Welcome and Happy Halloween!
This post is the first of many (hopefully) that will discuss my successes, trials, and tribulations learning sound design holistically to an intermediate or advanced level (my current musical goal). After acquiring and demonstrating the ability to produce in the classical and pop genres at a high level and learning the ins and outs of Logic Pro X, Kontakt, midi programming for drums, bass, guitars, all orchestral instruments, ethnic instruments, recording, vocals, and the mixing/mastering process to a high-intermediate level, I took a deep breath and decided to embark into the realm of EDM. After this is finished, I think I'll work on Synthwave and on some music tracker programs like Deflemask and write some chiptune.
This is going to really take some time since I like to work on everything from the ground up in a methodical, all-encompassing way. Additionally, I am a little nervous about jumping into the world of sound design because there are simply too many possibilities; it is such a deep rabbit hole indeed! Anyway, as part of my "from the ground up" style of learning, I decided to start by learning to program one of the earliest synthesizers to ever hit the market (with the exception of modular synthesis... I think I'll jump back to that once I have a good handle on everything).
Synthesis originally started to come into the mainstream in the late 1960s and early 70s with the release of the album, Switched on Bach, in 1968, and the Mini Moog. The Mini Moog cost about $1,500 at that time, so I can't imagine how expensive the modular systems Moog developed before that were! Despite the heavy price tag, Moog was able to jump into a market that would generate so much demand for him that his company could not meet the production quota to keep up with demand. In addition to giving artists and producers a very portable synth they could perform live with and take to the studio with them (just like a suitcase!), Moog's company also developed the first mod and pitch wheels which are currently used on just about every synth and mini controller today. Unfortunately, Moog didn't get the patent for this device, which would have netted him quite a large amount of money.
The Mini Moog synthesizer is cool today especially because of the increased use and palatability of analog sounds from the 70s and 80s in popular media today. Some nice quick examples would be of course the complete soundtrack to Stranger Things, but also the soundtracks for many other media as well, namely the game, Death Stranding, the TV show Cobra Kai, and the movie It Follows (which inspired the Death Stranding soundtrack, by the way). More and more people are preferring the warm, imperfect sound of analog.
The Mini Moog is said to use a form of synthesis called "subtractive", however, I don't really like this naming convention because the filter is essentially the subtractive part and the introduction of oscillators is "additive" by design. See, understanding how the Mini Moog works is easy because of its intuitive design. This seems simple to many electronic producers today, but actually it was quite revolutionary at the time. Before the Mini Moog, modular synthesis was used which looks like this:
Despite this, many music producers today still use the modular setup and I personally think that is very impressive and demonstrates a skeletal knowledge of how sound synthesis works. For example, the famous Hollywood composer Junkie XL recently used his modular setup for the Rev-9 theme in the movie Terminator: Dark Fate...
This was one of the earliest forms of synthesis, and, essentially, there is a lot of flexibility offered in this setup and the various components are connected together using "patch cables", but this is not really something I would have liked to navigate as a first-time synth user in the 70s with no internet to learn from!
The Mini Moog, on the other hand, wired everything behind-the-scenes and made things really understandable in a "flowing left-to-right" setup. Basically, you have three oscillators (sound generators) on the left side of the instrument (the additive section). There are several different sound waves to choose from, all which create different timbres of sound to work with and inspire you. After that, there is a noise generator offering either white or pink (softer) noise. Then finally we get to the VCF filter section and the ADS filter and volume envelopes used to shape the sound.
The French company, Arturia, makes quite a bit of very useful, high-end software and hardware synths. Their offering, the Mini V, is a faithful recreation of the famous synth in standalone or DAW plugin form.
Notice the similarities to the original version. It also expands on the original capabilities of the synth with some additional effects and modulation routing options. Additionally, it pairs quite well with the midi controller, the Arturia MiniLab MkII, this is the main mini controller I own and use and it received a very, very good rating for its capabilities and price range. I am very happy with it so far because it is extremely portable, maps seamlessly to most plugins (especially Arturia ones, of course), and it has everything you could hope to need: mod and pitch wheels, knobs and pads. I'll embed links to their products in the pictures if anyone is interested.
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