Synth Programming

Synth Programming (pt I)

Ever wondered how synth sounds are made? Start here in our

five part guide

You've bought your first synth. You've got it home. You're looking at it. You've played with the basic sounds. And

you're wondering, now what? You have two options here. You can stay huddled with the innocent masses,

content to doodle away on the presets, using the same canned noises that everyone else does. Or you can break

out into uncharted territory, learn how to put your own sounds together and make new and fresh choons that

sound nothing like anyone else.

The reality is that option 1 is perfectly OK for a lot of people. If your only synth is a budget soundcard, then you're

more or less stuck with the basic sounds anyway. There's very little you can do to change them even if you want

to.

But if you have something more sophisticated - a workstation like the Korg Trinity or Triton, a physical-modelling

synth like the Access Virus or Nord Lead, a soft synth like ReBirth or Reaktor, or even a go-anywhere box like the

Yamaha RM1x - then knowing how to put sounds together isn't about being clever. It's more about giving yourself

a whole lot more synth for your money.

Instead of being stuck with the original factory noises you'll be able to turn your synth into anything you want it to

be. And if you have one of the more upmarket modelling synths, you'll have an endless supply of full-on custom

noises to spread around your tracks. You'll also be able to tweak the sounds that are there already if they don't

quite fit with what you're working on.

The easy and foolproof way to do all this is to cheat. Either buy some new sounds or download them from the Net

and - if they're good - you can find yourself with a whole new synth. Of course, if you take this road, you're still

stuck with someone else's idea of what sounds good. Some sets of sounds are excellent - better than the factory

set in fact - but even so, it's still incredibly useful to know why...