From Data Recovery, USA:
Roland's synthesis tutorial is hands down the best reference for the Nord G2. Period. It also serves as an outstanding resource and workbook for general synthesis. All the concepts covered in SoundLab can easily be applied to Max, Reaktor, or whatever you use. I ordered SoundLab because I was having trouble with Logic modules and needed to see some practical applications. What I got was an all-encompassing roller-coaster ride through every aspect of modular synthesis. If you love your G2 but feel as though you're not getting everything out of the editor, you will definitely benefit from SoundLab. It's like taking a comprehensive course in the G2. It's amazing.
From Memmoryshell. India:
Now I have had this tutorial for a few weeks, I just wanted to say that it is really an amazing source of information. Not only that actually, It is one of the most valuable and practically useful tutorials I have read or seen. After the Synthesizer Cookbook, this is the NEW SYNTHESIS BIBLE.
From Drumfish, France:
I am so impressed of the work you have done in this tutorial..........just amazing really. I bought this interactive book to help me using my G2. I am so pleased that there is so much more inside.
History of electronic music with an attached video to every picture & and the tutorial........MASSIVE. Great job.
From Ark, USA:
My first observation is that it is pitched at what I think at just the right level.
It assumes you understand the mechanics of creating patches and the rudiments of synthesis. The coverage is nice and clear. About half-way though the first page of the tutorial, it starts covering ideas although I may have understood them in principle, I did not grasp the ramifications. Its clear I have a lot of studying ahead for me........
From Marc, The Netherlands
It's a HTML file on a cd and it comes with a demo version of the NMG2(Nord Modular G2) synth engine.
The history tour was worth the time especially because Roland has created links about the subjects to YouTube movies.
Giving you a very fun way to learn about an artist and you have many more links provided by YouTube to dig as deep as you want.
The Sound Synthesis chapters are great.
Instead of "How to create a MiniMoog or a Korg MS-20 with your NMG2" he steps through all the different ways of sound synthesis.
Many I heard of but you learn with examples made with the NMG2 how these different ways of sound synthesis work.
His way of teaching is pleasant and if you bother to try and recreate the patches you'll get a good understanding about all these different ways of sound synthesis.
Examining the patches is easy just click on the image and the NMG2 editor is automatically started with the patch ready to be studied.
I used Mozilla Firefox which directly let the Editor open the Patch. If you use Google Chrome the patches are first downloaded and you have to import each patch by hand which becomes a tedious procedure.
The next two chapters, "Dance and Trance" are all about creating patches involving drums, bass and chords.
The interesting thing here is that the NMG2 has it's own drum module but Roland rather wants you to learn how to put the knowledge from the previous chapters and put them to practice.
So be ready to patch a percussion loop in more than 4 or 5 ways. Sometimes it can be challenging but in the end it's quite rewarding to know how to create a complicated percussion patch with different ways of synthesis.
When you're designing your own sounds you will definitely use a combination of the many forms of synthesis.
Something what you will learn a lot during these chapters is the signal flow, Triggering, amplitude modulation, frequency modulation, logic modules and more.
There are some big examples but the main objective is to really understand what is going on.
Don't forget he put 28 years of experience into a tutorial, you can't expect to understand everything at once.
The next chapters dig deeper into subjects like ring modulation, logic circuits, audio processing and last but not least "Tips and Tricks".
I find this tutorial one of the best ways to get informed about the different ways of sound synthesis but also how to program a synthesizer.
In this tutorial Roland choose for the Nord Modular G2 but this knowledge can easily be used to program Reaktor from Native Instruments, my Virus or even Alchemy from Camel Audio.
It gives you a very firm foundation on which you can built your own way of programming sounds.
I must admit that sometimes you really have to go that extra mile to understand some subjects but in the end it's worth it.
Especially when you own a NMG2 this is a must. You'll be patching your own sounds now.
Patches that first were a complete mess of cables make sense now.
One thing that made me very happy was the fact that when I listen to a particular sound now I automatically begin to analyze that sound and I have the knowledge to reproduce that sound on my NMG2 or a different synthesizer the basics never change.
As I said a must for a NMG2 owner who wants to get more out of his synth instead of downloading someone else's patches.
And a good overview of the different sound synthesis and how to create them with a modular system.
Patch examples:
