Syllabus - Week by Week

Week 1

Jan 22
Introductions
  • Syllabus review
  • History of Synthesis
  • Hardware synthesizers
  • Modular Synthesis
  • Software Synthesizers
  • Embedded audio
  • Intro to Patching

Homework:

Watch:
MIT’s Wizard of Synthesis
Oscillators & Waveforms
Subtractive Synthesis & Filters

Read:
Switched on Bach - Wendy Carlos

Recommended Listening:
Silver Apples of the Moon – Morton Subotnick

Get:

  • Obtain a Teensy 4.0 or Teensy 4.1 (only one of them), and an audio shield. There are some available in the shop to checkout for short term use however we will need them on an ongoing basis. See the Teensy Hardware & Setup page for my recommended hardware setup for this class.

Write:

  • Write a blog post introducing yourself in relation to sound/music and email me a link to it before class 2. Feel free to discuss your personal tastes/aesthetics that you’re drawn to. Everyone will present for 3-5 mins in Week 2. In later weeks, not everyone will present.

Optional Prompts:

  • Describe your favorite and least favorite sounds. What do they sound like and how do they make you feel? Imagine that you are describing them to someone who hasn’t heard them before and be as descriptive as possible. Feel free to include audio/video references.

  • Choose 1-2 artists who have inspired you and show their work as references, describing why it is exciting to you. They do not need to incorporate electronic sounds into their music.

  • Talk about interesting sounds from your daily life. What memories or feelings do you associate with these sounds?

Week 2

Jan 29
Elements of a Voice: Oscillators / Filters
  • Teensy hardware
  • Overview & Setup
  • Intro to Teensy Audio Design Tool and Library
  • Oscillators
    • Wavetypes
    • Phase
    • Harmonics
    • Detuning
  • Filters
    • Low Pass
    • High Pass
    • Band Pass
    • Notch

Homework:

Watch:
Synthesizer Voice Overview

Recommended Listening:
Geogaddi – Boards of Canada

Make:
Use the Teensy Audio Design Tool to make a synthesizer that incorporates the concepts explored in class: oscillators, wavetypes, harmonics, detuning, and filters. You do not need to incorporate all of them. Feel free to build off of the examples. Think about how you’re currently adjusting the parameters within your code? How else might you be able to control them?

Optional prompts:

  • Use the concept of harmonics to construct a square wave using a combination of sine waves? A hint is in the slides…

  • Make a drone using oscillator detuning and a breadboard circuit to adjust the detuning amounts.

  • Construct a complex mix of oscillators and filter them into individual signals. Isolate them as single channels in a mixer allowing you to reconstruct the original signal with more control.

Week 3

Feb 5
Elements of a Voice: Modulation (VCAs, LFOs, Envelopes)
  • Modulation: Control Signals
  • Low Frequency Oscillators
  • ADSR Envelopes
  • Voltage Controlled Amplifiers

Homework:

Watch: Teensy Chorus & Flange Audio Effects - Gadget Reboot

Recommended Listening: Emergence - Shuta Hasunuma

Make: Build off of your sketch from last week to incorporate an envelope, VCA, and LFO. Build upon your breadboard circuit to control elements of them using sensors. Document your work using a blog post.

Week 4

Feb 12
Elements of a Voice: Basic Effects & Line Levels
  • Delay
  • Bitcrusher
  • Line Level In/Out

Homework:

Watch:

Alessandro Cortini - In the Studio

Recommended Listening: Everything Ends Here - Blind Old Freak (Alessandro Cortini) & Don Buchla Construct Contrast - Geskia!

Work with your partner to:

a) Create a synth on each of your microcontrollers incorporating the concepts we’ve been covering: oscillators, filters, modulation, (an effect? As mentioned, some in the library are more accessible than others - if you have questions or run into trouble, I’m available to help), etc. Work together so that your synths have complementary characteristics; I.e. one person makes a droning pad, and the other makes more percussive sounds. Or two drones with complementary tunings. Instead of a button press to trigger your notes, how else might you try to code them and add rhythm?

b) Give your synth more musical context: add more buttons and program each one to play a specific frequency/note. Replicate your signal flow for each button/note, and mix them together using a mixer object. You can tune each note using this chart, strategically. Tune them using the techniques we’ve discussed in class, or explore a scale. We haven’t discussed this yet in class but we will when we get back. Explore ADSR envelope shapes and make them adjustable, or evolving over time.

c) Go modular 🤘: Deconstruct the synth voice(s) that we’ve been building into smaller components and ‘patch’ the audio from one teensy to another using the line level ins/outs. Think of each teensy as a module that serves a specific function. Right now we are only passing audio signals, but how might you be able to extend this concept to modulation signals down the road? Until then, can you code a Sine wave LFO to modulate the frequency of a teensy oscillator since we’re not yet able to use external signals?

Holiday

Feb 19
No Class: President’s Day

Week 5

Feb 26
Intermediate Sound Design / Sampling / Intro to Theory
  • Sampling
  • wav2sketch
  • Reverb
  • Wavefolder
  • Notes / Octaves / Scales / Chords
  • MIDI

Homework:

Watch:

Make:

Incorporate some of the musical concepts that we’ve discussed into your sketch(es). I’d encourage you to collaborate either in your groups from last week, or a different group, or otherwise on your own. Document your work in a blogpost.

Optional prompts:

  1. The cMajor scale examples we looked at built off of a 4 voice FM example that I had elaborated on from weeks 2 and 3. Incorporate the same musical elements into an example of your own where you can manually control a filter, or envelope parameters. Add more buttons/knobs as needed. If you were to have 12 buttons, you could create a full octave, and then with a single knob to adjust the octaves, you’d be able to play any traditional song!

  2. Add more scales. In class we looked at a major scale, however all scales are formulaic in nature. Look up the formula(s) for other scales and create an array, or series of arrays that incorporates more scales so that your synth has a bigger arsenal of musical possibilities!

  3. Make an arpeggiator. This week we spoke about chords, which is the playing of select notes from a scale simultaneously with one another. A common tool in electronic music is an arpeggiator, which instead plays the same notes that are in a chord, but in succession - In traditional music this is known as an arpeggio. Create an arpeggiator so that:

    a) each button press plays the first, then the third, and then the fifth note of a major triad chord.

    b) Remove the buttons altogether and incorporate time into your sketch so that an arpeggio is constantly being stepped through. Perhaps incorporate a knob to adjust the overall speed of the arpeggio, or the length of the arpeggio (playing 3 notes from the scale (triad) or 4 (adding “the 7th”), or 5 (adding “the 9th”).

    c) Something else? 🤔

Week 6

Mar 4
Music Theory & Modularity (Continued)
  • Diatonic Modes
  • Sequencing
  • Gate Generators
  • TB303 & Acid Bass

Homework:

Homework this week is in two parts. I encourage you to collaborate and work alongside each other but each person will present individually next class. You can present on one topic or both, but document both on your blog.

1) Patch in VCV Rack/Cardinal: Alter my patches or start from scratch. Try to test your understanding of the things we’ve talked about (or haven’t talked about…you can also just experiment). The goal of this is to get more comfortable with modular patching. Don’t overthink it. Experiment, experiment, experiment. No rules, just patch :).

2) Brainstorm and Dream Big: This is a continuation of our activity from the end of last class. Further consider the second half of the semester and the type(s) of module(s) that you want to build. Do you want to make a synthesis module that outputs audio or do you want to make a modulation source? Or a gate/trigger source? How can you incorporate body movement, data, or an external program (p5?) to trigger or otherwise affect other synth modules? How might you be able to incorporate ideas or projects from other classes? Don’t worry about feasibility so much right now. We can get there.

Week 7

Mar 11
Midterm Presentations

Spring Break

Mar 18
No Class: Spring Break

Week 8

Mar 25
MIDI / Music Theory / Eurorack
  • Intro to Eurorack Hardware Specifications
  • Faceplate/PCB Standards
  • Electrical Standards
  • Cases / Power Supplies

Homework

Choose from the following prompts , with an updated option for external DACs. Work independently or in a group.

1) Use the Teensy examples from class to model a particular sound/set of sounds. e.g. Try to make a four piece drum kit (Kick drum, snare, hi-hat, and __ ). Many of the overarching characteristics will come from the envelope. Look at my noise envelope examples for ideas. How can you describe specific sounds using the parameters of their envelope? What beginning oscillator(s) are used for achieving these sounds? If you’re having trouble thinking it through, try to do it in VCV first. Some googling may help conceptually, as well.

2) Research existing synthesizers/eurorack modules that have the same/similar function(s) that you’d like your final project to include. i.e. If you want to make a sequencer, find a sequencer module and describe its features. How does it work, and what would you need to implement to replicate it with a teensy? What inputs/outputs does it have and what signals go to/from them? Start prototyping. If you’re exploring some sort of data/sensor inputs that don’t exist in the synth context yet, what will be your challenges?

3) Look at the String object in the Teensy library. Along with implementing it (it’s similar to use as other oscillators, and there is a built in example) research “Karplus Strong”. Does it conceptually make sense to you how this sound is achieved? What other sounds are you compelled to try to model yourself?

Week 9

Apr 1
Eurorack Outputs - Control Voltage / Gates / DACs / Signal Scaling
  • Control Voltage Out
  • Gates & Triggers
  • Digital to Analog Converters
  • Signal Scaling Down to Teensy Standards

Homework:

Watch:
Christine Sun Kim
Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto)

Continue with your work from last week and look to the alternate prompts that you haven’t yet explored. I’ll re-share them below (and I added one for the DAC). Work with, and talk to each other, even if you’re not collaborating as partners. Write a blog post. It will help you!

Hone in on what you are trying to explore and how you want others to interpret/experience it. Is it a practical instrument that you’re designing for others, or is it instead an avenue for your artistic expression where you want to share your quirks and nuances?

Choose from the following prompts from last week, with an updated option for external DACs. Work independently or in a group.

1) Breadboard with the DAC that I provided in class and play with one of your previous sketches without using the audio shield.

2) Use the Teensy examples from class to model a particular sound/set of sounds. e.g. Try to make a four piece drum kit (Kick drum, snare, hi-hat, and __ ). Many of the overarching characteristics will come from the envelope. Look at my noise envelope examples for ideas. How can you describe specific sounds using the parameters of their envelope? What beginning oscillator(s) are used for achieving these sounds? If you’re having trouble thinking it through, try to do it in VCV first. Some googling may help conceptually, as well.

3) Research existing synthesizers/eurorack modules that have the same/similar function(s) that you’d like your final project to include. i.e. If you want to make a sequencer, find a sequencer module and describe its features. How does it work, and what would you need to implement to replicate it with a teensy? What inputs/outputs does it have and what signals go to/from them? Start prototyping. If you’re exploring some sort of data/sensor inputs that don’t exist in the synth context yet, what will be your challenges?

4) Look at the String object in the Teensy library. Along with implementing it (it’s similar to use as other oscillators, and there is a built in example) research “Karplus Strong”. Does it conceptually make sense to you how this sound is achieved? What other sounds are you compelled to try to model yourself?

Week 10

Apr 8
Non-Audio Applications
  • Solenoids / Motors
  • Lighting
  • Bluetooth Control
  • Embedded AI

Homework:

Prepare to present on your final project idea in the next class. Show your progress, mistakes, and obstacles.

Week 11

Apr 15
Power Planning & Signal Scaling
  • Power Supply
  • Signal Scaling up
    • Op Amps
  • Signal Scaling Down
    • Vactrols
    • Voltage Dividers
    • Op Amps

Homework:

Continue to work on your final project. Show your progress, mistakes, and obstacles. Blog about it. Everyone will present on progress in week 12.

Week 12

Apr 22
Analog Effects & Utilities
  • Analog VCA
  • RC Filter
  • Vactrols

Homework:

Continue to work on your final project. Show your progress, mistakes, and obstacles. Blog about it. Everyone will present on progress in week 12. Next week will be dedicated to play testing and final.

Week 13

Apr 29
Play testing / Work Session

Homework: Work on your final presentations

Week 14

May 6
Final Presentations Final Presentations