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Want to pick one synth app to study, learn and master.
I have 67 synth apps, 45 of them installed on my iPad, I mainly use Animoog and Sunrizer, but only by using presets with limited adjustments. The others are there to learn as I have time and I have played with a lot of them. I have an EE background so I understand the basics of what going on, but never really translated that knowledge into understanding how they produce all the sounds they produce. I'd like to pick 1 Synth app that I can sit down with and learn top to bottom; to learn how to create custom presets etc. It would be nice if it was useful to me after as well. I am looking for a Synth that is consistent throughout and doesn't have twisted ways of doing different things. Good doc is also a real plus for me. Doesn't have to be simple, I think consistency, especially in UI throughout, can make a complex piece of software easier to understand that a simple one with inconsistencies and wildly different and "special" UIs for different function.
I am primary a Guitar player and usually do 60s/70s stuff, Blues, Classic Rock, Southern Rock, I am a big Yes and EL&P fan. Also have a couple of Gorillaz covers I'd like to record. For my own stuff my brain seems to think in Keith Emerson synth sounds, unfortunately anything even remotely Keith Emerson-ish is long lost before it gets to my fingers.
In any case the important thing here is a Synth app that will not distract me with its idiosyncrasies from learning the basics of synthesizing sounds in that synth. Hopefully one where the basic I learn will make it a lot easier for me to learn other synth apps as well.
Comments
Sunrizer or Thor would be my vote, both are fairly standard subtractive synths with a lot of depth. Oh, and start reading these with your synth at hand:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm
Yeah I tend to agree with Tarekith, Thor is a good one, lots of stuff in there and can produce a vast range of sounds
My personal suggestion would be to pick one of the following, in order of synthesis:
1: iVCS3
2: Tera (which I really think should change its name to Ptera)
3: iMS-20
For ease of getting into it in the first place, reverse the order.
Great link, thanks. Both are near the top of my own list.
Don't have IVCS3, but would buy it for this. I played with IMS-20 and it seemed to be pretty easy to get into. Seems to get a bad rap from a lot of people online though, but I like it.
If you’ve got Tera, start with Pterasynth then — it has a comprehensive audio chain, and a comprehensive set of modulator modules, and a good architecture to allow you to assign modulators to audio modules in pretty much as flexible a manner as anyone would want. It very much reminds me of my Arp 2600 for some reason — it’s not a clone of it, like the other two apps are successfully attempting to be, but more of a reimagining of something not unlike an improved Arp 2600. It skips the requirement of patch cords and jacks by simply having a menu on each mod input that lists pretty much everywhere you might have taken a patch cord from. It adds up to the same result. What you can do on one is not far away from what you can do on the other. It looks a bit similar to me, too, but arranged all in a line instead. Maybe it needs an extremely long iPad.
There are fantastic synths available in iOS; for study/learn purposes, I found extremely useful Arturia Minimoog synth.... Perhaps the sounds do not reflect the original, but the whole layout gave me a simple and deep way to learn.
Sunrizer is great as well, even better for some tweaking possibilities; however, it miss some concepts useful to know.
My 2c.
Sunrizer. Good starting point. Good sounds too.
Careful though, being a master can be boring.
Apps such as Thor are great synths, but for learning a more traditional synth layout I'd recommend iMS-20. It's laid out in a very logical way which should help you to understand how the elements fit together. And if you're a Keith Emerson fan you can set fire to your ipad and throw knives at it when it crashes.
Thor, and this series of free articles:
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/thor-demystified-1-the-analogue-oscillator
Written by the same person who wrote the column @tarekith linked to from sound on sound magazine.
I dove into the Thor series after reading this blog post, which I've posted here in the past:
http://www.syntorial.com/tutorials/ten-steps-to-becoming-a-synth-dynamo/
And congratulations on fighting app syndrome, you'll be very glad you did!
Pulse Code's Modular, it even has tutorials for every single module.
I made a similar decision to focus on one main synth for a while and went with Z3TA+
Six oscillators, two filters, well spec'd modulation set up, ridiculous amount of preset arp patterns and fully stocked fx section.
It's been a few months now and it's still keeping me interested.
In the "good old days", synths were very expensive, so you spent a lot of time deciding which one to buy and then learned it in detail so you could get the maximum out of it. Now with so many cheap soft synths available, that in-depth approach has kinda been lost, so I admire what you are doing. Some good suggestions so far!
I agree with Thor and Sunrizer in that order
Although technically any synth can be used simply to make simple sounds it helps to learn if the synth has certain limitations. Like my Novation BS2 has 2 OSC + 1 Sub OSC, only two envelopes for mod and amp which all generated sound goes through, 2 LFOs and so on. It's pretty basic. With Tera, for example, you can do a lot more routing and alter the sounds in many more ways, so it's easy to get lost and intimidated. Then you have iOS synths based off of old hardware like iVCS3 which require another level of understanding because it acts like requires voltage to make things work. Thor I think you can build on slowly. Christ, when is Thor going on sale already!
You already use Sunrizer, and it's my favorite iPad synth, but I think you should master Animoog first. Might be fun to also have a Moog Minitaur. I have one and it taught me more faster than any soft synth has in a decade.
+1 to Sunrizer for one page synth UI and good sound. It's also great to get the arp going and get tweaking.
The thing is, though, Animoog isn’t really representative of a “normal” synth, to learn synthesis in general upon. Gaining expertise in Animoog will not easily generalise and translate to any other synth encountered, as much as some of the others. Similarly, I avoided suggesting Nave, or FM4, or TF7 or a lot of the other more interesting but esoteric ones, as they’re a bit too specialised to themselves or their own type of synthesis model.
You're right. I was thinking Animoog was a Moog-like subtractive. It's not, so I'm wrong.
I'd add NLog Pro and Magellan to the list. Both are pretty deep but also quite easy to get around and learn synthesis on.
Not that wrong, the filters, the envelopes the LFO and the modulation routings are the same as in any standard subtractive synth. Animmog is not that difficult to master and it's great fun.
Think I've learnt more about synthesis by putting together sounds with the synths in Gadget than from years of twiddling with soft synths on iOS and before that OS X. Sometimes an instrument with limitations will take you further as you don't get so distracted by endless features.
I fell into iOS music in the first place because it offered a quick and easy way to make and record the sort of electronic music I like to listen to--it was the allure of making a somewhat finished-sounding digital recording of something listenable within the five minutes or so of free time I usually get every day.
Needless to say, I don't have the time to master anything, much less the nuances of any synth. But the more I dabbled, the more interested I got in what's really going on with these magic apps. I stopped focusing only on recording and more on learning about synthesis, but again only a few minutes at a time.
Didn't feel I really made any meaningful progress until I finally broke down and spent the cash on some hardware. In my case, since I got an Arturia Microbrute and a couple of Korg Volcas, I'm finally grasping concepts like modulation, routing, etc in a way that I simply wasn't when using only apps. Maybe it's the tactility, more likely I'm just a dumbass, but that's how it's been.
Anyhow, to the point of the post, without question the app that's helped me most from the perspective of learning about synthesis is the iVCS3. Recently got the Korg iMS-20, but haven't really dug in, as I spend more of my precious "music minutes" with my hardware these days. Maybe it's because those apps have screens that look so much like the hardware that it forces me to think about the sounds they make in terms of waveforms, etc. But when I get into other iOS synths, I just get lost--although that is often a lot of fun and worthwhile for me in a different way.
Good luck on your journey @BigDawgsBite! And kudos to @u0421793 for the suggestion to look at Tera, it seems as though that's something I need to do.
iMini gets my vote. It's simple and has all of the basic features of subtractive synthesis laid out on one screen. And, unlike Sunrizer or Thor, it doesn't have any unconventional features to distract you.
After iMini, Thor because of all of the great tutorials.
Get Caustic for $10 and watch all of the videos on Youtube, especially for the Subtractor module. Then move on to Sunrizer. IMHO
I'd recommend Thor:
Thor is a great visual layout for learning synthesis styles and routing, even if that's not the intention. There are several types of oscillators (subtractive, FM, wavetable, etc.) so you get a good idea of which type of oscillators produces which type of sound. From there, the routing between Filter, amp, etc. is visualized and easy to learn. What you learn from this synth is easy to apply to others, as well.
There's a great modulation matrix so you get an idea of how much impact modulation can have to synthesis.
Tera synth is another great synth for learning, but Thor would be better for this purpose. Sunrizer's also probably the best synth for learning substractive synthesis (i.e. the most popular type).
I would not recommend either iMS-20 or iVCS3. iMS-20's layout is somewhat easy to understand...until you get to the patchbay. Even moreso with iVCS3. These are great synths to experiment or for more advanced sound design (esp. with iVCS3), but terrible for learning the basics of synth patch design. Maybe a bit less so with iMS-20, but the patchbay is still somewhat unique and a layout of synthesis which is closer to Modular synthesis than not.
+1.. I've learnt most from Gadget synths because:
each one only has a few features - so you can really learn and hear what they are doing
it's almost a challenge to really try and rinse them out for everything possible
the basics are there (which you can then take to other synths) - e.g. Phoenix, Dublin, Helsinki, Kingston and Berlin for basic subtractive synthsis, Chiang Mai and Miami for a taste of frequency modulation, Kiev for granular synthesis, Wolfsburg for very simple modular type patching, Toyko for drum synthesis
it's like a little beginners science kit where you can have a go at different concepts and then move on to more advanced versions like FM4, Sunriser, iDensity etc... with some basic foundations in FM, subtractive, granular etc...
it's fun
but I still don't have a clue about "wavetable" synthesis
Totally agree on gadget as science kit. Not sure I'd start there though; if the idea is to learn and master a synth, I'm not sure that mastery of a particular gadget synth will be all that portable.
I'll add NanoStudio's Eden to the contender pile. Basic but solid subtractive synth with a few niceties like 3 envelopes, four syncable LFOs and a nice mod matrix. Bonus, you can cook up a patch with a pair of sine waves in the OSC and then listen to what happens when you change the oscillator to a piano or voice sample. Should be the sort of thing that really illustrates what going on with your synth patch downstream from the oscillators.
Hmm, spoken word samples suddenly seem like a great way to illustrate the effect of filters and filter envelopes.
That's a brilliant idea! Who here can develop an app? Let's make the perfect "My first Synth" app or "Synthesis for Dummies". Kickstarter here we come
iVCS3 was mentioned so worth posting this if you want to get under the hood before buying. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbVvchC6JfFh_A5VGSpYQyw