SYNTH SPECIAL

All your synth dreams start on

We have something of an ultraspecial issue this month as we celebrate the synthesiser and its legacy, with all sorts of synth-based practical workshops, top tips and buying guides.

First up, we have amassed a mountain of hands-on tutorial features that all use the mighty Plugin Suite to great effect, either as source sounds for various synth genres, or to produce exacting copies of famous synth sounds used over the last few decades.

We start by guiding you through some of the most popular synth genres there are using the same format of tutorials we introduced in our ‘Make A Track In An Hour’ special a few months ago, so they should have you making everything from synthwave to ambient style music in no time. Or an hour to be precise. (Ish.)

Next up we have a selection of tips to guide you through the various important sections of the synth in terms of signal flow. Dig deep with these tips and you will be synthesising better sounds with just a couple of tweaks.

Then there are step-by-step guides to producing classic synth sounds, again using stalwarts from the Plugin Suite. Here we cover everything from classic leads to thumping basses and dirty kicks.

Finally, we’re putting our heads on the block by choosing what we think are the six greatest softsynths of all time (that are still available to buy). This was a tough one as there have been so many great softsynths released over the last two plus decades, but we think we’ve nailed it. And just in case that wasn’t foolhardy enough, we’ve also attempted to predict six synths that will be seen as classics over the 20 years. Foolish? Yes.

Anyway, that’s enough chatting, it’s time to get producing, tweaking and synthesising…