Are there any great links / books where i can learn all the magic of sound synthesis? I want to know how to make really fat bass sounds (like the one's on Bad Company's Inside The Machiene), but also how to make those warm analog sounds of The Boards of Canada...

Are there any good tutorials on line (or maybe a book?!)

And: witch vst's are easy to learn?

if youre REALLY new to this then pick up maybe linplugs freealpha [free] or the computermusic cm101 [magazineware] - both fairly straightforward virtual analogue subtractive synths that should get you eased into the basic of synthesis without too much trouble

slainte rob

There's a bunch of easy to read tutorials here: http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tutorial/features.asp

make sure you check out the "analog synthesis for beginners" one first - it'll definatly help out alot. It's got some great tutorials on mixing and compression and other stuff too

As well as those tutorials, another good thing to do would be grab to synths with similar features, and try and match presets from one synth onto the other. For instance open up a string patch in one and a bass patch in the other synth, and try and make it so that both sounds wind up as close to the other as you can. It really helps you nail the fundamentals of analog synthesis better than tutorials IMO, as the whole process is much more hands on.

yeah - of course - dont forget reverse engineering patches - fins one that you like the sound of and tweak one parameter at a time to see the effect it has on the sound - then [preferably with eyes shut] tweak it back to the original settings

might not be flash - but it will teach you a lot about the effect individual elements of a synth have on the overall sound

slainte rob

Don't forget Synth Secrets...

"Gordon Reid's Multi-Part series for Sound on Sound magazine"

Available at http://www.studiocovers.com/articles17.htm. This page has a whole stack of information. I'm slowly gathering together Gordon's stuff and so far, it seems pretty good (if a little techy and theoretical - but that's exactly what I was looking for).

Definitely worth a look in my humble and hopelessly synth challenged opinion

shane

By the look of your nickname you probably speak german. If so you could check out the Soundprogramming pages on the Workshop section of Amazona.de that should teach you the basics...