Synth Secrets (1999–2004) | Hacker News Reader

Synth Secrets (1999–2004)

soundonsound.com

108 pointsTomte13 comments

Upvoted, I consider these valuable for somebody that's going to systematically learn synthesis but for someone just looking to make sense of oscillators/ROmplers/wavetables, filters, envelope and what not, i would just do tutorials on whatever you own: microbrute, bass station2, mopho, ES* models in Logic etc (also probably wounldn't spend much time on theory of Yamaha FM, Kawai additive, Casio phase distortion, which had more marketshare at the time of the SoS series)

Or read the books by Brian Shepherd (Refining Sound) or Rick Snoman (Dance music manual). For somebody serious, there's books by Miller Puckette and Charles Dodge

or PureData/SuperCollider (:

Also worth looking out for a book by Allen Strange - Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques and Controls.

There are plenty of good online tutorials too.

This is quite a dated series now, and I always found it slightly self-indulgent even when it was fresh. Some of the theory is still useful, but digital synthesis has moved on. You can do a lot more with digital code-based systems, or even modern VSTs, than you can with vintage synths from the 1970s.

Pretty much everyone uses samples when they need the sound of a real instrument or a classic drum machine, and this series doesn't spend nearly enough time on the art of abstract electronic sound design or (say) using the FFT features in Max/PD/some VSTs.

If you're interested in learning the basics of reductive synthesis, I recommend Syntorial (http://www.syntorial.com/). It teaches in an interactive way by first playing a tone and then asking you to configure the synthesizer to make that same sound. It covers everything from oscillators, adsr, lfos, reverb/delays, and more.

I guess you mean subtractive, not reductive synthesis :)

An enormously valuable series on audio synthesis... With not a single audio example you could actually listen to. It's all text and pictures of waveforms.

What a shame this was produced for a paper magazine rather than directly for the web. It would make a huge difference to be able to listen to the progression within an article, rather than having to imagine it from waveform screenshots.

i seem to remember they had cds with examples on - does anyone else remember that?

To get the most out of the series, you really need to follow along the articles by patching up your own synths. An audio programming environment like Reaktor or Pure Data is ideal for this purpose.

If it had been produced for the web in 1999, it would be static web pages laid out using tables with support for IE 4.0, Javascript 1.3, with RealAudio codecs and lo-fi examples. There would also be under construction GIFs and a dancing baby, and no one would watch it, because they'd be glued to the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings.

I have been reading and re-referring back to these articles for, well, 17 years!

One important point about them is they emphasize creating familiar instruments such as guitar, flute, etc.

That is a bit different - and rarer and more valuabe! - than most synth tutorials that teach ADSRs, VCFs, etc.

Also, to contextualize them a bit, they're from a magazine that mostly reviewed gear for practicing/professional musicians. 90% of musicians don't change the patches on their instruments at all. This is a highly niche, technical series that doesn't cater to all of their readership, but fills in one of its niches solidly and expertly!

You may also find this useful - "Practical Synthesis for Electronic Music" - http://www.analogindustries.com/b1764/

I have been looking for these for some time now. The old site that had these stopped working a long time ago and I never found another source. Thanks for posting!

Worth dipping into even if you're not really into synths, because some of the anecdotes (like his quest for the GS1) are pretty funny.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com