A Basic Guide to Subtractive Synthesis (Part 1) – Basix

This screencast is the first tutorial in a series on synthesis. This first installment shows a basic guided tour of Subtractor in Reason and covers oscillators, filters and envelopes.

This is really aimed at the beginner who is relatively new to subtractive synths or people just starting to program their own patches. I’ve tried to keep the videos a little shorter than previous offerings but I have to apologise for any heavy breathing you might hear in the later stages – my boxer Alfie decided to come and sleep in my studio!

Don’t worry if you don’t own Reason as I have constructed the same sound in a couple of other synths: FAW’s Circle and Logic’s ES2. Hopefully this will allow the majority of people to follow the series.

Screencast

The Patch in FAW Circle

Here is the patch in Subtractor and also recreated using Future Audio Workshop’s excellent ‘Circle’ synth. While these recreations won’t sound identical, they should give most of you a chance to load the patch up.

You can download a fully functional demo of Circle here.

The patches for each of these are available for download in the play pack below.

The original patch in Subtractor.

The patch recreated in FAW Circle.

The Patch in Logic Pro 9’s ES2

Here is the same patch, but this time in Logic’s ES2 synth.

The patch recreated in Logic’s ES2.

Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (98 KB)

Contents

  • Reason’s Subtractor patch
  • FAW Circle patch
  • Logic ES2 patch

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Discussion 12 Comments

  1. Björgvin says:

    Very nice. Didn’t notice any heavy breathing though. :)
    “If you wanna play some big chords” Sixteen note chords surely are some big chords Mo.
    A few more of these and I’ll lay down my guitar and start using my keyboard some more.

    • Mo Volans says:

      actually you would be surprised. by the time you have programmed a a chord sequence with several notes playing at once and then add large amounts of release … you may easily have this many notes playing with the overlap etc ;)

  2. Kyle says:

    This was a great post…even though I’m no longer a synth n00b, it was still a nice refresher. It’s easy to get caught up in all the fanciness of some of these software synthesizers and forget about the basics!

    …the basics that often are MORE than enough to get the job done and allow you to continue working without getting bogged down in all the bells and whistles!

  3. Robbie says:

    Thank so much for this. Really well explained. 10points !

  4. Ave says:

    You explain great Mo, thanks for that!!!
    tho i’d like to see (hear) you get more into the guts of subtractive synth.
    like the X’es Minuses and Circles over on the Subtractor.

  5. John Gaiser says:

    got to go back to synth 101 now and then..

  6. Please, more tutorials like this. Tutorials showing how to make certain patchs are almost as good if not better than tutorials showing how to make a complete song.

  7. Mo Volans says:

    glad your into this guys. planning to do more in this style and get deeper into synthesis ;)

  8. Nick says:

    Great tutorial. Reason’s Subtractor is one of the most straightforward subtractive soft synths out there and is an excellent starting point for someone who is learning synthesis for the first time.

  9. Adrian genesisfan says:

    Hi
    Very educational
    I’m a beginner to synths, i own a Prophet 8 Dave Smith
    I’d like to learn to create my own patches & fat sounds
    Please create more work for beginners
    Keep up the good work
    Thanks

  10. ermize says:

    gret tutorial Mo!
    especially when you explain the filter envelope :D

  11. curls says:

    awesome tute got I’m a newbie to synthesis and this really helped!!!

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