FleXor Synthesis Course

Flexor Synthesis course for colleges and universities:

The Flexor course is easy and fun to teach. The flexor synthesis course has been perfected for several years in the Israeli college of "Resonance", in which it has become the most popular and sought after course.
It is an intensive course which keeps the students on their toes, eager for knowledge. Since synthesis is mainly used as a secret weapon for musicians, producers and sound engineers, the students attracted to the course are usually people eager to know and create for the sake of it! This is one of the secrets of the courses success, as the students that finish the course are highly motivated to show off their newly acquired skills.

The course comes with:
a books for the teacher with all of the lessons explained in detail.
pocket book for the students.
free synthesizers and effects that correlate with the lessons
Flexor Modular education edition - with patches for each lesson

The course can be run by one or two teachers, and its structure is fairly flexible and can easily be adjusted for the student's learning curve.

In order to be listed as a FleXor certified synthesis course provider, the teachers have to pass a test, and a short course on teaching, presentation methods and implementation of Flexor's education program.
For more information and pricing, please contact us at edu at gogma dot com

Course description

• Number of lessons: 60 (7.5 months net)
• Time of each lesson: 3 hours net.
• Each lesson divides into two.
• At the end of each lesson the students receives exercises, to help perfect their skills at home.

The point of the course is to make musicians feel intimate with various synthesis methods, classic sounds, and finding their own unique sound, through a deep understanding of synthesis.

The course is divided into four parts:

1) Preliminary aid
A test is being given to the students in order to provide the teacher with an assessment on the student's knowledge in simple maths, music, and general cognition. Students who don't pass one of the sections must take the appropriate math or music course.

2) Practical
This is where the course really begins. In this part the students learn how to create sounds with simple synthesizers, through listening, experimenting and light detail dripping, they learn how to make beautiful sounds with defined borders. This section is all about the "how". The material studied is mainly classic synthesizers like the TB303, and Arp Odyssey, history of synthesis, and usage of synthesizers today. It contains a list of sound clips and video clips available on youtube.

3) Theoretical
In this part the students learn all about sound physics, ranges and formats of measurement, a little about electronics and a lot about digital audio. At this point the students are comfortable with more complex concepts, and the teacher has the ability to connect the dry information the student's gained practical experience, making information absorption much easier and exciting. at the end of this part a test is given to the students.

4) Modular secrets
This part combines the practical and the theoretical. this is where the students start entering the ream of advanced synthesis, learning how to make and use granular devices, vocoders, formant filters and more exotic devices using FleXor.

5) Sound Lab
This is the fun part, where the students combine everything they have learned, and are promoted to be as creative as possible, and to construct their individual artistic boundaries.

At the end of the course each user must submit a graduation project which may consist of either a finished FleXor device, or a musical track featuring his own made sounds.

• Preliminary aid
  1. math: addition and subtraction, multiplication, division.
  2. music: notes of the scale and intervals.
  3. math: fractional and decimal math.
  4. music: the major and minor scales, and chords.
  5. math: basic geometry (sine, cos) intro to functions.
  6. music: circle of fifths

• Practical
  7. TB 303 - an intro to subtractive synthesis
  8. TB 303 - more experimentation and some history lesson
  9. additive synthesis - the basics of overtones and the structure of sound
  10. Juno 106 - modulation concepts, and PWM
  11. Juno 106 - making sounds
  12. delay and reverb - basics
  13. FM synthesis - Frequency modulation and Phase Modulation - concept and basics
  14. FM synthesis - making sounds.
  15. modulation effects - flanger, chorus, phaser, modulation delay.
  16. Arp Odyssey - introducing Sync and ring modulation
  17. Arp Odyssey - Sample and hold and modulation
  18. Arp Odyssey - making sounds.
  19. Arp Odyssey - making sounds.
  20. Sampler - basics - instruments.
  21. Sampler - basics - loops and drums.
  20. Classic synthesizers - History lesson (Moog, Ems, Crumar, Korg, Yamaha, Roland)
  21. Modern synthesizers - Virus, Nord lead, Waldorf.
  22. Test.

• Theory
  23. The origin of synthesis the first synthesizers.
  24. Physics - air and sound.
  25. Early Electronic Music literature. SchtokHauzen, Klaus Schultz, Wendy Carlos, Isao tomita...
  26. Electronics and magnetism.
  27. Late electronic music literature. Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, Astral Projection, RunDMC, PlastikMan
  28. Digital sound, bit-depth, sample-rate and aliasing.
  29. Frequency, pitch, scales and overtones.
  30. Test.

• Modular
  31. Modular synthesis - introduction
  32. making a simple subtractive synthesizer
  33. Hybrid synthesis - combining known forms of synthesis
  34. Advanced subtractive synthesis - creating beasts
  35. Advanced FM synthesis
  36. Simple wave-shaping, curves and control manipulation
  37. Delay effects making complex delays and reverbs
  38. Hyper 303 - sequencers and musical behavior
  39. Drum Machines - sequencers and musical behavior
  40. Making Modulation effects - delay, chorus, flanger
  41. PCM synthesis - synthesis involving samples
  42. PCM synthesis and wavetable
  43. Karplus strong and 2nd order waveguides
  44. Making a vocoder.
  45. Distortion, compressor and eq.
  46. Formant synthesis - making formant filters
  47. Fof / vosim / AM-FM advanced synthesis tricks
  48. Granular synthesis
  49. Granular processing
  50. Graduation task - ideas for projects. talks and evaluations of students.

• Sound
  51. Drum synthesis
  52. Pad synthesis
  53. Bass synthesis
  54. Lead synthesis
  55. Making Effects
  56. Noodles and FX machines
  57. Synthetic Orchestration

• Graduation
  58. Graduation task help lesson 1
  59. Graduation task help lesson 2
  60. Graduation lectures - students show off their devices, or tracks.

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