Synth Secrets, Sound On Sound Articles

I'm currently reading through a series of articles called "Synth Secrets" by Gordon Reid. They were originally published in "Sound On Sound" magazine monthly from May 1999 - July 2004. There's a ton of really in-depth information here including individual articles on all the basic parts of subtractive synthesis as well as other types of synthesis. There are also dozens of specific articles discussing techniques on synthesizing various styles of instruments such as percussion, brass, strings, piano, and others.

There are over 30 articles available on the Sound on Sound site (link to main site) and I'm still making my way through the first half. There's a wealth of information there, but even though the author breaks all the elements down into their simple components, he doesn't explain everything very simply. In fact, he can get quite complicated just to explain a very simple, taken-for-granted technique or component. There's a point to the complexity, and that's to make readers aware that there's more to most aspects of synthesis and synthesizers than meets the eye, but it certainly doesn't make for easy reading.

It's not a good starting place, but it definitely is a great resource that I'm sure I'll continue to return to in the future.