y ago

https://www.syntorial.com/ https://www.syntorial.com/ is pretty much the best way to not just learn the technical, but how each part sounds.

te_chris 7y ago
Came to say this. It’s amazing software

cageface 7y ago

Subtractive synthesis is sort of like the OOP of synthesis methods. It may not be the most flexible or interesting, but it’s predictable and ubiquitous and something any sound designer needs to learn.

foobar_ 7y ago

What about FM synths ? They seem even wackier to program.

cageface 7y ago
FM synthesis is fascinating and extremely flexible but it’s notoriously difficult to master. If you are interested I’d recommend learning basic subtractive synthesis first since they have some concepts in common.
- foobar_ 7y ago
  Oh, I'm alright with subtractive/additive synths ... I have a Novation. FM puzzles me to no end. I can handle 2 oscillators but 4 or 8 seems maddening. I'm not sure if I need to approach it by trial and error, or there are a few tricks to program it!
  - cageface 7y ago
    If you take apart some more complex patches you can see they’re sort of composites of simpler patches. But then there are also some patches that are just very complex. I think ML and GANs might be interesting to apply to FM patch design.
    - fit2rule 7y ago
      Indeed, one of the most prolific of all synthesists has even established himself as a leader on this particular topic - using ML techniques to create FM patches. And, it is simply bloody awesome: https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimutant-ai-artificial-intelligence-patch-generator/ https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimuta...
fit2rule 7y ago
FM is hard. Let the machines do the work. :) https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimutant-ai-artificial-intelligence-patch-generator/ https://www.factmag.com/2017/07/14/watch-aphex-twin-midimuta...

th0ma5 7y ago

One VSTi I was always infatuated with was Glass Viper. I haven't been able to find anything that sounds quite like it.

8bitsrule 7y ago

More synthesis technical aspects and techniques are well-covered by the dozens of articles in "Gordon Reid's classic SYNTH SECRETS series" on the Sound-On-Sound site. https://www.soundonsound.com/search/articles/%22Synth%20Secrets%22?solrsort=ds_created%20asc&f%5B0%5D=im_field_subject%3A8106 https://www.soundonsound.com/search/articles/%22Synth%20Secr... Now 20 years old, still online, this is pretty much a complete course in theory and practice.

tretiy3 7y ago
Here is github repo, containing all the articles: https://github.com/micjamking/synth-secrets https://github.com/micjamking/synth-secrets

superzadeh 7y ago

This has been my favourite course to learn about Audio Synthesis; it's old school but has all you need to know, in a digestible format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M

tomduncalf 7y ago

If anyone is interested in getting started playing with synths, AudioKit Synth One is a great free, open source synth for iOS: https://audiokitpro.com/synth https://audiokitpro.com/synth. iOS is a pretty cool platform for starting to play around because the multi touch nature of a touch screen makes it more fun (IMO) than using a mouse to drag virtual knobs around.

analogmatt 7y ago
Thanks for the AudioKit Synth One shout out! We're working hard to improve open-source synths

rcarmo 7y ago

This is timely. I've been getting into music and spent a couple of hours fiddling with the Korg 15 emulator on my iPad.

xyproto 7y ago

Why is it called subtracrive when the signals are added or multiplied?

hssys 7y ago
I believe it's named this way because filters are used to subtract harmonic content.
alkonaut 7y ago
The sound making starts with creating “all” the spectral content (e.g a saw or square wave is a sum of infinitely many sine waves, up to the nyquist limit) and then the synth uses a filter to subtract some frequencies - typically all frequencies above a certain cutoff. So the term subtractive comes from the fact that it first makes a lot of spectral content, then removes some of it.
- xyproto 7y ago
  I see, thanks. I never thought of filters like "cutoff" as subtractive, but I guess that's what they are.

tomduncalf 7y ago

I’d highly recommend getting comfortable programming a subtractive synth to anyone interested in making music, particularly electronic music. I’ve been fooling around with music for about 20 years, but the path I took (trackers, which are sample based, then into VSTs with their huge preset libraries) plus a lack of self-discipline meant that I never really mastered making a sound from scratch on a synth. It’s only in the last few years since getting into hardware that I’ve started to learn this, and it has made such a difference to my music making - I can now often dial in the sound in my head without having to trawl through presets, or I can take a preset and either modify it to my taste, or work out what it’s doing and recreate a similar sound. If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be to pick up a basic hardware subtractive synth with knobs for each function on it and master making sounds on it from scratch. Something like the Korg Minilogue would be perfect. Alternatively, a good synth on an iPad or creating a good midi mapping for one VST synth and mastering it would do the trick, but I think there’s something about the hands on design of hardware, plus that you’ve invested money in it, that makes it the ideal learning platform (and a lot of fun!). The skills you learn doing this are transferable to any other synth and other areas of music making.

justaj 7y ago
Would you say that it's a good first project for learning programming from the beginning as well or would other (easier) projects be more suited for this task?
- posterboy 7y ago
  IMHO it's a very worthwhile lesson from a maths perspective, as it may motivate learning the theory, but it has nothing much to do with iterative, imperative, text based programming. A good comparison would be some visual programming environments and modular buzz-machine type DAW programms, that both look very similar, employing the graph metaphor--nets of generators and filters. I'm not sure wgether that's comparable to functional reactive programming, that I have never tried. Writing a synth in C would be very different, at any rate, I guess, something I don't even know how to go about in an ergonomic fashion.
- 7y ago

kolleykibber 7y ago

We appear to be going through a surge of interest in synths. Maybe due to the those who were dancing back in the day now discovering how the sounds were made. I've become one of those fascinated with the tb303. Which, for all the misty eyes around the sound, is just a simple single transistor oscillator plus low pass filter with a sequencer. The huge amount of diverse info available makes studying the 303 a really fun intro to subtractive synthesis.

mhh__ 7y ago

The world needs a modern LaTeX textbook on the electronics of synthesizers (With lots of math), but I don't think one exists

ChuckMcM 7y ago
There is Hal Chamberlin's Musical Applications of Microprocessors which is a pretty approachable book and has some good background theory, there is also Chowning's FM Synthesis book.
- mhh__ 7y ago
  I meant analog Synthesizers, where there are basically schematics, and some lectures from 20 years ago and that's it.
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    The circuits aren't all that different than they were 20 years ago, so the lectures are still valid :-). A good linear circuits text book will cover the basics of oscillators, filters, and amplifiers. Pretty much standard EE curriculum for undergraduates. The application for Music is somewhat incidental to their design.
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      The lectures I'm thinking of are literally 360p videos of a guy and a whiteboard, with no notes or legible writing IIRC. And also, the tolerances in Synthesizers are actually fairly small and idiomatic synths use quite a few relatively obscure parts i.e. How many introductory electronics books discuss OTAs in any detail( for a slightly terrible example)? I already know, however it's not easy to find out in one resource: The application for music is sufficiently obscure (Analog synths require much more coaxing than (say) a guitar amp) to warrant dedicated discussion.
      - ChuckMcM 7y ago

ff7f00 7y ago

I have a bit of a reversing mindset coming from a security engineering background and find Reverb Machine (https://reverbmachine.com/synth-sounds https://reverbmachine.com/synth-sounds) is a great place to see synth sounds from modern music built up from scratch (usually starting with just a plain old sawtooth init patch).