My friend and Keyboard Magazine colleague Francis Preve, an experienced remix artist and sound designer for the likes of Korg and Ableton, is writing a new overview of synthesis techniques. The series is published by Beatportal, from the online music store Beatport.
Here are the episodes up so far:
Introduction to Synthesizer Programming
Part 2: Introduction to Synthesizer Programming
Some call it Analog: How subtractive synthesizers work
There are more in-depth guides out there (largely in print), but for a quick overview, this is good stuff. Let us know what you think.
Updated: Beau Sievers sends along his more nuts-and-bolts overview, also worth a read.
The Amateur Gentleman’s Introduction to the Principles of Music Synthesis
And, of course, I’m quite proud of the synthesis overview in my book Real World Digital Audio, partly because of the contributions made by my tech editor Jim Aikin, who has a fine Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming: The Ultimate Reference for Sound Design (Power Tools)synth programming book of his own.
I wrote an article which approaches this topic from a lower-level perspective, and also serves as a bit of an introduction to PureData. It's not a survey of techniques and platforms, but a short primer on fundamental synthesis principals. Maybe there's some crossover appeal?
Here it is: The Amateur Gentleman's Introduction to the Principles of Music Synthesis
I heart Francis. He really knows his stuff.
Francis Preve is great talent!
It is error.