Developer Joe Hanley has launched a KickStarter campaign for Syntorial – an interactive training program designed to help musicians program synth sounds faster and easier.
Handley says that Syntorial differs from other synth tutorials in two important ways:
- It’s software. The current offerings of synth tutorials are either books, videos, articles or websites. While they can only present information, a program can interact with the user. And that’s just what Syntorial does. Through a series of challenges Syntorial gradually builds up your sound design skills so that by the end of the entire tutorial, you’re doing it.
- Most tutorials focus on the technical ins-and-outs of synthesizers. Syntorial takes you through 58 different common synth parameters and trains your ear to instantly recognize how each one effects sound.
The deadline is Sep 22. It’s currently about 45% funded.
See the Syntorial Kickstarter site for details.
via Joe Hanley
I stopped after 40 seconds. What a horrible taste in this video.
Not a bad idea as a component of a larger learning process, but doing things wrong and then getting corrected has proven to be a pretty bad way to learn. Effectively you train the user to do poorly as quickly as possible because they know this is what leads to someone/something just showing them the complete answer. The brain is a relative memory machine, so there needs to be some larger context presented from the beginning, along with pathways for tasks that are not too hard, yet not to easy, in order to motivate learners and make the knowledge stick.
Thanks for the feedback xtopher. Syntorial isn’t about users “doing things wrong and getting corrected”. Instead, it’s about training the ear through repetition. And each level is only a small step up from the previous level, so that the odds of the user getting things wrong is very slim. It’s an easy, fun process. Not only that, but it focuses solely on synthesis, training the user to become proficient in this specific area, as opposed to spreading their focus thin, out over several areas. And it provides the knowledge and skills to help users apply what they’ve learned to the larger context of their own personal use of synthesizers in production, performance and sound design. Hope that helps clear things up!
Cool idea! Kinda reminds of some of the ear training programs for recognizing pitch. Those have worked really well for me in the past, so I can’t wait to try this!
Yikes, this costs too much. You’d think somebody could make a less sophisticated but similar Max patch
Replied to your comment by accident, sorry scopper!
Hey Andrew. While our patent would prevent anyone from recreating our software (with or without Max) we are still fine tuning the details and considering everyone’s feedback. Thanks for commenting.