4 ms·

Synth Playground

132 points by spking 6y ago

dang 6y ago
If curious, past related threads: Get Started Making Music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386 - Sept 2019 (184 comments) Learning Synths - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20272346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20272346 - June 2019 (172 comments) Get started making music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628 - May 2017 (461 comments)
- flycaliguy 6y ago
  And here is the PDF of Sound on Sound’s guide to synthesis, commonly touted as the best. https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/discussion/372/sound-on-sound-synth-secrets-pdf https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/dis...
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  Also: Ableton Live 11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044909 Music Theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21297462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21297462
aufhebung 6y ago
An interesting choice to have the keyboard mapped to a dissonant whole tone scale
c-st 6y ago
Another synth I find quite fascinating because it is very visual about what it is doing is Helm: https://tytel.org/helm/ https://tytel.org/helm/ It lets you modulate almost every control the synth has, and it certainly helped me to understand how synths work.
- shampto3 6y ago
  The same developer released a new synth plugin “Vital” last fall, which also has great visuals and modulation. https://vital.audio/ https://vital.audio/
  - smoldesu 6y ago
    This, a million times. I love Helm, but Vital utterly thrashes it. If you do any sort of music in any capacity, you owe it to yourself to have it in your VST folder.
  - Archit3ch 6y ago
    Vital was also open-sourced recently!
- arvinsim 6y ago
  It's only flaw is the name since there is a terminal application called helm...
  - johnvaluk 6y ago
    To be fair, Helm the synth predates helm the k8s package manager.
- hangtwenty 6y ago
  Re: modulating all the things, Bitwig is pretty great (compare to Ableton)
diimdeep 6y ago
https://vcvrack.com https://vcvrack.com - is pretty cool.
- smoldesu 6y ago
  +1 for VCV rack, but it's really only useful when you know exactly what you need. I still lose my mind over inconsequential stuff like linking my envelope to my VCA, or mixing up some routing in a massive project.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    It's a modular synthesizer emulator with a ton of free modules available - it's very useful for all sorts of sound design and experimentation when you don't know anything at all about what you want. Sometimes I will spend an hour just to learn something totally new about a module, or re-arrange module orders and get a different sound, etc, or experiment with a new idea with no particular song or goal in mind. You have limitless 'room' in your case - I would recommend thinking of modules in blocks as if each group was a small synth with a goal - these modules are your drone, those modules are your lead, those modules handle percussion, etc. It also greatly simplifies thinking about routing between these groups. If you want to sync two groups of modules you need to figure out what's acting as the clock for both groups and make sure its the same or synced, etc. There are modules that let you leave notes and put labels on things as well, so you can remember what you were trying to do and what was plugged where. I love it. I would guess I spend 3x as long in VCV rack just trying new things out as I do with a particular goal in mind, and its all productive time.
smoldesu 6y ago
Ableton also makes an amazing online music course that is totally free at https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ If you've ever been curious about stepping into music but don't know where to start, this is it. It's dead simple to understand and starts at the ground-level, working your way up to a functional understanding of harmony and rhythm.
adriancooney 6y ago
I love this! The in-browser synthesis here was a big inspiration for my side-project (https://noise.sh https://noise.sh, spreadsheet for sound design). The WebAudio spec actually makes much of this trivial.
tyfighter 6y ago
Page stops working in Firefox after clicking on any preset.
tremon 6y ago
Your browser does not support this site How presumptuous. How about "this site doesn't support your browser" instead? Using Firefox 78.8 esr, btw.
- McGlockenshire 6y ago
  FWIW, it works correctly in the current non-ESR Firefox release.
erwinh 6y ago
Really impressed with Ableton continuously creating easy-to-use / easy-to-learn music tools for 2 decades by now. Spent so many hours experimenting in Ableton when I was in high school, already more than a decade ago. Which indirectly taught me a lot about electronics, computers & programming.
varispeed 6y ago
When there is so much improvements needed in Ableton I don't feel easy about them procrastinating in such directions. It's a great toy, but they seem to be overly focusing on luring beginners in, while abandoning professionals. Those people will start their journey with Ableton only to become frustrated that their DAW of choice doesn't do many basic things other DAWs do. How many years did we have to wait for comping?

132 points by spking 6y ago

dang 6y ago

If curious, past related threads: Get Started Making Music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386 - Sept 2019 (184 comments) Learning Synths - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20272346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20272346 - June 2019 (172 comments) Get started making music - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628 - May 2017 (461 comments)

flycaliguy 6y ago
And here is the PDF of Sound on Sound’s guide to synthesis, commonly touted as the best. https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/discussion/372/sound-on-sound-synth-secrets-pdf https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/dis...
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Also: Ableton Live 11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25044909 Music Theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21297462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21297462

aufhebung 6y ago

An interesting choice to have the keyboard mapped to a dissonant whole tone scale

c-st 6y ago

Another synth I find quite fascinating because it is very visual about what it is doing is Helm: https://tytel.org/helm/ https://tytel.org/helm/ It lets you modulate almost every control the synth has, and it certainly helped me to understand how synths work.

shampto3 6y ago
The same developer released a new synth plugin “Vital” last fall, which also has great visuals and modulation. https://vital.audio/ https://vital.audio/
- smoldesu 6y ago
  This, a million times. I love Helm, but Vital utterly thrashes it. If you do any sort of music in any capacity, you owe it to yourself to have it in your VST folder.
- Archit3ch 6y ago
  Vital was also open-sourced recently!
arvinsim 6y ago
It's only flaw is the name since there is a terminal application called helm...
- johnvaluk 6y ago
  To be fair, Helm the synth predates helm the k8s package manager.
hangtwenty 6y ago
Re: modulating all the things, Bitwig is pretty great (compare to Ableton)

diimdeep 6y ago

https://vcvrack.com https://vcvrack.com - is pretty cool.

smoldesu 6y ago
+1 for VCV rack, but it's really only useful when you know exactly what you need. I still lose my mind over inconsequential stuff like linking my envelope to my VCA, or mixing up some routing in a massive project.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  It's a modular synthesizer emulator with a ton of free modules available - it's very useful for all sorts of sound design and experimentation when you don't know anything at all about what you want. Sometimes I will spend an hour just to learn something totally new about a module, or re-arrange module orders and get a different sound, etc, or experiment with a new idea with no particular song or goal in mind. You have limitless 'room' in your case - I would recommend thinking of modules in blocks as if each group was a small synth with a goal - these modules are your drone, those modules are your lead, those modules handle percussion, etc. It also greatly simplifies thinking about routing between these groups. If you want to sync two groups of modules you need to figure out what's acting as the clock for both groups and make sure its the same or synced, etc. There are modules that let you leave notes and put labels on things as well, so you can remember what you were trying to do and what was plugged where. I love it. I would guess I spend 3x as long in VCV rack just trying new things out as I do with a particular goal in mind, and its all productive time.

smoldesu 6y ago

Ableton also makes an amazing online music course that is totally free at https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ If you've ever been curious about stepping into music but don't know where to start, this is it. It's dead simple to understand and starts at the ground-level, working your way up to a functional understanding of harmony and rhythm.

adriancooney 6y ago

I love this! The in-browser synthesis here was a big inspiration for my side-project (https://noise.sh https://noise.sh, spreadsheet for sound design). The WebAudio spec actually makes much of this trivial.

tyfighter 6y ago

Page stops working in Firefox after clicking on any preset.

tremon 6y ago

Your browser does not support this site How presumptuous. How about "this site doesn't support your browser" instead? Using Firefox 78.8 esr, btw.

McGlockenshire 6y ago
FWIW, it works correctly in the current non-ESR Firefox release.

erwinh 6y ago

Really impressed with Ableton continuously creating easy-to-use / easy-to-learn music tools for 2 decades by now. Spent so many hours experimenting in Ableton when I was in high school, already more than a decade ago. Which indirectly taught me a lot about electronics, computers & programming.

varispeed 6y ago

When there is so much improvements needed in Ableton I don't feel easy about them procrastinating in such directions. It's a great toy, but they seem to be overly focusing on luring beginners in, while abandoning professionals. Those people will start their journey with Ableton only to become frustrated that their DAW of choice doesn't do many basic things other DAWs do. How many years did we have to wait for comping?