Comment by tarentel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tarentel | Hacker News Reader

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While I agree that basically all subtractive synthesizers work the same way I started "learning" how they work when I was ~12. It wasn't until my mid 30s until I got into modular and I realized "hey all my synths are basically routed this way, neat." Has it changed the way I think about how I make a patch? Not at all. It is cool to know how they're architected but it in no way will really help you in learning how to use them so I agree with the comment you're replying to. Get an all in one synth and start making patches.

If you gave someone an SH-101 and explained to them how it was architected it wouldn't really help them make that signature acid bass sound so ya they'd be a little more knowledgeable on how synthesizers technically work but they still wouldn't be able to make any music with it. Whereas if I showed them how to make that bass sound they could now go try it on every other subtractive synth they run into even if it doesn't sound the same. Besides that, they'd learn how a lot of it works in a musical sense which is way more important to using synths than any technical knowledge will give you if you actually want to write music.

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.

Fair enough. I should try it, although I have a pretty good grasp of how subtractive synths work. What about FM synthesis, do you have any suggestions on that? I find it the least intuitive by far, not that my experience extends to many other kinds (I mainly use wavetable, sample-based and subtractive synths these days).

I'd still do the first tutorial above, so you can understand how to use VCV Rack, but here is a small tutorial (10 minutes.) That will help you understand what's going on under the hood of your favorite FM synths. He doesn't do this in the video, but I would attach the output to the oscilloscope module to get an intuition for why certain parameters affect the specific harmonics that give FM its characteristic sound.

Your FM synth at home is 100x more time complicated than this patch you build but if you grok what's going on here, you should have a better idea of what going on in your other FM synths.

https://youtu.be/gzWFunWNTjQ?si=veuGdCTc1gETntO3

Thank you, that looks super helpful!

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