Learning Synths
Related. Others?
Getting Started Making Sounds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31434208 - May 2022 (3 comments)
Abletone Learning Synth - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31279526 - May 2022 (63 comments)
Synth Playground - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26429207 - March 2021 (21 comments)
Learning Synths - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20272346 - June 2019 (172 comments)
Syntorial is also popular and posted here many times.
My browser put up a dialog asking for permission to control midi devices before the site showed anything.
It's a good idea to show content before your page does anything that asks for scary permissions. (And, honestly, without knowing what the site does, its pretty scary to click on a link on hacker news and have a site ask for elevated permissions before it shows anything.)
Ableton is awesome for putting this type of stuff out. The learning music section is also great. And, it's a perfect post for a shameless plug: I built a u-he Diva (my favorite VST synth) tool for generating presets with AI. It's called Diva Copilot and it can be accessed at https://divacopilot.com - I started out by offering a free trial with 10 free presets and then a monthly $20 plan with 50 presets. You can also buy on-demand credits. It works on top of a custom built RAG system that then uses GPT-4o for actually generating .h2p files. I'm mainly working on improving the knowledge base so that results get better and better. Still, you can already get some super good results. I put some examples in the landing page. Would love to get some feedback!
I've been playing synths and piano for a while, but I've been struggling to get some solid intuitions about what is going on when I tweak the synths. One thing that really helped on this site, is the «dot» that is bouncing back and forth on https://learningsynths.ableton.com/en/playground . Try tweaking the nobs and see how the dots movement changes. It helped me visualize something that I wasn't able to grasp before. Nice link!
I like synths with movements instead of keys a lot better. They give me that old sci-fi vibe. It's something that should be nice with the Quest VR handtracking.
(but no, really not like this; https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/synthvr/3748465338566... ; then I would just get a real synth)
The presentation is cool but the order here is pretty bad. When teaching subtractive synthesis, you really should start with the oscillators and their waveforms (sine, tri, saw, square), then talk about filter, then amplitude. That’s really all there is to it - create a fundamental and a series of harmonics, carve it away with a filter and then give it an amplitude envelope. I love Ableton, but I think they may have been a bit too focused on making this look nice.
I'd recommend a simple subtractive synth as a first:
>Behringer Model D >Novation Bass Station 2
Recommending VCV is horrible advice - unless your idea of learning synthesis is getting RSI...I think VCV is a great testing bed for trying modular ideas...once you understand synthesis...i think a huge draw back of VCV is the plethora of choice - it's just way way too much.
I learnt modular on a real life Doepfer modular...it was frustrating as hell until things starting clicking - i cant imagine the feedback loop on software being that good.
For those so inclined, that want to play with synth in some more programmatic way, there is a lisp dialect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_(programming_language)) for it.
The "Playing different pitches" section plays "The Final Countdown", arguably the greatest synth riff of all time. If you know it, just click the rhythm on that section.
That's a neat browser permission prompt asking about MIDI, haven't seen that one before
edit: side note making sound is one thing, making something actually worth listening to...
The quick tour of Glicol that I made is also a way to learn digital sound synthesis:
Have fun
I recommend the re-issue of Allen Strange's Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls.
It was successfully launched on Kickstarter a while ago, and is now available through a few retailers.
Actually posted about learning something new in 2025 and Synths came up. Quite like this site.
that's a nice wasm use case
On older phone I had a fun touch-synth called Etherpad but it says it's not compatible with my newer phone.
What's the best way to learn piano via keyboard like a professional ?
If you want to understand (Subtractive) synthesis. The best way is to get copy of VCV rack and follow a few tutorials. If you patch one subtractive mono synth voice once, you understand 80% of all subtractive synth architecture moving forward.
https://vcvrack.com (open source and wonderful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35OhojjqDs <- your first tutorial
Happy patching :)
There's a bunch of other really interesting types of synthesis and you can explore them using the above software