Introduction
  • Introduction
  • My Approach to Sound Design
  • Tools You Will Need
  • Physics of Sound
Basic Physics of Sound
  • What is Timbre?
  • Harmonics and Partials
  • Overtones
  • Waveforms
Essential Tools: Sound Generators
  • The Sound Generator in Synthesis
  • Oscillators
  • Waveforms: Sine Waves
  • Waveforms: Square Waves
  • Waveforms: Triangle Waves
  • Waveforms: Sawtooth Waves
  • Waveshapes Under the Spectrogram
  • Noise Generators
  • Other Sound Generators
Essential Tools: The Filter
  • Subtractive Synthesis
  • The Filter and The EQ
  • Gain and Q
  • Filter Types: Low Pass Filters
  • Filter Types: High Pass Filters
  • Filter Types: Bandpass Filters
  • Filter Types: Notch Filters
Device 1: Ableton's Analog Instrument
  • Looking at Devices
  • The Sound Generators and Filters
  • Deeper into the Oscillator Section
  • Deeper into the Filter Section
  • Signal Flow
  • Why Two Amps?
  • The LFO
  • The Wub-Wubs
  • Quick Routing
Essential Tools: Envelopes
  • What are Envelopes?
  • The ADSR Format
  • More than Just Amplitude
  • Applying Envelopes
  • Other Ways Envelopes Can Look
Preset Analysis
  • Preset: FatEric
  • Preset: Sadness Pad
Methods for Creating Sounds
  • Waveforms: Thick or Thin?
  • Filters: High or Low?
  • Amplitude: Short or Long?
  • LFO: Motion or Stillness?
Other Types of Synthesis
  • Applying the Essential Tools to Other Synthesis Types
  • The Other Synthesis Types
FM Synthesis
  • What is FM Synthesis?
  • Musical Examples
  • What is the Same?
FM8 Plugin (Native Instruments)
  • Installing FM8
  • The Browser
  • Building our own Patches
  • Getting to a Default Patch
  • Adding a Modulator
  • Adding More Modulators and Experimenting
Additive Synthesis
  • What is Additive Synthesis?
  • Musical Examples
  • What is the Same?
Device 3: Ableton Live's Operator Synthesizer
  • Setting Up Operator
  • Simple Additive Patch Using the Oscillator Editor
  • The Overtone Series
  • Additive Synthesis with Oscillators
  • Applying Filters and Envelopes
Wavetable Synthesis
  • What is Wavetable Synthesis?
  • Music Examples
  • What is the Same?
Device 4: Serum
  • Setting Up Serum
  • Serum Basic Layout
  • Wavetables
  • Serum's Warp Menu
  • Unison Settings
  • Other Controls
  • Creating Your Own Wavetables in Serum
  • Wait! Isn't that Just Sampling?
Physical Modeling Synthesis
  • What is Physical Modeling?
  • Musical Examples
  • What is the Same?
Device 5: Ableton Live's Electric
  • Setup
  • The Model
  • The Mallet Section
  • The Fork Section
  • The Damper Section
  • The Pickup Section