It’s a super synth special in this month’s Computer Music and we have a fantastic selection of hands-on features to help you make great synth music and create some great sounds…

Make a track!

20, 26, 30, 38, 42

Not one but five tutorials to get you making synth music with nothing but your DAW and the cm Plugin Suite. There are guides to classic synth genres like synth pop, industrial and 70s Berlin, plus ambient and the more current synthwave!

6 best synths of all time!

36

We’ve deliberated and conjugated and selected the six greatest softsynths of all time. And they are still available to buy! Do you agree with our half dozen greatest?

Top synth tips

46

Some classic synth tips gathered for every main stage of the synthesis process. There are tips for detuning, filtering, shaping and ultimately making you a better synthesist and your sounds incredible. Your top synth tips await…

Programming classic synth sounds!

48

There are many classic synth sounds that are relatively easy to create. Even better, you can create them with the cm Plugin Suite. Here’s how!

The 6 best future classic synths

76

We’ve revealed the best synths of all time (p36) so how about the six best current synths set to be future classics. Here are our top synth predictions…

The synth sample collection

We’ve selected some classic modular synth samples from the cm Vault and created two all-new synthwave packs! You can find them on the DVD or at filesilo.co.uk.

We have something of an ultraspecial issue this month as we celebrate the synthesiser and its legacy, with all sorts of synth-based practical workshops, top tips and buying guides.

First up, we have amassed a mountain of hands-on tutorial features that all use the mighty Plugin Suite to great effect, either as source sounds for various synth genres, or to produce exacting copies of famous synth sounds used over the last few decades.

We start by guiding you through some of the most popular synth genres there are using the same format of tutorials we introduced in our ‘Make A Track In An Hour’ special a few months ago, so they should have you making everything from synthwave to ambient style music in no time. Or an hour to be precise. (Ish.)

Next up we have a selection of tips to guide you through the various important sections of the synth in terms of signal flow. Dig deep with these tips and you will be synthesising better sounds with just a couple of tweaks.

Then there are step-by-step guides to producing classic synth sounds, again using stalwarts from the cm Plugin Suite. Here we cover everything from classic leads to thumping basses and dirty kicks.