I need some help understanding synthesis

[wesculbertson]

Hey all,

I hope this is the appropriate forum for this particular question. I couldn't find a forum where I thought this would fit well, so I decided to try it here. If it needs to be moved, please do so.

I have been in the electronic music scene since mid 2002, got my first serious set of tables and mixer in late 2002, and in early 2003, I began to spin out.

Unfortunately, with my job and other obligations, it's rather difficult for me to continue DJing, but I have recently begun to dabble in creating electronic tracks (mainly downtempo stuff for starters).

As a quick musical background, I have been playing guitar on and off for 13 years, I am currently playing bass in my Church's band, and I took one semester of Music Theory in college. I'm also trying to currently teach myself how to play a bit of piano/keyboard so that I can get around on synthesizers (soft and hard) much more easily.

My big problem is that I keep drooling over Synths (esp the Korg RADIAS), but I just kinda realized today that I should learn more about synthesis before I invest $1700 in a synth. I do have a Korg microKORG that I love, though. Unfortunately, while the manual does go into depth on how to program the synth, I'm not sure what the features do.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I honestly had no idea what an LFO even stood for much less what it did. Since then, I read an article in Virtual Instruments magazine that gave a great layman's definition as to what an LFO is and what it does, but when they started describing how to use an LFO, it was all over my head.

So, my question to you all is this... Is there a website or book (or maybe some of you can answer some of my questions) that explains more in layman's terms what things like High Pass Filters, Low Pass Filters, Envelopes, etc. are? If possible, it'd be nice to maybe hear some examples of the differences using things like LFO's, LPF's, HPF's, and Envelopes can make. Virtual Instruments magazine did actually give an example you could follow along with on using LFO's, but unfortunately, it was all using a free virtual synth that's only available for Windows, and I do all my production on a Mac (bummer).

Also, is there a good website or book that explains the differences between Additive Synths, Subtractive Synths, Frequency Modulated Synths, etc. as well as examples of when it may be best to use each kind (again, keep in mind that I'm a newbie to synthesis)?

Thanks in advance, and I'm very excited to read your replies!

Wes

[blue hell]

Wes

I'm Clavia biased ...

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rhordijk/Proto/Index.htm

http://www.clavia.se/products/nordmodular/demo.htm

[wesculbertson]

Thanks for the welcome, and thank you very much for the links I'll definitely read up on those!

Thanks again!

Wes

[Antimon]

Just wanted to add a little note: a great thing about Jan's second link above is that if you're wondering what an LFO does, you can find out yourself by doing practical experiments in the Nord Modular Demo. This also applies to most other common elements in synthesizers. The Nord Modular is a great platform for learning synthesis by experiment, and the demo is free!

/Stefan

[State Machine]

Here is a thread that will help. I had posted a reply that contained some useful links to some great books on synthesis.

http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-13260.html&highlight=

Hope this helps you !!

Bill