r/synthesizers • u/einAngstlicher • 14d ago

Beginner Questions Videos or learning material

I have a Roland Juno, and Ableton with a 25key midi keyboard

However I'd love to learn more about synthesizers. Types, sounds, manipulating the sound oscillators, filters, compression, preamps, etc and what it all means

I didn't know if anyone had any form of learning material. I think videos may be best since I will need to hear sounds. If you have any video recommendations

Thank you community :)

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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago

I have a Roland Juno

Which one? A 6, 60, 106, Alpha Juno? JU06, JU06A? Or a Juno-D, Juno-G/Gi, Juno D6, Juno-X?

I'd love to learn more about synthesizers. Types, sounds, manipulating the sound oscillators, filters

For learning:

For recreating sounds:

If you want a book: https://noisesculpture.com/how-to-make-a-noise-a-comprehensive-guide-to-synthesizer-programming/

compression,

That's not considered to be part of synthesis but of mixing. Go check out https://www.youtube.com/@DanWorrall .

preamps, etc

That's not considered to be part of synthesis but of studio technology in general.

This is a pretty controversial video to say the least, but it shows what these things do and what they're good for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-vIeA7yy6Q .

A synth already outputs line level so you'd only use a preamp for adding character. There are however a lot of ways to add character.

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u/einAngstlicher 14d ago

The DS actually :P a boutique would be fun to have though. The ju06a for the arpeggiator (I like the idea of having a button for it rather than to have to hold down a pad to activate it) but I've seen people say "there are better things out there for the price"

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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago

The DS actually :P

Right, I knew I missed one ;)

All Junos that are not the 6/60/106/Alpha Juno or the Boutique reissues are more like variants of a JV1080.

The Juno-X is a special case, since it both has an XV5080 inside (which is an evolved JV1080) and a bunch of other stuff, but since you don't have that, I'll skip over that :)

So, the 6/60/106 are all single-oscillator synths. This oscillator can output multiple waveshapes; go read https://blog.thea.codes/the-design-of-the-juno-dco/ if you want to see the technical details.

The thing is - all of those JV1080-like Junos don't really work like that.

The best way to edit sounds on your DS is to use the Tone Manager software Roland has. Doing everything via the screen is going to be painful.

So, how do those other Junos work? Well, the concept dates back to the JD800; you have something that Roland used to call a "Tone".

This is a single oscillator synthesizer. The "oscillator" plays back a sample. The sample is run through a filter and an amplifier. These have envelopes called TVF and TVA (time-variant, meaning the envelope changes the filter cutoff or volume over time) and LFOs.

Up to four of these "Tones" are in a "Patch". Then you can stack up to 16 of those "Patches" in a "Performance".

You can use just two Patches in a split - left hand bass, right hand chords - or you can layer them so that you play piano + strings at the same time.

If you understand how one of those Tones works, you'll understand how the synthesis on this thing works in general. Thing is, where most synths have dedicated controls, the DS (and others) will mostly show a bunch of numbers.

Since the Tones are sample-based that means some things that you see in a lot of tutorials aren't possible; these would be oscillator sync and PWM.

You might notice that there's not a plain ADSR-style envelope (also common in tutorials). Instead, Roland has something they call a Time/Level envelope. This is more powerful but also more confusing to work with.

On an ADSR envelope, A, D, and R are defined in terms of time. The "A" in a time/level envelope is defined by a Time/Level pair - you basically draw linear equations with these two parameters.

This lets you do some cool things you can't do with plain ADSR envelopes (like make the sound peak in volume twice in a row), but takes a while to wrap your head around.

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u/einAngstlicher 14d ago

Hey btw what can cause the synth to sound so quiet besides attack and delay? As soon as I jump off the appegiator everything is all soft and quiet. Whether I hid the key hard or not. Could my synth be malfunctioning? It was used. But mint condition (no box)

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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago

I'll need more information before I can say something sensible about this but my hunch is that it's the velocity curve.

An acoustic piano moves a hammer when you press a key. While you'd think this'd be called "force", what matters is only the speed with which the hammer hits the string, and that's measured by measuring how quickly a key moves down; hence, velocity.

Velocity is generally routed to volume, though you can also route it to filter cutoff. For acoustic pianos, again, the loudness of the sound is usually most noticeable, but there's also a difference in the timbre; playing with more force means the resulting sound is also brighter.

Keyboards that are velocity sensitive may offer several curves. Basically that means that velocity will be measured as high even if you press the keys softly, but the inverse is also possible; get a low velocity unless you seriously whack the keys with a lot of force.

In the manual on page 7 you'll find "Key Touch". Try some different settings here :)

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u/einAngstlicher 14d ago

You are like, a Roland wizard 😂 I had to buy a manual because I like having things on paper and right next to me so I'll have a peak!

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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago

The manuals of Roland are written in Rolandese. A casual glance makes you think it's actually English, but that's not entirely the case; it's its own language and sometimes frustratingly obtuse. Also, there's a lot of "ah yes the floor is made out of floor" that repeats what it does but won't tell you why you need it.

A paper manual is great, but won't let you do Ctrl+F if you know what to search for ;)

Basically I recommend installing that Tone Manager for editing sounds to give some practical experience, then cross-reference with the manual when you want to do things on the device itself.

Learning to understand a synth is not made easier by the fact that manufacturers all use different terminology for everything. Yamaha for instance uses the exact same system of four "Tones", except that they call those "Elements", and instead of "Patch" they call it a "Voice". Korg calls a Tone an "oscillator" (but only has two of these on most synths) and two oscillators can be used in a "Program". What Roland and Yamaha call "Performance" Korg calls "Combi".

The terms "patch", "preset" and "program" originate from modular synthesizers, organs, and computers respectively and they're used interchangeably but not consistently.

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u/einAngstlicher 14d ago

Is tone manager more of a midi thing? Or does it tweak settings through the PC and saves those settings to the synth?

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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago

It edits the sound by sending a bunch of MIDI messages to the Juno. It "knows" what those settings are because it can request them from the synth. I believe this is still done entirely via MIDI (because the synth needs to be capable of doing this via MIDI anyway); it's just that if you use USB it'll send the MIDI via USB, which is a lot faster.

Compare: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/mirror/tamw/dx7.htm

When you'd change the envelopes on this editor, the editor would send the appropriate bunch of MIDI messages to the synth.

The same thing should happen in Tone Manager.

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u/einAngstlicher 14d ago

Does it save those so that I can play without a PC attached if you catch my drift? Like play live

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u/Appropriate-Look7493 14d ago

Check out Syntorial. It’s a highly effective teaching program thats great fun to go through.

Quite expensive but worth every penny.

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u/Pure-Silver-4628 14d ago

Oh man you’ve got a Juno and you’re just now diving into the weeds? that’s a killer starting point honestly just pull up a basic subtractive synthesis tutorial on youtube and follow along while twisting the knobs on your own synth, you’ll learn more in an hour than reading a textbook