Learn synthesis or use samples?

[southsounder]

The now-discontinued Roland SH-201 had really intuitive controls for working out basic synth sounds. A nice hands-on learning keyboard IMO. Not sure what they're going for used nowadays though.

[Cool Character]

Synth always generates more cleaner and phase accurate sound whatever pitch you play. So your song will be more puncher and tighter than one only with samples.

I hate everything in this post.
What about an old synth that doesn't track very well?
What about a synth with a very nasty oscillator? Like nearly any analog synth will be incapable of making a cleaner waveform than something sampled from a digital synth.
What about a synth with free running oscillators that are always in some different phase when you play it?

And fucking. "Punchier and tighter." Just, please make it stop.

Anyway, my amateur advice: Use whatever method seems to be getting you results. People assume that using samples is easier, and it's probably true for the entry level. The upper limit for either, though, is higher than anyone's gone yet.

[vitalispopoff]

See my signature below for the definitive wisdom on this topic from a far greater mind than mine...

can not agree with it, and with all respect to one who claimed that - he/she doesn't understand the idea behind it.

[oddstep]

Synth always generates more cleaner and phase accurate sound whatever pitch you play. So your song will be more puncher and tighter than one only with samples.

I hate everything in this post.
What about an old synth that doesn't track very well?
What about a synth with a very nasty oscillator? Like nearly any analog synth will be incapable of making a cleaner waveform than something sampled from a digital synth.
What about a synth with free running oscillators that are always in some different phase when you play it?

And fucking. "Punchier and tighter." Just, please make it stop.

Anyway, my amateur advice: Use whatever method seems to be getting you results. People assume that using samples is easier, and it's probably true for the entry level. The upper limit for either, though, is higher than anyone's gone yet.

+1 techno synth snobbery . Its all audio. Synthesis just has different possibilities to sampling.

[DIgiDennis]

If you really want to make sounds like deadmau5, you need something like this...no less:

[reticent]

lol yeah eh?

I was just msessing around on Sylentyh and I made a cool chord progression with just 1 OSC, saw wave and some LFO manipulation.. didn't know it was that easy

[Tarekith]

The air conditioning bill alone makes me shudder....

[vitalispopoff]

this room looks bigger than my entire flat.

[pencilrocket]

I hate everything in this post.
What about an old synth that doesn't track very well?
What about a synth with a very nasty oscillator? Like nearly any analog synth will be incapable of making a cleaner waveform than something sampled from a digital synth.
What about a synth with free running oscillators that are always in some different phase when you play it?

And fucking. "Punchier and tighter." Just, please make it stop.

Anyway, my amateur advice: Use whatever method seems to be getting you results. People assume that using samples is easier, and it's probably true for the entry level. The upper limit for either, though, is higher than anyone's gone yet.

Old synths with free runing oscilator never use stretch technologies to change pitch. It's cleaner. I won't stop saying song will be more puncher and tighter than one only with samples. You can spend 10 times long with tons of sample to get same result as what people get with synth faster, but I don't think OP is expecting such workflow.

[pencilrocket]

+1 techno synth snobbery . Its all audio. Synthesis just has different possibilities to sampling.

Nobody is talking about 'Sampling' noob. Your 'techno synth snobbery' is importing HW sound by sampling it.

[oddstep]

The title of the post uses the word "samples". Its not a massive stretch of the imagination to move from that statement to a consideration of sampling in general. The techno synth snobbery resides entirely in your assertion that synthesis is a superior technique to the use of samples. Techno because its a attitude you get a lot amongst techno and electro producers who have confused means and ends. Snobbery because you're putting roll your own synth patchers into a more noble artisanal class of phase accurate music makers. Just so you don't have to make further "Noob" assumptions, I probably use synthesis way more than sample packs, just because I know my way around subtractive and fm synthesis, however some timbrally rich sounds, for example, acoustic snare drums and hi hats are difficult to create through synthesis. So I'd use samples for that.
Basically what you've done is take the entire field of music production, isolate one possible technique and defined it as the best approach for getting a tight and punchy sound.

[XSIMan]

Use U-he Synths zebra being the most versatile theirs thousands of commercial preset banks for it for any type of music.