Synthesis and Sound Design for Electronic Music

Online Course – 16 Weeks

Master the art of synthesis and take control of your sounds. From bass, pads, keys through to drums and sound effects, learn how to create a wide variety of instruments and make your tracks stand out.

1 x 2 hour lesson each week
2 Hours of Extra 121 Time
No Synthesis Experience Required
All DAWs Welcome

View Start Dates

16 Weeks

1 x 2 hour Lesson per week for 16 weeks with an extra 15 minutes for questions at the end of each lesson.

Global Lessons

We have multiple start times throughout the week so you can find a time that fits to your schedule.

Course Level

A good understanding of your DAW is required for this course but no synthesis experience is required.

121 Sessions

Each student gets additional 121 sessions with your tutor during the course so you can focus on your music.

Lesson Notes

PDF notes and lesson recordings are provided to help you practice outside of lesson time.

Synthesis and Sound Design Online Course – 16 Weeks

1 x 2hour Lesson per week for 16 weeks.
2 hours of additional 121 tuition during your course.

Choose the course start date and then choose a lesson time from the drop down below. This lesson time will be your permanent weekly lesson time for 15 consecutive weeks after the first week. (There may be some lesson rescheduling for holidays that your tutor will let you know about.)

Please check the requirements tab on the course page for more information on the difficulty or get in touch using our contact page here.

Start Date

Lesson Times

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Category: Courses, Online Courses

Take Control of your Music

The reason we created this course is to help producers break away from their reliance on presets and samples and give them full control over each sound within their music.
Not only will you learn how to use Serum 2 and the majority of other synthesisers but you will also be taught the fundamentals of audio and how we can use these properties to analyse other sounds either to re-create them or learn how to enhance them.

How does it work?

You will have a weekly 2 hour lesson with a short 15 minute practice/question time at the end of each lesson with your tutor to ask any questions you may have or recap parts of the lesson you might have missed or are still unsure of.

All of your lessons will take place over Zoom and you will be able to hear every detail with Zoom’s Original Sound for Musicians. You will be part of a small class of around 10 students all with the same goal in creating electronic music primarily in the genres of House, Techno, DnB, Garage, Dubstep and all sub-genres and related genres too.

What’s included?

To help give you a more personal experience suited to your specific genre, you will also get 2 x 1 hour Online 121 sessions with your tutor to help work on sound design in your projects. You can use these whenever you like during your course so we can show you more genre specific techniques and presets.

Each lesson will be recorded for you so you can re-watch each lesson in your own time, plus you will also get access to a PDF notes version of the main topics of the course as well as additional downloads for projects and presets shown to you during your lessons too.

As this course focuses on a intermediate to advanced topic, you will need to have a good understanding of your DAW and general MIDI programming to get the most out of this course. The course will be taught in Ableton Live 12 but the majority of the lessons will be just focused around Serum 2 so this course is not exclusive to Ableton users and other DAW users can still complete the course.
If you have any questions feel free to get in touch via our contact form here.

What is Covered?

Below is an outline of what major topics are covered during this course.

1. Properties of Sound
Learn the fundamental properties of audio waveforms including frequency and waveform analysis, harmonics and phase. This is an essential part to fully understand and master our synthesiser.

2. Subtractive Synthesis
Focusing on the basics principles of how a synthesiser works from the oscillators to the envelopes. We also explore why analogue synthesisers sound so good and how we can re-create that magic in modern plugins.

3. Wavetable Synthesis
The most modern and advanced synthesis type that can create the widest range of instruments. Learn about the powerful features and tools at our disposal inside Serum 2 and how to create modern, big synth patches using the built in FX.

4. FM Synthesis
One of the more difficult and confusing synthesis types but also one of the most unique and underrated techniques out there. Explore FM synthesis in Serum 2 as well as some other FM synthesisers.

5. Sampling, Multisampling and Granular Synthesis
Learn how to use audio samples creatively alongside other oscillators to create complex and interesting layered patches. You will also learn how to use granular synthesis, another complex but incredibly powerful sampling tool.

6. Drum/Percussion and SFX Synthesis
This topic covers some more advanced techniques to create our own drum samples and sound effects, allowing you to create powerful Kick drums, unique percussions loops as well as a whole host of risers, hits and textures as well for those final touches in your track.

7. Reference Song Analysis
Students will submit a song or multiple songs that contains some interesting synth sounds and your tutor will look at how to break down a sound and re-make it from scratch to help understand specific synthesis techniques and to help with critical listening too.

Skill Requirements

As synthesis is an advanced topic, it is important you have a good understanding of your chosen DAW specifically programming MIDI and automation. These topics will not be covered in your lessons.

Software

Serum 2 (Highly Recommended)
The majority of your classes will be spent learning Serum 2 but it is still possible to follow along in another similar synth plugin like Vital by Vital Audio. However you may not get the best result from the course doing this. We will also show a few other synthesisers but these aren’t essential to the course.
Ableton Live 12 (Not Essential)
All of the example projects will be created in Ableton Live 12 but there won’t be any specific Ableton Live 12 only sections of the course so if you use another DAW like Logic Pro or FL Studio, you will still be able to follow along as we will be mainly focusing on Serum 2. There may be a small section looking at Ableton’s FM synth Operator but only as an example of another synthesiser.
Zoom (Essential)
All your lessons will be completed via Zoom as well as your extra 121 sessions too. You can sign up for a free account here. Once you have signed up download the application and install it on your system for the best quality.

Equipment/Hardware

A good pair of Headphones (Recommended)
It is recommended to have a good pair of headphones when creating music as it’s important to be able to hear the whole frequency range, especially as you start to progress your knowledge. Some laptop and phone speakers can’t reproduce the whole frequency range so you may not be able to hear some processing or changes.
(If you want any advice on what headphones to get, feel free to get in touch here.)
Good Stable Internet (Recommended)
A good and stable internet connection will make the lessons clear and lag free, meaning we can also run high quality audio via Zoom without any problems. If possible try and plug your computer directly into your router and it is not recommended to use a tethered connection using Mobile data. (Get in contact with us here if you’d like to test your connection)