Sound Design & Synthesis
Sound Design & Synthesis
Sound Design & Synthesis Course | London
Our Sound Design & Synthesis course is for those of you who want to take back control of music. Don’t be held hostage by sample packs and presets; learn how to modify, manipulate and create your own sounds from scratch, and squeeze an extra 15% out of those presets that sound just not quite there.
We aim to equip you with all the necessary knowledge to program and develop sounds in all styles using a broad range of synthesis and production techniques. You can finally finish those 8-bar loops you’ve had kicking around on your hard drives and for the more intermediate, you can crystallise your knowledge and take it to the next step.
During our lessons in London, you will learn how to craft the sounds you can hear in your head from the ground up, and apply them to your genre of choice. The class is full of production tips, tricks, and advice on how to get your electronic music moving.
We teach the skills that you can apply to any synth, sampler or drum machine. Don’t confine yourself to what you know, we’ll equip you with the confidence and understanding to look at any soft synth or vst and without being phased.
The lessons are interactive and we encourage you to ask questions and bounce ideas off your fellow learners as well as your instructor. This course is based in Logic and Ableton Live but is suitable for people from all DAW backgrounds. The total class duration is 36 hours.
Many learners these days prefer to use their own laptops on our courses for things like getting help customising their set-up, and they have their project exactly as they left it in class to work on at home. So we made the course more affordable, but added a £50 supplement for learners who wish to hire an iMac loaded with software. Please ensure you book an iMac when you book your course if you need one. Controller keyboards, headphones, and audio interfaces are always provided for everyone.
Overview
- Course introduction and overview
- Audio and MIDI fundamentals
- Envelopes, frequency, phase and waveform displays and more
- An introduction to spectral analysis and oscilloscopes
- Synthesising, sampling, layering and processing drums with Ultrabeat
Subtractive Synthesis
- The history and foundations of analog synthesis
- Oscillators, waveforms, filters, amps, and LFOs
- How to make basses, pads, leads and FX using only limited tools
- How to make your presets work for you
Wavetable
- Advanced subtractive techniques
- Oscillator Sync, ring modulation and more
- Wavetable synthesis – Internal routing, layering & tuning oscillators and making kinetic sounds
- Customisable LFOs, waveshaping, sample rate reduction and distortion
- Endless modulation possibilities!
FM
- Audio-rate modulation of oscillators, amplitude, and filters
- Getting to grips with frequency modulation synthesis
- Using EFM1 and Operator to make huge expressive pads to digital basses
- Advanced arpeggiating
- FM8’s modulation matrix and breakpoint envelopes
Sampling, Granular and more
- Granular and Additive Synthesis
- Absynth, Razor, Reaktor, Kontakt and more
- Manipulating recording beyond recognition
- Sampling and Resampling in your DAW
- Vocoding basics
Reaktor, Modular Synthesis, and Production Techniques
- An introduction to Reaktor, building and editing pre-existing ensembles
- Drum machines, sequencers, effects and synths
- Eurorack modular synthesis on our very own modular system
- Advanced production techniques
Our Instructors!
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