Finally got this after years of waiting. I’ve had a couple monosynths but eventually realized I wanted a poly synth. I’ve used VSTs but mostly presets. How should I go about learning to program the synth? Just make tracks? Improvise? Syntorial? I’m interested in modern “IDM” type music like Rival Consoles, Jon Hopkins, Lapalux, floating Points, Four tet, etc. I went to undergrad and grad school for music, classical, jazz studies, lots of theory, piano lessons. Much more green with actually finishing independent electronic music tracks. I have Ableton and Logic. I’ve done a lot more in Logic recording bands and demos. Just recently got Ableton. I’m controlling Peak with Novation SLMKIII. Got a bunch of other instruments but only this one synth. Thanks.
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With big, complex synthesizers made for sound design(which the Peak counts as - generally that’s going to be the case if you have a modulation matrix) you have to approach the programming with a layer of philosophy behind it, because while you can get a result by turning knobs, that’s relying on your muscle memory, which tends to result in just remaking the same go-to bread and butter sounds over and over. The muscle memory is what you’re using for performance with a synth as a live instrument. Knowing what parts you’re intending to make be muscle memory, and what you’re more likely to approach with the manual and note paper, is an important factor in being at ease with a sound design synth. It also explains why people are so happy with simpler synth architectures, since they avoid putting you in that position and let you use every knob performatively.
To start a patch in a more logical way, you can go at it by brainstorming a few elements to focus on(pitch, rhythm, and other fundamentals) and then doing a Venn diagram of that with the synth features that could emphasize those elements. There are plenty of video tutorials around on synthesizer fundamentals, but the problem is in motivating yourself to actively explore them, which the diagram can help with. Remaking famous patches is also a common way to go about the learning process, and you can get a lot of intuition for what things to try by doing remakes, just following a tutorial for another synth and adapting it to yours.
Even though you have plenty of architectural power to work with, you may run into limitations in your remake because every synth has slightly different character, usually manifested in how fast the envelopes are, the style of filter or oscillators. This can also tell you something about “what the synth does well”.
