Owner’s manual · Part 1 · Fundamentals
Contents
Six short chapters, each with a figure you can play with and experiments to stamp on the panel. Read them in order the first time. Come back whenever a manual uses a word you don’t recognise. When a chapter clicks, jump into the matching sound recipes— then follow the gear route when you’re ready for a specific box.
- Chapters
- Reading time
- Experiments
- Gear stops
How to read this manual
- Skim the chapter promise — that’s the skill you’re buying.
- Read the sections, then poke the figure in the margin (or below, on a phone).
- Run the stamped experiment; if it fails, use “Doesn’t sound right?” before blaming your ears.
- Open the linked recipes in Experiments, then try the same move on your hardware using the gear chips.
Quick glossary
Twelve terms that show up in almost every hardware manual. Each chapter has a longer list — this is the cheat sheet.
- Voice
- One complete sound path. A 16-voice synth can play 16 notes at once.
- Monophonic
- Plays one note at a time — classic for basses and leads.
- Polyphonic
- Plays several notes at once, so chords are possible.
- Patch
- A saved set of settings — named after the cables of modular synths.
- Frequency
- Cycles per second (Hz). A4 is 440 Hz.
- Harmonic
- A sine at a whole-number multiple of the base frequency.
- Wavetable
- A list of single-cycle shapes you can scan through smoothly.
- Detune
- Offsetting two oscillators slightly so they beat against each other.
- Cutoff
- The frequency where the filter starts removing sound.
- Resonance
- A boost right at the cutoff; high settings whistle.
- Slope / poles
- How sharply the filter rolls off — 2-pole = 12 dB/oct, 4-pole = 24 dB/oct.
- Key tracking
- Cutoff follows the note you play so high notes stay bright.
Levels
Level 1
“I can make a sound — and name the parts making it.”
Source, shaper, mover. Waveforms and the raw buzz.
Level 2
“I can shape a note over time.”
Filters, resonance, envelopes — the subtractive toolkit.
Level 3
“I can make a patch move — and talk to other gear.”
LFOs, modulation, and the MIDI messages that wire a rig together.
- How synths & drum machines workEvery instrument on the route is three jobs wired in a line.Exp. #0-1 · 5 min
- WaveformsThe raw material — and why a saw sounds bright and a sine sounds pure.Exp. #1-1 · 4 min
- FiltersThe tone knob that became an instrument.Exp. #2-1 · 5 min
- EnvelopesAttack, decay, sustain, release — the shape of a note over time.Exp. #3-1 · 4 min
- ModulationMaking one control move another — where patches come alive.Exp. #4-1 · 5 min
- MIDI basicsThe 1983 language every synth, drum machine and DAW still speaks.Exp. #5-1 · 5 min
Path · generalist → gear
Finish Part 1, stamp a few experiments, then pick a stop on the route. Hydrasynth Deluxe is the deep digital dive; SH-01A is the mono subtractive counter-lesson.