Found in 1 comment on Hacker News
wheels · 2021-07-13 · Original thread
There are a bunch of different ways that one could approach this, depending on if you want to learn to play a synth vs. understand synthesis (which obviously have some overlap).

Neither of the books that I'll recommend here are specifically about learning to play analog synths, but they both give a bunch of background to understanding analog and digital synthesis:

I read an earlier edition of this when I was getting into working in electronic music, and found the background very useful and a pleasure to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Experimental-Music-Thom-Ho...

This one is specifically not about analog synthesis (but rather digital synthesis and sound processing), but is kind of a classic in the field:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computer-music-tutorial

The most common physical analog synths have two to three oscillators and a resonating filter. The first book would give you enough info to know what that means and begin to explore the space a little more intelligently.

Assuming you're a programmer, you can also do a lot of things by creating synths using either a visual or code-based synths on your own. I'm partial to ChucK, but there's also Supercolider, CSound, Max, Pd, Reaktor, ...

Fresh book recommendations delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday.