Synthesizers and Samplers Explained
Musicians, Producers, Audio Engineers, Beat Makers, and Artists: Odds are you have used a sampler and a synthesizer already. These instruments do amazing things, but do you truly understand what you are doing when you turn those knobs and push those buttons? Or are you just trying stuff until it sounds cool?
I can help you take the guess work out of that, as well as improve your workflow when making music. Whether you use hardware instruments or plug-ins, these controls and concepts are universal to every synthesizer and sampler. If you are creating using music software such as FL Studio, Logic, Pro Tools, Reason, Nuendo, Cubase, MPC Renaissance, etc., it doesn’t matter. Again, these concepts are universal.
This short course (less than 30 lectures, all less than 20 mins) will dig in to how synthesizers and samplers create and manipulate sound. I will show you how to create a custom synth patch from scratch and how to create your own sampler instruments, as well as some basic MIDI sequencing and editing.
Introduction to Course
Welcome to "Synthesizers and Samplers Explained!" By the end of this course you will be comfortable with all of the controls on synths and samplers, as well as be able to create your own custom synth patches and original sampler instruments.
An introduction to how sound works and the characteristics of a sound wave.
A review of sound waves with audible examples.
A review of concepts covered in the "Introduction to Course" Section.
Synthesis
A basic look at the controls commonly found on most synthesizers. Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier, Envelope, and Low Frequency Oscillator(LFO) are explained.
An explanation of how additive synthesis works, with demonstrations.
A review of the concepts covered in the "Synthesis" section.
Manipulating a Synthesizer's Controls
This lecture digs deeper in to the controls available for manipulating how an oscillator creates sound.
A deeper explanation of how to use filters to control the sound of a synthesizer (or sampler).
An in-depth look at envelopes. Includes demonstrations of utilizing envelopes to manipulate the sound of a synthesizer (or sampler).
This lecture explains how a LFO works, and how to route and manipulate the LFO controls.
Let's take all of the concepts covered thus far and create new synthesizer patches from scratch!
A review of the "Manipulating a Synthesizer's Controls" section.
Sampling
In this lecture I'll define what makes a sampler different from a synthesizer, as well as take a basic look at how samplers function.
A demonstration of how to load your own samples in to a sampler instrument.
A demonstration of how to record and create your own original samples to use within a sampler instrument.
This lecture is a more in-depth look at how to assign samples to various MIDI controls.
Now that our samples are recorded, loaded, and mapped to our MIDI controller, let's see how else the sample can be manipulated by the instrument.
A review of the Sampling section for the course.
MIDI Sequencing
An introduction to what MIDI is, and how to use it.
Basic recording techniques using a MIDI controller plugged in to your Digital Audio Workstation(DAW).
An example of how a MIDI sequence can be created without using a MIDI controller. You can use your mouse to add notes to a sequence offline.
This is the final MIDI lecture for the course. It's a little bit of review, and a little bit of new concepts.
A review of the "MIDI Sequencing" section.
Conclusion
Congratulations for making it to the end of the course! This is a final review of all of the material covered in this course.
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