New Facebook Page

Hey guys,
I'll drop another, longer music related post sometime today (hopefully), but in the mean time, I've just started a facebook page for this site!  Check it out, like it, all that good stuff.
Happy synthing!

DSI Tetra Sequence Demo

DSI Tetra Sequence Demo by The Synth Symp

Here's a little demo using my Tetra I got for Christmas.  The Tetra is a great little piece of synth with an unfortunate interface and app holding it back.  It's basically a 4-voice Prophet, but with even more features like sub-oscillators.  The app that Soundtower makes (I won't even link it, it's that bad) doesn't play nice with DAWs, however, so any programming you'd like to do while recording this synth requires you to use the onboard controls, which is a fair amount of menu-diving, unfortunately.  The app on its own works brilliantly for me but I've heard a ton of complaints from others, however, which is why I've joined the CTRLR crew (I've made a post about it earlier.  MIDI controllers for every synth!).  Let's hope Dave Smith and his crew cook up a Tetra keyboard sometime soon, otherwise I'll end up buying a Mopho keyboard to help this thing out (the Mopho keyboard's knobs map directly to the Tetra and they can be polychained).  Enjoy!  I think this turned out way better than I expected it would.  The Tetra packs some great sounds.

And of course, if you want to see anything on this blog, shoot me an email (thesynthesizersympathizer@gmail.com) or find me on twitter (@thesynthsymp) and follow/ @ reply me.  I'd love to hear what you guys want to see!  And if you want me to keep making content, click an ad or throw in a buck in the ole donate on the top left.


Also, don't forget to check out the new Facebook Page!

Edwin van Cleef: Lisztomania (feat. Jane Hanley)

Edwin van Cleef - Lisztomania (feat. Jane Elizabeth Hanley) by Edwin van Cleef

I was shown this track a couple of days ago.  Whether you're a Phoenix fan or not, this is a beautiful rendition of this song.  Check out the great work on the synths.  One of the best covers you'll hear this year.

Exploring Presets: Drums

Drum Sounds Demo by The Synth Symp

You've probably heard this before, but drums are tricky.  They're tough to figure out how to record, and tough to mix, and tough to have sound right.  I'm going to give a little insight into getting you off the ground, however, and that is to USE YOUR PRESETS.

What makes a Moog a Moog?

I apologize for the lack of posts the past couple days; I took a day off, and when I returned, Blogger had fallen apart :(.  But now I'm back!

If you own a Moog, then this post will probably be old news to you, but one synth everyone comes across when they start looking at synths is the Moog Little Phatty.  Moog has the largest legacy of all the synth companies, due to the fact that Bob Moog, the company's founder, invented synthesizers.  You could head over to their site and check out the legacy section for all the information you could want.  What makes a Moog a Moog though?

The biggest differences between this instrument and a DSI instrument, or any modern synthesizer, is the fact that it has VCO's (voltage controlled oscillators).  Many old synths use VCOs (like the original Prophet 5 which DSI has remade as the Prophet 08), but they've mostly gone the way of the dinosaurs in synthesizers because they're harder to keep in tune.  The VCOs go slightly out of tune, which is what you want when you buy an analog synth.  The drift of the oscillators is the "warmth" you always hear about.  The Minimoog Voyager has even better waves than the Little Phatty.  Not long ago, I found a site where someone had used their oscilloscope to look at the waves, and the Phatty had more rounded edges, meaning it had less harshness.  The Voyager is still king in this respect, but the Phatty is still a great analog synth.  I sadly haven't had the chance to buy one, but have played with the Phatty on multiple occasions, and I can tell you, it's great.

Building a sound: Modulation parameters

So after you've set up your wave and filter, and changed your amplitude envelopes, where do you go? There's still loads of complexity to put in your sound! Synthesizers generally have tons of modulation parameters. Here's a short list of some modulation elements:

Who got you into synthesizers?

For me, it was probably Frankmusik. Awesome track.