HI there,
I’m currently preparing a live techno performance and I’m interested in learning more about how to sound design synth and what specificity genres can bring to the table.
I’m looking for resources to read, pdf and so on.
Anything to suggest ?
Regards
I found Syntorial really helpful, there’s a good free chunk of stuff before needing to pay for more.
Sorry, I realise you said reading material but for me learning with sound helped massively.
Thanks, i’ll have a look
Another thing i’m looking for is something like:
- Bass synth usually have these specs: short attack, low octave, etc etc
- Pad: slow attack and release
- Lead synth: (…)
Then
- For house: these settings usually are between such and such
- For techno: these settings usually are between such and such
and so on
Might be far fetched to find anything precisely like that but any material close would be helpful
I agree with @Pulsar and @MrZardoz ,at the same time understand where you want to go and come from.
Learning needs to be practical, so here is a real-world practical idea: study presets.
Play them, tweak a single parameter and listen carefully how the sound changes.
Then start making patches, pick a goal like a bass sound specific to the genre you want to make.
This may at times be a bit difficult because if you compare a basic patch to the sound of fully mixed song that you like it will sound different. And thats fine, try to come close.
Oh and keep going! All that what you are looking for comes with practice over time.
I don’t intend to follow such rules strictly.
I’d rather use them as a starting point before tweaking everything.
Yeah that’s reasonable as a starting point rather than an end goal.
I’ve never seen a recipe book style resource, but tutorials are out there for most commonly used sounds.
The fun comes from playing around and having eureka moments, for me. You’ll soon start to build up a personal library of patches.
Check out Creating Sounds From Scratch by Pejrolo and Metcalfe. It covers different synthesis methods and has tables of “key elements” of various types of patches which is similar to what you are asking for.
Double up the reading with practical learning and you’ll make progress really fast 
Depending on your method of learning, @DaveMech is an awesome resource for live techno jams and workflows. 
go to soundonsound.com
search for ‘gordon reid synth school’
try out things you don’t understand
I’m the ultimate preset surfer but I have been messing with developing sounds a bit. But random, but I wonder if the Floating Points approach is useful here (aka: turn a dial.)
One tip I got (which is also how Syntorial works) is to open/turn on a synth and essentially ignore 80% of it, or imagine those dials don’t exist. From there, just spend a minute tweaking stuff and see what happens. The Syntorial route is totally valid; but it’s sort of interesting to me how focussing in on a dial for a bit actually teaches you a lot. It’s less about learning the ins and outs of synths, but more about learning the parameters you need to know.
I’m no expert by any means but it’s an interesting avenue I’ve discovered recently.
To me, it’s a bit of learning theory through practice. But the starting point is usually trying to reproduce a technique and adding it to my skills/play flow.
Listening to inspiring people.
Looking for tips and tricks on this forum.
https://www.elektronauts.com/search?q=tips%20and%20tricks
Programming synths by Howard Scarr is a classic. It’s with the Virus in mind but can be translated to other synths as well. Or you try it with the Virus Emulation
http://www.infekted.org/virus/files/HowardScarr-VirusTutorial-ProgrammingAnalogueSynths.pdf
Excellent, thanks !
This! Get back to basics and really understand what can be done with synthesis and explore any ideas that pop up while reading. It’s excellent!
