A short introduction to the course - get to know what you will learn and which experts are involved in the program.

Transcript:

[Roey:] Welcome to the Synthux Academy program, where you're going to learn how to build your own synthesizers and effect boxes. 

In this Fundamentals Course, we're going to dive into subtractive synthesis, understand how to work with oscillators in different frequencies, how to create modulation, how to work with filters, what are harmonics, and of course, how to program all these features into your Daisy Seed microcontroller. We're going to work with a DaisyDuino library and program in the Arduino language, but in a sense, what we're actually doing is working with C++, which of course is a skill that is invaluable in our world today. 

I started my journey into designing my own sound about 20 years ago with this little thing - you might know it if you play guitars. And this Tube Screamer is a mod by Robert Keeley. I remember buying this for a lot of money. It was like $250 and I had to like ship it from the States on eBay. The whole thing just started. It was really, really hard. But I wanted to get that sound of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I had a small suitcase with a bunch of effects and a power supply that I sort of hacked myself. And I was constantly moving these pedals around to figure out what would sound better. And then I moved to Cubase and Ableton and Logic and Mainstage and performed and learned how to build my own physical things. And for years I shifted to working for clients as a designer, building stuff until the moment that I realized this is not for me. 

I want to build more instruments and I want to teach more makers and artists and musicians how to build their own instruments. That's when I came up with the idea for this little board that aims to simplify the whole process of designing. Together with this course and the discord community we have, there's no excuse. You should be able to design and build your own sound, not from the level of - taking someone else's design and work with it - but rather like, really figure out what function do you actually want to have on this particular knob, and how should it behave when you turn it? 

This is what this whole thing is about, and I cannot wait to see what you guys are going to be making. 
Now in order to make this program, I worked with some of the best engineers in the world. One of them, Stephen Hensley, is actually the guy that designed and built this microcontroller you see here, which is a beast of a synthesizer little thing that you can literally create any sound in the world with. Another brilliant engineer that I want to mention here is Nick Donaldson from Infrasonic Audio. Nick was advising me through the process to figure out how to structure the program, and you'll actually see a lesson from him at the end of the course. I also want to thank Chris Maniewski who is working with me on the first lesson we actually released on YouTube and created a bunch of open source projects for you guys to interact with and learn from on our GitHub page . And lastly, and definitely not least, all the people in Discord were sharing their knowledge and supporting one another in this amazing journey we're all a part of. 

Thank you so much for joining, and let's get started.