Subtractive synths explained (2011)
I’d highly recommend getting comfortable programming a subtractive synth to anyone interested in making music, particularly electronic music.<p>I’ve been fooling around with music for about 20 years, but the path I took (trackers, which are sample based, then into VSTs with their huge preset libraries) plus a lack of self-discipline meant that I never really mastered making a sound from scratch on a synth. It’s only in the last few years since getting into hardware that I’ve started to learn this, and it has made such a difference to my music making - I can now often dial in the sound in my head without having to trawl through presets, or I can take a preset and either modify it to my taste, or work out what it’s doing and recreate a similar sound.<p>If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be to pick up a basic hardware subtractive synth with knobs for each function on it and master making sounds on it from scratch. Something like the Korg Minilogue would be perfect. Alternatively, a good synth on an iPad or creating a good midi mapping for one VST synth and mastering it would do the trick, but I think there’s something about the hands on design of hardware, plus that you’ve invested money in it, that makes it the ideal learning platform (and a lot of fun!). The skills you learn doing this are transferable to any other synth and other areas of music making.