Every music producer in the 21st century should have at least a basic grounding in sound synthesis, even if just to be able to work the occasional electronic element into their otherwise electric/acoustic instrumental mixes. If you’re a newcomer to the world of synth programming, here are some things to bear in mind at the start of your journey.

Choose The Right Synth For The Job

In much the same way that knowing and understanding the full diversity of guitars, amplifiers, cabinets and effects pedals available to you is essential for achieving great guitar tones, getting up to speed with the various different types of synthesis and their appropriate deployment is key to electronic sound design. Sure, the majority of synths in all categories are capable of generating every kind of sound that you’re ever likely to need – bass, lead, pad, drum, etc – but each type has its own distinct specialities and affinities that orientate it particularly towards certain sonic duties.

Analogue subtractive synthesis, for example, is ideal for big, warm basses, organically fluid pads, screaming leads and retro sci-fi FX; while FM is an excellent choice when you need a bit more edge and bite to your bass and keyboard lines. Then there’s wavetable synthesis, which specialises in sounds that change over time, radically or subtly, and quickly or slowly; and physical modelling, which simulates – as the name suggests – the physics of real life strings, membranes, tubes and other components to create both highly realistic and wholly experimental virtual acoustic instruments.

We’re talking in very general terms here, and those aren’t the only synthesis technologies out there, but the take-away is that the only way to really learn this stuff is through practise and experience, so spend some time exploring every flavour of synthesis., rather than just reaching for that Minimoog emulation every time.

Take Total Control

With huge factory preset libraries being a standard and expected feature of any modern synthesiser, many producers – and especially those that only call on synthesis occasionally – never feel the need to venture further than the filter cutoff and amp envelope when it comes to tailoring sounds to their tracks. While there’s nothing wrong with such a cursory approach, of course, if that’s all you ever do with your synths, you’re missing out on the immense satisfaction to be had from building your own patches from the ground up, or transforming presets beyond recognition rather than just nudging them into the mix.

Yes, the control panel of even the friendliest synth can appear tedious and uninspiring, but once you understand what each of its component knobs and sliders does, and how they alter the sound, it becomes a wondrous creative playground – honestly!

When you want to brighten, harden and/or dirty up a sound, for example, you should know to look to parameters such as FM, sync and ring modulation, and already hear the result (to an extent) in your head before you start adjusting them. And beyond just getting a handle on what each control brings to the table on its own terms, you should always be cognisant of how they relate to particular types of sound. What sort of filter envelope settings are good for basses? What combination of oscillator waveforms constitute a solid starting points for strings? How should noise be used for drum and cymbal sounds..?

Again, practise makes perfect, so find a synth that features the full gamut of standard controls (any decent virtual analogue will do – u-he Diva or Native Instruments Super 8, perhaps) and set about making a variety of sounds with it from scratch. There are plenty of sound-specific programming tutorials to be found online if you just don’t know where to go from that intimidating ‘Init’ patch, and reverse engineering existing presets can be a helpful exercise too.

It’s All About Modulation

Whether it’s the wild wobble of an EDM bassline, the languid movement of the wavetable index through a scintillating pad, or the rapid ‘thwip’ of an opening filter envelope in an arpeggiated riff, the movement of synthesis parameters over time – aka ‘modulation’ – is absolutely central to making interesting and musically meaningful electronic sounds. Mastery of it, therefore, is a necessity for every aspiring programmer.

Synths vary in the modulation sources they offer, but alongside note velocity and pitch, you can expect to find at least a couple of envelopes for triggered one-shot modulation and one or more LFOs for constant cyclical modulation. Many plugin synths also come decked out with super flexible multi-stage envelope generators (MSEGs) and all manner of modulation sequencers, enabling spectacularly complex and detailed shapes to be defined. Similarly, the parameters that can be controlled by said sources will also depend on the synth in question, but the list will generally be expansive and ideally include the controls of the modulation sources themselves – LFO rate and envelope attack, for example. In a nutshell, any synthesiser you can buy today will be more than adequately equipped in the modulation department.

One thing you might need to consider when sizing up any potential new synth plugin, though, is how it approaches the assignment of modulation sources to targets. Although quite a few contemporary designs incorporate both drag-and-drop and the more traditional modulation matrix, some only provide one or the other, which is something to be aware of if you’re looking to avoid the spreadsheet-like arrangement of the latter.

Get Hands-On With A MIDI Controller

One of the main reasons for the enduring popularity of hardware synthesisers in the face of their far cheaper and more convenient software competition is the fact that operating physical controls with your hands is always going to engender a more compelling and inspiring workflow than dragging graphical representations of them around on screen with a mouse or trackpad. If you’re not bringing that techno-human connection to your plugins via a MIDI controller, then – be it standalone or keyboard-integrated – you’re greatly missing out. As well as making patch programming a much more immediate and ‘performance-like’ process, a bank of physical sliders and knobs enable the tweaking of two parameters at once in real time – filter cutoff and resonance, say – which can have a profound influence on the sounds you come up with.

So, if the knobs on your keyboard aren’t currently getting any action, assign them to your chosen synthesis parameters using the MIDI learn system built into your DAW or the synth itself, and get twiddling! And if you don’t already own a MIDI controller keyboard, make buying one a priority – there are loads of superb and affordable options to check out by Novation, M-Audio, Akai and others.

How heavily do you draw on synthesis in your music, and how deep into programming do you go? Let us know in the comments.