So imagine a very old water jar made of clay. Let’s close our eyes for a moment and imagine the steps of sculpting with the feeling of clay in between our hands taking the basic shape and with a knife tool go further by removing material slowly, precisely.
“That’s exactly what Subtractive synthesis is for me.”
I like figure of speech
You start with a Raw bloc of Clay : the oscillator
Maybe you mix different colors of clay together : the waveforms (to get a timbre also known as a “Specific Tone”)
You turn everything in between your hands, this raw material : the shaping
Then you remove material with tools to take the shape further : Envelopes, Filters.
Then you give life to the damn thing : LFO, Envelopes
Honestly that’s all you need to know (for now…) regarding subtractive synthesis it is not the most complicated type of synthesis.
To understand even better how the sound in the context of a synth works I recommend you to download Voltage Modular on your computer, I think there’s a Trial period, basic version is 25$.
If you’re not familiar with Modular as Hardware of course !
And follow along this get started with Cherry Audio Voltage Modular :
You add an oscillator, an envelope, and an amplifier to build your tones… that’s the basic modules you will be working with.
Why I propose to follow along with this particular tutorial and precisely a Modular one. That’s because you will feel better how each component behaves, for instance without an ADSR module (envelope) we simply can’t control the oscillator as a sound, it would be a constant tonality with no end. With this tutorial, you will understand better what’s happening inside your Analog Four and identify more easily what each component does exactly.
You can follow along further with the Voltage Modular by adding another module called Filter and another Envelope or an LFO. It will help you to understand each module much better. You will also understand the routing between these modules + their brand signature what’s make the modular so pleasant for people who like to experiment. This is a more affordable way of learning modular synthesis without investing too much money in physical modules. If you can understand the concepts with software you will get to a better place to build your setup if you decide to go the hardware route.
The signal flow chart
You will find it in every synth manual, it’s the design of the synth electronically, it’s the path of the sound from the generators to the outputs of your synth. It can be interesting to observe how the signal flow is : from oscillators, the filters, the modulation tools and the effects.
There’s traps you don’t want to fall into when you get into Subtractive synthesis.
You need to pay attention to your audio levels when using a synth with headphones to protect your hearing. It can be easy to use a patch that has the Low Pass filter set to sub bass sounds and then switch to a patch with a lead sound that will make your ears bleed. If you start practicing at lower levels you are less likely to damage your hearing when going from one parameter to the next.
Also when you add life to the sound with and LFO and scroll destinations one by one they add up and can “cause” a happy accident, the sound usually behaves unexpectedly and can damage your hearing and also your sound system.
Another thing to consider, if you shape your sounds too short on the oscillator or the filter, you not hear precisely how the sound is modulating (LFO, long envelopes), don’t forget to usually open it, hear it and then come back to the shaping nature you’re after.
That’s all I hope you like this post
