Synthesis and sound design book?

[dannyrichardson]

I am a huge fan of Bob Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook. It has a great breakdown of synthesis and goes deep into filters and oscillators.

[vartika579]

You can buy this book:- Creating Sounds from Scratch: A Practical Guide to Music Synthesis for Producers and Composers.

[N i g e l]

then the VAST engine becomes a dream to use.

FM is another ballgame entirely and requires the use of heavy drugs and a social problem..

I still need to map out my strategy on the back of an envelope before starting on VAST campagain but there are plenty of really good VAST video tutorials online...

For FM,
play with 1 oscillator/operator and get to know the sound
play with a 2 operator stack and get to know the sound

that goes along way down the road to familliarisation and it is so much easier to play around with the sound these days using knob box controllers.

It starts to get more experimental with taller operator stacks but a lot of sonic complexity comes from having parallel stacks rather than maxing out the number of operators in one stack.

Theres a good pdf describing modern harmonic based FM synthesis using a scope & frequency analyser [ now more accessable as they are available as DAW tools]

http://www.javelinart.com/FM_Synthesis_ ... uments.pdf

[N i g e l]

oops....best give credit where its due .....

FM Synthesis of Real Instruments (and any other type) by Thor Zollinger (2016)

http://www.javelinart.com/FM_Synthesis_ ... uments.pdf

[Ben Asaro]

I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but the Patch & Tweak series (second book coming out soon) has tons of great patch ideas and synthesis concepts explained in detail. The concepts are universal and can apply whether you are using a soft-synth or hardware.

[ConcertinaChap]

I bought Patch & Tweak 1st edition but found it almost totally useless because the author had not bothered to supply an index, meaning it was very, very difficult to find anything twice. I hope the new edition has repaired that, otherwise I cannot recommend it.

CC

[Ben Asaro]

I recall you saying that before. shrug, I've not had the problem yet.

[ConcertinaChap]

Well I'm not going to bang on about it so this my last comment on the subject but it's not at all a cheap book, mostly justified by the high production standard. However the omission of an index (a key feature for me for making full use of any technical book) is in that context peculiar and a real shame.

CC

[Ben Asaro]

I am curious to see if enough people commented on that to get an index added to the new one coming out. I’ll let you know!

[N i g e l]

I normally just CTRL-F and search for what I want

For paper books the list of key words at the back with associated page numbers was probably my 1st port of call in a search but invariably it didnt have the key word I wanted. I get the same now with those interactive HELP files.

For a technical book, I would normally only use an index for the 1st or 2nd read, as an overall, top level map of the book, so that I know whats comming up on my journey through the book. For that reason on its own, I think an index is an essential part of the presentation of the information in the book.

Tools like Microsoft word can automatically create an index from your chapter and paragraph headings so what was Patch & Tweak authors problem ?

[Zukan]

https://www.robpapen.com/RP_Book_and_Video.html

Can't recommend Rob 's books/plugins enough. Top bloke that actually knows his shit.

[Flank Audio]

As a few others have said. "The Computer Music Tutorial" is a good starting place for this stuff. It's bit of a beast but there's some useful information in there. It certainly helped me out a lot during my DSP/coding moodules at university. It's also relatively easy to read when compared with some other academic books out there!!

[YashN]

I still need to map out my strategy on the back of an envelope before starting on VAST campagain but there are plenty of really good VAST video tutorials online...

For FM,
play with 1 oscillator/operator and get to know the sound
play with a 2 operator stack and get to know the sound

that goes along way down the road to familliarisation and it is so much easier to play around with the sound these days using knob box controllers.

It starts to get more experimental with taller operator stacks but a lot of sonic complexity comes from having parallel stacks rather than maxing out the number of operators in one stack.

Here's a tip: approach V.A.S.T. after you have a good knowledge of simple Subtractive Synthesis and find out how to implement that in V.A.S.T.

Secondly, after this, you can try various other methods of synthesis within V.A.S.T., including other historical ones (including F.M. via the original V.A.S.T. DSP processing units), present ones that didn't exist when V.A.S.T. was launched, and future ones that still don't exist commercially.

View it as a multi-Synthesis Synth-building (and Drum Machine building, and Sampler-building, and Interactive Phrase Sequencing building, and Effects building) platform, because that's what it truly is.

When you start, there are a few examples in the manual. Learn the manuals and experiment along the way.

As someone who was writing advanced tutorials back in the day, I think it's still one of the most misunderstood platforms.

[electroacoustics]

I recommend:

• FARNELL, Andy: Designing Sound. MIT Pres, 2010

François.

www.lampfilmusic.com

[aekoi]

Probably been mentioned before, but Patch Tweak by Bjorn and Meyer is good. It's mainly modular content and history.

[ajay_m]

Steal That Sound, from Keyboard Magazine.

[Forum Admin]

Anyways, I'll back the same books I mentioned earlier in that fight club thread: 'Sound Synthesis and Sampling' by Martin Russ...

RIP Martin; sorely missed by his SOS colleagues. Agree - his book is a classic.

Forum Admin