
Chapter 1: Welcome
Hi everyone and welcome to Synthesis 101 with Logic Retro Synth.
In this course you will learn the principles behind the most common forms of synthesis.
Most of the content covered is transferable to other synthesizers so you’ll be a synth ninja before you know it!
If you are a beginner and are intimidated by all those knobs and controls on synthesizers,
or if you have been making music for a while but want to be able to move beyond the presets and create your own sounds then this is the course for you!
We look step by step at all the controls in retro synth and explain the fundamental concepts behind synthesis using visual animation so you can really understand what it is you are doing.
There’s also practical example patches demonstrating how you can design common types of sounds such as basses, leads and pads.
So are you ready?
Lets get into it!
In this section we learn about fundamental audio concepts that we will be referring to throughout the course.
In this section we learn about harmonics and the harmonic series. These are the component frequencies that make up any sound and that we can shape through synthesis.
In this lecture you will learn about the fundamental building blocks of subtractive synthesis.
In this lecture we learn to create our own custom wavetables from audio files.
This course is targeted at beginners and intermediate level students who want to make electronic music in Logic Pro.
It covers fundamental audio concepts and the building blocks of sound synthesis such as:
Amplitude
Frequency
Oscillators
Filters
Low Frequency Oscillators
Envelopes
Frequency Modulation
The software being used is Logic Pro X’s Retro Synth, but the underlying concepts are transferable to the majority of other software and hardware synthesizers on the market.
Retro synth is a great user friendly beginner synth to learn on as it has a simplified user interface and covers many different types of synthesis including:
Subtractive synthesis
Wavetable synthesis
FM (frequency Modulation) synthesis
This course is structured progressively, covering all the building blocks and different methods of synthesis commonly used.
Throughout the course there are animations demonstrating the concepts visually, so you can see as well hear the sound.
There are also example patches available to download that cover common types of sounds such as:
basses
leads
pads
sequences
This course is designed to be an in depth, comprehensive look at synthesis and on completion you will have all the basic knowledge required to kick start your own sound design journey.
So if you are ready to ditch the presets and learn how to create your own original sounds then this is the course for you!