Demystifying Synths

Patchbuilding

Time to put your new synth skills to the test.

30 Minutes
8 Sections

Are you up for a challenge? For our final installment of this free course series, we're challenging you to make everything you've learned and recreate a few famous patches, including New Order's "Blue Monday," Baauer's "Harlem Shake," Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice," and more.

By the end of this course, you will be able to better listen to and reconstruct a handful of classic synth sounds and hopefully translate that skill into any synth sound from here on out! If you're ready to take these lessons to the next level, check out Advanced Synths and Patch Design for Producers for an even deeper look at using synths in your music. 


Martin Fowler

Composer, Producer, Bassist

Martin composes and produces music for commercial, educational, and artistic media, and records and performs internationally with many NYC-based artists. He also produces original electro and house music and remixes as MDFX, plus trap/jungle/bass music and remixes as WNNR, and will release his debut solo record later this year. His favorite cloud type is the lenticular cloud.

More About Martin
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synths
music production
sound design
synthesis
song analysis
demystifying synths: patchbuilding
martin fowler
patch design
subtractive synthesis

Course Outline

  1. Section 1

    Finding Your Way

  2. Section 2

    The Demystification Challenge

  3. Section 3

    "Blue Monday"

  4. Section 4

    "Harlem Shake"

  5. Section 5

    "Gin and Juice"

  6. Section 6

    "Hand That Feeds"

  7. Section 7

    "Everything in Its Right Place"

  8. Section 8

    Conclusion

MORE INFORMATION

Who is this course for?

People with no prior knowledge of synths. Or people who think they know something about synths but really don't. They just know that tweaking that one button makes a slingshot sound.

What are the requirements?

This is the final course in this series. You don't need to go in order, but you'll be better able to start building patches if you first have a good grasp of OscillatorsFiltersEnvelope Generators, and LFOs & Modulation.

You'll probably want a synth of your own to play with. We recommend a free software synth called Helm.

How long does it take?

This section of the course is all about putting what you've learned into action. You can get through the content in 20 minutes, but the more time you spend building patches, the better you'll get at it.

What can I expect to get from this course?

In this course you'll be building your own complete synth patches from scratch. By the end, you should be able to recreate any synth sound you hear.