Things I've found interesting in Syntorial

So, Syntorial is this new thing you can get through the Cakewalk Store to try to learn to program synths better.
 
http://www.syntorial.com/index.php
 
There's a $30 discount through the store. It costs like $100 USD.
 
So, I bought it yesterday and I've completed 38 of the 203 lessons so far.
 
I like to play with Synths myself, although it isn't how I spend most of my time.
 
Syntorial comes with a Synth that you could use in Sonar if you want, but it's not on par with the other producer synths.
 
The way the app works, it gives you a short video talking about a set of parameters.
Next, it opens the synth so you can play with it.
Next, it challenges you to match 5-6 sounds using the parameters from the lesson. For example, you get a sound and you have to match the delay in time, mix volume, feedback and stereo spread.
After you do your best to make your sound match the challenge sound, you click submit and it shows you which parameters you set correctly and gives you the opportunity to go back and try some more.
 
So, in the example of the delay setting, I learned that I'm most likely to trade Feedback and Mix Volume. It's kinda the same thing to my ear. If the sound of the item fades beyond audible, then the real difference is in the volume of the first delay sounds. In order to have those first sounds stronger without having the later sounds audible, you shorten the feedback setting.
 
Ok, no big deal, but it's interesting to see that as I try to match these, I have trouble telling them apart.
 
Another interesting find is how a saw and narrow pulse sound similar.
 
The filter cutoff and envelope tend to be two of the items I have the hardest time setting. Probably because of a lack of practice.
 
Setting a delay (because I do it a lot for guitars) is pretty easy, but adjusting synth only parameters like the filter cutoff and envelope are trickier. and telling a saw from a square with different filters applied is tricky too.
 
The best part of the app, imho, is the cumulative challenges. Man, they start easy but... !!
When you get a lot of parameters and you have to listen closely to the challenge sound and move tons of them, it's really ... well... a challenge!
 
I must say, compared to a lot of video tutorials I've used, this one has something that's different. It helps me see things I might not have naturally intuited. Like where raising one parameter and lowering another have an offsetting effect that make the difference hard to detect.

Thanks for sharing. The price seemed a bit steep in the email I received and I kind of blew it off. I'll have to take a look and see if it has something for me.
 
Regards,

gswitz - thanks for this description of your experience with it. If I hadn't read this I wouldn't have given this tutorial another look. It sounds quite interesting! Might address some of my areas of weakness in playing around with the settings. Helpful post!

I like that his tutorials can be applied to so many styles of music. His style gives a better understanding of how and why to do things instead of a cookie cutter " use these settings to get this sound" approach. Just from watching the free vids and trying the demo I am much better at making bass patches.

Beepster
Wow. That sounds cool. It'd be REALLY cool if they came up with some kind of interactive tutorial like this for general mixing. Like "Here's a single audio track already tweaked. Here is the raw track. Use your available tools to EQ, compress, gate, delay, etc to match it to the finished version." Then start adding tracks via one bus. Then using bus configs.
 
That would be a lot more elaborate and likely be worth hundreds of dollars or more but what a cool way to learn independently.
 
Intriguing.

I would be the second customer after you...
Walt

When I read your opening post I was cheering you because you wrote a great review.  Well done sir.

I really can't afford to read posts like this.. My pockets are being emptied with every word I read!
 
Cheers :).