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OT: Learning Subtractive Synthesis/Music Theory - Where To Start?
Hi everyone, I'm just getting into making music with my iPad and have chosen Korg Gadget as it has pretty much everything I need for now. That being said, as I am new to electronic music (making not listening) I wondered where to start first in terms of learning how to make it.
I guess a good place to start would be music theory and to learn scales, chords and generally how to play a keyboard but then I would also need to learn how a synth actually works. I also have a Korg MS 20 Mini and this is great for playing around with but if I'm being honest with myself I don't fully understand how it works or how to get a particular sound. I haven't tackled the patch bay aside from trying out other people's suggested patches but I don't understand how they work or why they change the sound when the cables are plugged in certain places.
I know the MS 20 Mini probably isn't the most beginner-friendly synthesizer to start with (I've read its layout is different than most other synths and can be confusing) but as I have it, I want to learn on it and take what I know to apply to Korg Gadget and anything else I use in the future.
I have been looking at sites such as Lynda.com, Udemy and Ask.Audio Academy and considering doing some courses. Over at https://ask.audio/academy?nleloc=search/korg&sess_id=njd75c1i8bd8dog1qk6bojfgp2 they have a couple courses explaining how the Korg Minilogue works and how subtractive synthesis works and I thought perhaps that might be a good place to start. I don't own a Minilogue (yet!) but it doesn't look a million miles away from my MS 20.
Udemy has similar synthesis courses and one about music theory for electronic musicians but I'm not sure whether I want to pay per course as oppose to subscribe per month and have access to as many courses as I like.
So what would people's advice be for starting out and learning about synthesis and playing an instrument? Any recommendations would be great be it books, videos or anything else really.
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Korg Gadget is probably the best app you could choose to get into subtractive synthesis so well done.
I recommend these two playlists for learning the MS 20.
I hear Syntorial is a great way to learn subtractive synthesis if you don't mind the price.
Free on YouTube...
2 x 1hr vids that won't leave you short-changed on invested time.
Intro to Synthesis Part 1 - The Building Blocks of Sound & Synthesis
Plus you get to marvel at the T-Shirt and nostalgic greatness of it all.
A comment there layed out subject times that may help,
05:12 Basic Terminology 08:00 3 Elements of Sound 08:20 Pitch 10:01 Timbre 10:45 Harmonics 14:57 * 18:08 Volume 21:53 5 most common Waveforms 22:11 Square Wave 23:21 Sawtooth Wave 23:56 Triangle Wave 24:59 Pulse Wave 27:21 Sine Wave 28:48 Waveforms as Modulators 30:47 7 Components of Synth 32:11 Amplifier 32:43 Oscillator 34:18 Filter 18:08 36:37 Volume Envelope 39:06 Filter Envelope 39:56 Pitch envelope 40:42 *Corresponding Components 41:54 LFO 44:41 DEMO 52:05 Review
The first 22 lessons on Syntorial are free, well worth a look: http://www.syntorial.com/try-for-free/
(Just a word of warning, I ended up buying the full thing, but not that I've regretted it
)
If you're interested in making music with synthesisrs, knowing how they work can help but as far as I can tell, this knowledge is only strictly necessary if you wanted to make a synthesiser yourself.
From a music perspective, you may find music theory much more useful.
If you do want to learn it though don't let me stop you! heh
Just my 2 mini currency units.
Synth Secrets by Gordon Reid: https://web.archive.org/web/20160403115835/http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm
It gets pretty theoretical at times but the articles are well-written and very thorough. They go WAY beyond analogue subtractive synthesis, too, so you'll learn about the theoretical foundations of basically every Gadget. And best of all, they're free!
Thanks very much for the really useful videos. I'm just working my way through the Mark Doty videos you linked to firejan. The first set on the original MS 20 are already proving invaluable as now I know how the frequency modulation section affects the oscillators and that it adjusts the amount of effect the modulation generator has on them. This is something I could hear when messing about with it myself but had no clue what was happening or why.
I'll also look through the videos you linked to SpookyZoo. Hopefully pausing the videos and playing with my MS 20 Mini at the same time will help me to understand a lot more.
I've just downloaded Syntorial Vip8888 on my PC and will have a good go tomorrow. It is quite pricey as you said but you do get a free VST synth and access to it on a computer and iPad and I suppose the cost per lesson is next to nothing.
Another suggestion would be Loudon Stearns' course on music production over at Coursera:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/technology-of-music-production#
Thanks jrjulius, I will take a look at those articles too. Decibelle, I would also like to learn theory and how to play my synths (even if it's just a few basic chords or scales) as I'm sure this will help me within Gadget to actually create songs or little loops.
Good suggestions here. I think the ms-20 is a great place to start, that was my first synth too! Everything is on the surface, it is very tactile. Simple, as far as synths go, but not too simple. After you learn the basics, the patch bay is where things get really interesting. The flow diagram will start to make sense, as the path the sound takes through the synth, and how things like the envelopes and LFO's affect it.
If you want, it can be helpful, to see what your synth is doing visually, with an oscilloscope, the tool for seeing waveforms as they happen in real time. You can check out the waveforms you are making, how the filter affects it, pitch, etc. I have used Oscilloscope, by Onyx apps, for this, you can just hold the ipad up to the speaker. If you do try that one, be sure trigger is set to On, under the tools, otherwise it is just chaos.
Gadget is a great choice as well. The gadget Dublin is a stripped down version of the ms-20.
I've done one of my WTFKnobs videos on a specific set of knobs on the iMS-20 which obviously also applies to the actual hardware MS-20 also. It's not a tutorial or anything, but it does cover a few queries that people gloss over regarding only the modulation levels knobs.
This! I also agree. It is the best resource I have read for synthesis. I read all the articles over my 2 week Christmas break. Quite detailed but I liked that he threw in some humour and tried to explain things as clear as possible.
@Vip8888 I also bought Syntorial and I would recommend it too. Pretty intuitive and straight forward. It gets harder but they kind of make it into a game so you forget you're learning.
I was going to post that video because its really great and helped me a lot to understand synthesis(screw paying for same info most likely not as clearly laid out as in this video).
But you did forget the part 2 and 3:
Also i think ms20 is great for learning synths
For music theory, Hook Theory makes a decent introduction. Available in both ebook or app form:
https://www.hooktheory.com
The other thing to remember about Gadget is that it is a lot of fun.
I know you said that you want to learn synthesis and music theory but there is something to be said for simply playing with Gadget. Just goofing around, try adding a track of London, place some bass drums, some snares, hi-hats, switch out different drum kits, add another track, I would suggest Marseille, add some notes in a simple pattern across the measure, now try switching to different presets within Marseille, mess about with the Envelope, the Effects. All this can be done while the track is playing and you get instant feedback on how your changes affect the sound, the feel and mood of the music.
Really powerful stuff and simple to get something pretty great sounding, quickly. The theory you can learn over time but don't forget the sheer joy of playing and making up music. You are at the beginning of your journey into creating so remember to enjoy it.
@ToMess
I didn't realise there was a part 3.
cool.
Thanks very much again for the feedback and ideas. I have all the suggested videos saved and will go through them all and also take a look at the SOS articles.
@Noirflux I've done a few of the Syntorial lessons, just the basic early stuff up to the first quiz where you have to listen to a sound and decide if it's a square (pulse) or saw wave and if it is square, then whether it's full, medium or thin. I got a couple wrong on this as when it explained in the previous lesson that some thin square waves can sound like a saw wave then on the quiz I clicked saw as it sounded the same but didn't realise even though they sounded the same I had to choose which square wave it was specifically. It did let me have another try at the ones I got wrong though.
It just made me think of being at school a little bit and your comment about it being like a game was interesting as I hope it doesn't start feeling more like a school test than a fun game.
@richardyot I will check out the Hook Theory stuff too.
@Jocphone You are of course right, it should be more about having fun and so I won't worry too much about playing things accurately or the right scales and chords etc, at least at first. I am going to learn about synthesis while messing about as this will work quite well and get me used to the synth's controls and then once I'm used to how it all works and more familiar with how to change a sound, then I will look more at the theory side of things.
There is also a great series of vids from Karen Ramirez, there are a ton of vids here covering all sorts of aspects of music theory.
http://www.youtube.com/user/richardjpugh/videos
That would be my choice as well. Even if you ignore all the math stuff, there's a ton of great practical examples to try. Really really well done guide on synthesis.
Whilst I sincerely hope you have all the fun in the world, I think it might help to know that if this all were easy, everybody'd be awesome at it, which isn't the case, sadly, so some tedium will be inevitable to gain the level of knowledge you want.
I've studied music theory formally for many years since I was a very young child right through university and there's still plenty I don't know. So you're bound to feel some discouragement but I hope you keep plugging awsy at it, the knowledge can big up the music fun exponentially, truly!
Fun, it can be had, and the struggle, it is real, yo.
End pep talk.
Me, I'm fun, fun, fun all the way
It also has the school feeling too. I meant from the perspective in that its interactive but I definitely get what you mean. It can be a bit frustrating at times but well worth it in the end. I'm not done by I feel like I have sharper ears because of it.
Phoenix in Gadget is the most basic subtractive synth you can get (oscillator waveforms, filter/resonance, envelope generators, and lfos). Experimentation with it should lead you to some clarity on the things you read suggested above.
Caustic is well worth mentioning for learning synthesis.
Caustic by Rejean Poirier
https://appsto.re/dk/xImpU.i
The dev has made some great tutorial videos taking you through a lot of the basics.
Sadly v3.2 seems to be stock in development...
@DeVlaeminck Yeah, Good shout.
The videos for each module in Caustic are excellent tutorials on the synthesis they provide.
https://www.youtube.com/user/CausticApp/videos
Thanks for the tips about Caustic, I already bought it but forgot. I only have a 16GB iPad so not much space so I think I removed it to make way for other stuff.
OT again but I'm considering getting an iPad Pro but don't know whether to go for a 32GB or 128GB. Obviously 32GB will give me twice the storage I have now and be much cheaper but then 128GB would give me plenty of space for the future and also if I get into sampling.
I'm still working my way through all the videos everyone's mentioned and having a go with Syntorial but I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of how my MS 20 Mini works and so in turn, how Gadget's synths will work also.
Definitely definitely definitely go for 128gb.
.
Anybody ever heard the complaint ...
... "I haz way too much disk space"
... before?
I know what you mean and 32GB would probably be enough but a lot of apps now are 1GB plus in size and so they might get even bigger in future. If Apple would allow the use of microSD cards, this wouldn't be an issue but as it is you're forced to either go with the smallest and cheapest size iPad or the next size up which is a big leap and more expensive but reassuringly has that extra space "just in case".
I have some tutorials here:
http://www.pearltrees.com/johnfromberkeley/general-synth-tutorials/id13861081