The best free serum alternative
The most popular synth of all electronic music producers is to this date still the one and only Serum by Xfer Records. It’s easy to use and sounds fantastic, but it comes at a price. And when you’ve just invested in an expensive DAW, spending even more cash on a soft synth might not be […]
Send and Receive MIDI with VCV Rack Free
VCV Rack, better known as the Eurorack simulator, is a free piece of software available on Mac, Windows, and Linux. A common question is: ‘How to send MIDI from VCV Rack to your DAW like Ableton or Logic’. This is easy to do with the paid version since it comes as a plugin, but the […]
Production Basics #11 – Subtractive Synthesis III
The signal flow of a subtractive synthesizer as we’ve seen so far is oscillator > mixer > filterWe will continue to follow the signal path with one last part: the amplifier. Amplifier The amplifier, also known as Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA), is used to control the volume of a subtractive synthesizer. If you would listen […]
Production Basics #10 – Subtractive Synthesis II
Let’s continue down the signal path of a subtractive synthesizer. In part 9 we got some insight into oscillators and other common parameters. In this part, we’ll discuss filters. But first, let’s talk quickly about the mixer. Mixer Since most synthesizers have multiple oscillators, we need some way to sum all outputs together. This is […]
Production Basics #9 – Subtractive Synthesis I
In part 8 of this production basics series, we’ve introduced some synthesis techniques. Before we dive into advanced synthesis techniques we will start with the basics. Subtractive synthesis is used in 90% of the synth’s you’re likely going to use and isn’t that difficult to understand. We will look at all the parts that go […]
Production Basics #8 – Basics of Synthesis
Synthesizers play a huge role in electronic music production. Synthesizers basically defined electronic dance music. In the next couple of articles about music production basics for beginners, we are going to dive into synthesis. With hundreds of synthesizer plugins and more being developed every day, we’ve got a ton to learn. Fortunately, we don’t have […]
Starting out with Eurorack Modular Synthesis Part 3 – Patching
This is the last part of the series on how I made my first DIY Eurorack setup. In Part 1 I talked about the modules and the case, while in part 2 I explained a little bit about the problems I went through when building the modules. This article is about my setup, how it […]
Starting out with Eurorack Modular Synthesis Part 2 – Building
Part-1 of this modular journey series was about orientating myself into a new modular world. In this part, I’m going to show you the process I went through to actually build all modules. I started out with the simplest module you can imagine. A passive mult. I bought this one from AISynthesis and is just […]
Starting out with Eurorack Modular Synthesis Part 1 – Planning
I have always been intrigued by Eurorack or modular synthesizers in general. The ability to pick and choose your own synthesizer building blocks and the ability to customize the signal flow opens up an infinite amount of sound design possibilities. And while software like VCV rack is fun, nothing beats the real deal of a […]
