Tech
Learn Synthesis With This Amazing 3-Hour Video From The '80s
While the fashion may have changed, the principles of synthesis haven’t.
With all of the affordable and powerful synths now available on the market, there’s a good chance you’ve recently got your hands on some new hardware. So whether you’ve armed yourself with a drum machine or a modular, you probably could use a halfway decent crash course in synthesis fundamentals.
Look no further, then, than Dean Friedman’s “Intro to Synthesis”, which was originally recorded to VHS in 1985 but has now been uploaded in full to YouTube. These three one-hour videos will give you a solid understanding of many different kinds of synthesis techniques.
This includes the formation of different waveshapes, the fundamentals of filters and envelopes, and also the different performance controls that give synths all their power and versatility. In total, it amounts to one of the best and most authoritative introductory guides to electronic music out there.
The videos also prove that while the fashion and culture surrounding the synth has certainly changed, the science underlying it hasn’t. We wouldn’t mind one of those t-shirts. Check out all three episodes below.
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Read more: Watch Laurie Spiegel play a digital synthesizer that became a cosmic beast
