Preface
Most musical instruments are locked into sounding a certain way. In a blindfolded listening test, you could identify a piano from a guitar. Most of the time, you could also tell if an instrument is a synthesizer; but because of the wide-ranging sonic palette available in synthesis, you might not be able to guess correctly. Perhaps it sounds like a gentle breeze or like the crickets on a summer evening. It could sound like a robot from the future or a flute from medieval times. There are synths that sound like electric guitars or fog horns. Synths are instruments that don’t necessarily require musical ability in the traditional sense, but when you explore further, you’ll discover that they have a soul in the same way that a Stradivarius violin does; both require the touch of a musical artist to bring them to life at their fullest potential.
Recipe Creation
It’s easy to focus on the technical aspects of synthesizers because so many of them require advanced knowledge when programming, because many vintage synths are aging, and because you have to have technical skills to keep them fully functional. New synths with unique features and layers of complexity are released frequently, with hundreds of different synths currently available in the marketplace. How do you know which ones to use and how do you get the most out of the ones you already own? What does it take to master synthesis and transcend the technical aspects as a musician and artist? That’s why this book exists, because we asked those questions and we want to share what we found with you. We didn’t, however, approach it haphazardly; we want to be sure that you will transform as a person as you read this and that you return often to these pages as the learning process evolves.
Figure 0.1 Synth recipe.
There is a spectrum on which you fall when you use synthesizers and it starts with using presets and ends with the creation of patches from your own imagination. Unfortunately it isn’t possible to put a lifetime of knowledge into a single book, but what we’ve done is something that is as close as we could make it. You see, Nathan and I have smelled the dust of original Arps and we have patched instruments crafted by Moog’s own hands. We’ve tinkered for thousands of hours in the dim light with patch cables and knobs, and with each passing day, we have gained new insights into how each synthesizer lives and breathes. We remember the first synth we ever touched and catalog our lives in terms of the synths we’ve owned.
One day not too long ago, as we were preparing for the third annual Electronicatopia concert on the University of Colorado Denver’s campus, we started designing a system of patch recipes that could be used to create sounds on a range of synthesizers. That’s when we decided to make a master spreadsheet of every hardware synthesizer ever released, which includes a comparison of every major parameter. The idea is that with an analysis of the similarities of every synth, we can create a patch template which matches the largest pool of instruments and permits a single recipe to work universally. It might sound like a simple task with obvious results, but synthesizers are widely different and we had to overcome challenges that sometimes proved difficult.
A unified recipe system as a learning tool is going to change the way you understand basic synthesis. You will be able to create patches in Logic Pro that translate onto an Oberheim and into Ableton and beyond. It’s not hard to learn the individual parameters and you can start tweaking your synths immediately, but our goal is for you to be proficient on the technical side of synthesis so that you can progress to explore the art and musicality of these amazing instruments.
The recipes are designed very carefully to provide insight into how things work together and to showcase patches for near instant use and also to teach you how to program your own. Recipes can be used in a variety of ways and much of this depends on your skill level. You can use them exactly as written to program sounds, or you can use them as launching pads for endless exploration. The recipes are designed primarily with subtractive synthesis as the primary focus, but in time, there is the possibility of expanding into some of the more difficult to document formats such as FM synthesis and Wavetable synthesis.
Synth Addiction
The past few years have experienced a synthesizer renaissance, and prices for some rare instruments have skyrocketed. Several instruments that were readily discarded a few years ago as new digital technology was released are now difficult to find and quite expensive to buy. A functional Moog Modular is impossible to come by and there are many others that new generations of synth users will only be able to read about online or in books. Some “vintage” synths which aren’t as popular are available at discounted prices such as Yamaha’s DX-7 or much of the Casio line.
There are also many new software and hardware synths for sale, such as the modular Eurorack synths, which are currently making their mark on the music industry. There are small synths and big synths, with software emulators and analog replications. Mobile phones and tablets have enabled ultracheap and portable synths that sound quite good and fit in your pocket. It feels like an epidemic that started with a small group of synthesizers and synth users, but it has spread to the general public across the world.
There is a bug that many synth owners catch which often turns into an unstoppable addiction and causes perfectly rational people to sell their possessions and obsessively stalk eBay for synthesizers. This addictive behavior fuels the fire for manufacturers to make new synths and keeps innovation alive in a field that could have easily folded when computers became strong enough to model classic synthesizers. One of the draws for hardware synths is that you have the tactile experience of turning knobs and patching cables.
Why are synths so popular? What are synths used for in the modern world? Some are used in the studio on records and others are used on stage for live performances. Some synths, however, are used for the sake of creative outlet by the synth purists that envision themselves as mad scientists hunkered over an invention brought to life after being patched together in the same way as Frankenstein’s monster. These synthesizers are often controlled without musical keyboards, which are seen as an unnecessary crutch for the expert programmer; instead, the sounds are triggered by step sequencers, sample and hold modules, and other creative voltage control solutions.
How many synths do I have in my home studio? There are more than I care to admit and even if I did count them up, it would only take a few weeks before that number changes. My goal is to have one from every manufacturer and at least one of every type. It’s getting close, but just like every junkie, I go through phases where I wonder if I should give them up. My newest rule is that if I don’t use any one of them at least once a month then I should consider replacing it with something else. I am a mild case because there are musicians with entire rooms dedicated to their synthesizers and they have hundreds of synths and modules.
Hands-on Learning Process
If you read this book from cover to cover and expect to be a synthesizer expert, but you don’t spend a lot of time experimenting and creating patches on an actual synthesizer, then you will be disappointed. We are going to teach you the names of all of the parts and we’ll teach you how to create sounds: this is equivalent to memorizing vocabulary when learning a new language but never speaking it out loud. Speaking is an important part of learning a new language and is critical to mastering the necessary skills.
To get the most out of each section of this book, it is recommended that you follow along with a synth and put the concepts into immediate practice. This helps cement your understanding of the topics and then repetition reinforces that knowledge for future reference. You aren’t going to be able to master your instruments in a single sitting, but if you take a consistent approach to using them and learning their quirks, then it’s only a matter of time before you’ll know them inside and out.
If you don’t have a synthesizer that matches the type discussed in a particular chapter, then there are a couple options. Since it is critical that you have an instrument to practice with, you should either borrow or purchase an instrument. If you have a tablet or smart phone, then it is relatively cheap to buy app versions of each synth type, but if you are on a laptop or desktop, then one good option is to pick the right digital audio workstation (DAW) that has all of the included synths. In each chapter, we’ll include information about which synths are recommended in the recipe areas, but a Google search will also help you find up-to-date information.
Figure 0.2 Our favorite DAW, Logic Pro X.
Synthesizers come in many shapes and sizes, and they use a variety of technologies in the synthesis process. The goal of synth recipes, and the unified system of notating them, is to bring all of the different types together in the same discussion; this encourages you to see the similarities and differences in such a way that forces you to walk away with a better overall understanding of the synthesis process.