Novation are hosting live video to teach you synthesis using their range of gear today. And they’ve got some other useful resources and artist interviews (Orbital!), so let’s have a look.
First up, Novation are broadcasting their Beats and Bytes series to their YouTube channel on a range of topics using their in-house specialists – the folks who make the gear, telling you how to use it. (Not bad: it used to be manufacturers would go to your retail to do trainings, and then you’d go to the retailer and … well, hopefully get something useful, though in lesser stores, people would just sort of stare at you from across the room.)
That starts afternoon time in the Americas, evening in Europe and Africa, and … weird hours elsewhere.
Technology Evangelist Enrique Martinez will be hosting the live stream. Novation tell CDM this will be “very basic sound design techniques” – so beginners (up to intermediate users), feel welcome!
It’s for Novation hardware, but they also say you’ll be able to apply this to other instruments, like your soft synth plug-in you’re trying to learn.
4PM Pacific (9PM NYC / 3AM Berlin) you can tune into the broadcast live, or catch the replay whenever you like. On the menu – this looks like a very useful episode:
(00:00 – 10:00) Making Drum Sounds w/ Circuit Mono Station
(10:00 – 20:00) Making Bass Sounds w/ Bass Station II
(20:00 – 30:00) Making Pad Sounds w/ Peak
(30:00 – 35:00) Putting it all Together
(35:00 – 40:00) Q & A
Wait… drums and bass and pads — I don’t know. It could be too much. Make sure you’re sitting down.
But Novation have been busy with a lot of resources. The timing is good – instruments like Peak have made an impression across the whole synth world. Two written artist interviews worth checking:
The Horrors’ Tom Furse talks Bass Station II
And here’s more in the way of videos.
Circuit users, they’ve crammed another update in the form of version 1.7 – pattern chain being one especially handy feature if Circuit is at the center of your performance:
On Circuit Mono Station, here’s a useful guide to extending parameter changes across multiple steps:
Peak, the flagship, gets really deep. The Mod Matrix is one extensive place to start:
And here’s a complete technical overview of Peak:
Or, in an especially beautiful artist pairing, Hauschka taking Peak into dreamy soundscapes:
That’s a lot of technical information. So where do you start? Let’s look to artist Érica Alves, in the “Start Something” series Novation did a couple years back, with a Novation synth alongside the first Roland AIRA TR-8.