How I use a synth despite having no talent :)

Make hardware synthesizers work for you, even if you have no piano or keyboard skills! This is a tutorial for all the electronic music music producers and composers who use a software-first approach to making music.

Contents:
0:00 Who is this for?
0:31 The simplest answer
1:00 "Oops I don't know how to play piano"
1:41 Rhythm and notes design
3:43 Replacing the placeholder with the synth
4:09 Performing and capturing
5:02 Here's one I prepared earlier
5:59 Random madness at 226bpm
7:28 What to do with all this

[RoadRunner]

"I invite you to think about it the same way" 🙂

I need to use that one at work.

[shawnmcandrew]

I love how Oscar is just such a lighthearted goofball it’s relatable and fun. I’ve watched so many tutorials that are super serious. It gets tedious. I am currently doing the foundations 1 class. It’s great I love how it’s organized. Too many random videos have left me with skills with no context as to how to actually use them to build a track. Not so with Oscar’s videos and presentation it’s simple straightforward and it builds on the last chapter.

[krazywabbit]

the laugh and smile when you said I think that is so sick is what this is all about. Having fun. Well captured.

[Jaketsx]

I have the opposite problem, I find it more challenging to create melodies on the piano roll than using a (midi) synth. It just feels more natural to Jam on an instrument than to write midi.

I do use both methods, though.

[katecaballero]

Best feeling is grooving to your own creation love it

[JayM]

Great video, Oscar!
Some of my favorite artists immediately bounce everything to audio and never look back. I don't know how they do this. I always want to leave that connection so I can keep tweaking as needed. I wonder if that mindset hinders me more than it helps though.

[paultorbert]

I own synths.

But, I’m a guitarist, so when I bought my synths I got a 55gallon barrel of Imposter Syndrome for free.

Add to that, I live in the southern USA, where people think that All Music is Southern Rock or Blues….😳

I am currently using ARTURIA BeatStep Pro and KeyStep Pro, a DAWLESS rig.

I have more fun than should be allowed, but none of my friends like my music…..😢

Thank You Oscar, for education and for inspiration

[davidmacdonald]

I switch on my Synth turn on the arpeggiator on turn my drum machine. Boom!!!

[dashr]

as initial vst when composing i can recommend to use a basic piano, because when it sounds goood on a piano it also sonds good on a synth

[sickjoe]

On Ableton, that area for notes where you can select the Key and Scale you want to be in and it highlights the keys, then hit this other scale button to only show those keys, really helped me.

[Beatsbasteln]

I'm actually wondering about that myself. Bought my first hardware synth a while ago, thought I would play it a lot, especially together with my 4yo son, so he learns about synthesis even before being able to tweak plugins. but it's just way harder to deal with hardware than to deal with software in general and it's kinda discouraging. sending MIDI to the machine is one way to deal with it that is quite nice, but there's still the problem, that hardware controls just don't explain themselves a lot from just looking at them the way plugin knobs often do

[SN-xxjh]

Thanks great fun you made it easy to understand the details.

[clementsauvage]

Hey Oscar, this beat was sick as f*** i surely would blast it on my way to my desk if it were on a streaming platform !
Been vibing to your content and mood for so long, thanks for irradiating so much positivity 🙏

[jasoncoetzeeadadjjzjdatune]

Hey mate, just wanted to say your tutorial on subtractive synth years ago was so helpful that it let me use any sub synth and my music improved heaps.

[philfiebz]

More hardware stuff please, always interesting. Today I recommend “Eli & Fur – Big Tiger” and “Rudeboy – Take A Break”. Have a nice rest of the week everyone.

[brianbergmusic]

Been there... done that! Man, I miss my Roland JP-8080 sometimes. However, I sold it so that I could buy a guitar! In retrospect, I ended up spending more time learning to play my instrument that making music, but I still think it was a necessary journey. But now, I can suck at guitars and synthesizers equally! 😆

[antondhondt]

My shenanigans with heritage synths go like this: I just play old synths by hands (chords, funky riffs and so) to a certain groove with instant recording into DAW. Afterwards goes a final rough mixing right in my DAW. One can produce sorta humanized old-school Chicago house or acid funk or aggressive electro in this way. Old-school house, electro and etc. had been played by hands often, without quantize, grid snapping and similar modern tricks.

[moolder]

Huh that resampling randomness thing at the end is nice. I will try that with random LFOs on the Syntakt, resampling to blackbox and looping bits of that. Thanks 🙂

[stefankatic]

I suck so bad at finger drumming and playing keys on anything that isn’t a quarter note, especially at higher bpm’s. It kinda sucks because avoiding this method of generating patterns eliminates humanization which makes them interesting, but applying grooves, velocity and swing helps. At one point buying a sequencer or a drum machine would be really useful. Sure, vsts can replace synths, drum machines and sequencers, but they can’t replace the humanization part which is huge when making the track interesting.
Tweaking and jamming can be done with a mapped midi keyboard, and it’s super fun and satisfying, now imagine a hardware synth…

[hansenpessoa]

Thank you for sharing your ideas and knowledge. I watch your videos whenever I can. Do you have any video that talks about synthesizer compression?