Computer Music Presents Music Producer’s Guide to Synths 2nd Edition (January 2023) [PDF]

Computer Music Presents Music Producer’s Guide to Synths 2nd Edition (January 2023) [PDF]

Welcome to the Music Producer’s Guide to Synthesisers, the complete guide to the exciting world of softsynths, brought to you by the experts at Computer Music magazine. We look at three such iconic synths – the Minimoog, ARP Odyssey and Roland SH-101 – and their software equivalents in our main feature on page 14. We also look at some of the ‘less classic’ hardware synths of days gone by (on page 92), and show you how to emulate these more curious synths in software.

Onto the newer types of softsynths, and we have all sorts of hands-on workshops showing you some of the basics of synthesis, and lifting the lid on some of the more interesting features of modern classics like Serum and Massive. Another recent and exciting trend in the world of synthesis is modular, a once hardware-only realm, but one that is now accessible directly with software recreations, or one that can easily be brought into your DAW world. And for this latter option, we have a huge starter guide on modular synthesis on page 40. But don’t worry if creating a hardware modular system is out of your reach budget wise, because, once again, software has the answer, and we show you how to create a full modular software synth system for free in three tutorials on pages 54, 86 and 98. We also have roundups and reviews of the latest softsynths from page 102, so you can see what the experts think before you add to your softsynth studio.