Intro to Synthesis Part 1 - The Building Blocks of Sound & Synthesis
Why Hacker News recommends it
Repeatedly called the best beginner course on audio synthesis, since the concepts have not changed since it was made.
What it is
Dean Friedman's near-hour-long introduction to synthesis, covering the building blocks of sound and the controls on a synthesizer. He slowly adjusts knobs so viewers hear what each parameter does.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2018 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec kowdermeister · 2018-01 · on “Open source modular synth software lets you create 70s & 80s electronic music”
I highly encourage you to watch this and P2 on synthesis. The concepts haven't changed since then. You will find the same things on all synths. [this video] Also, go ahead and try Propellerhead Reason (free to play with, you can save, but can't open saved files). It's the best one on the UX side. However I have to admit I'm using it for 10+ years now.
Strong rec superzadeh · 2019-04 · on “Subtractive synths explained (2011)”
This has been my favourite course to learn about Audio Synthesis; it's old school but has all you need to know, in a digestible format: [this video]
Strong rec aasasd · 2020-12 · on “1937 film explains how a car differential works”
That's exactly why this three-hour ‘Intro to synthesis’ series is one of my favorite explanations on musicmaking: [this video] Instead of running through all the parameters in ten minutes and one second, the dude keeps twiddling the knobs and lets you hear what they do. He spends ten minutes on dialing just one sound. As a bonus, since the vid is from the early eighties, you can occupy yourself by guessing exactly how high the man is.
Strong rec aasasd · 2021-09 · on “Ask HN: Have you found it difficult to get quality technical content on YouTube?”
My problem with informational videos on YouTube is that the majority of what I see in search results is ten minutes or less, often like two-three minutes. So if I want somewhat more information than ‘I wonder what is that thing anyway’, I pretty much can't get that on YouTube. Like, I'd expect thirty minutes to an hour to be a reasonable length for explaining a topic superficially but in more depth than a dictionary entry. Compare that to the three-part introduction to sound synthesis from the 80s where the dude twiddles knobs for three hours and explains what each of them is doing. Just dialing in one sound takes him ten minutes. It's the best educational video I've seen on YT: [this video]
Recommends aasasd · 2019-08 · on “Ask HN: Your favourite tutorial for total beginners?”
More of an explanation than a tutorial, and dunno how it is for total beginners, but — Intro to Synthesis: The Building Blocks of Sound & Synthesis, by Dean Friedman: [this video] It explains the things that you'll constantly fiddle with on a synthesizer (and sometimes even in a DAW with samples: envelopes are likely to appear there). The series benefit greatly from being three hours long in total instead of ten or even thirty minutes. The first vid is followed by: - Intro to Synthesis Part 2 - Types of Synthesis & Programming Examples [LINK] - Intro to Synthesis Part 3 - Additional Synth Features, Performance Controls & Wrap Up [LINK] Also, since the vids are from sometime in early 80s, you'll h
Recommends aasasd · 2022-07 · on “Ed is the standard text editor (2014)”
Yeah, I'm kinda getting into these vids from the seventies and eighties. “Introducing The Amazing Compact Disc, 1982” [LINK] — “You can pick it up and move around, even shake, and nothing happens”, yeah sure bud. “Introduction to Microsoft Excel, 1992” [LINK] “Susan Kare explains Macintosh UI ergonomics on the Computer Chronicles, 1984” [LINK] — the control panel is just astounding by modern standards, especially seeing as for me the control panel is a litmus test of an OS interface. Also one of my favorite music-making tutorials is the three-part, three-hour series ‘Intro to Synthesis’ from sometime in the early 80s: [this video] — instead of going through all the terminology in ten minutes and
Cites ydnaclementine · 2019-08 · on “Ask HN: What are you learning in 2019?”
Music producing with LMMS, mostly wanting to make jungle dnb sounding stuff I've installed FL studio a few times in the past but didn't get really far. This time I've decided, let's actually gain some understanding of theory and tools (like synths: [this video] ) and make a little something just for fun. I'm using LMMS because now I'm on linux and don't want to deal with wine and FL studio. LMMS is actually pretty good, and has a good selection of tutorials on youtube