SURGE XT THE MOVIE : Amazing FREE Synthesizer - Full In-Depth Tutorial

[@GarronsMusic]

Hey guys, Wanted to do an update to my surge the movie video.... I felt it was warranted. I know this video is extremely long, I felt it was necessary to cover everything this synth can do. I've chaptered it to make it easier to skip to the parts you want. I do recommend watching the entire video though as there may be some things in there you weren't aware of, I certainly found some new things while preparing this video! :) Thank you for watching and please leave a like if you enjoyed it and subscribe for more! :D In a video this long i am bound to miss some details so I will list anything i missed that is picked up here. *in Modern oscillator - with right click options you can set Triangle to other waveforms and change it into sub oscillator mode too. - Evil Dragon As always thank you so much to my patrons, I will have some extra surge sound design content for you guys soon... I'm working on it now

[@MrMultiMediat0r]

I have a dumb question. How do we actually play notes on the synth? You seem to have it so you computer keyboard can play notes or something. I can't get surge to play notes for the life of me.

[@inn5268]

@@MrMultiMediat0r what DAW are you using?

[@MrMultiMediat0r]

@@inn5268 LMMS. I've also tried using the synth standalone

[@beyondalldreams]

@@MrMultiMediat0r in many daws you can play by computer keyboard / you can search if you can do this in lmms as well / other way is to use midi keyboard , or use another daw

[@mangc_hing]

Can you do tutorial on Cardinal sir

[@fulge0903]

This synth and its funcionalities should be taught in every electronic music school/academy

[@LilyArciniega]

Thank you for putting in the effort to do this twice. That's some real love and dedication to the craft. 🌻

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you 😃

[@UltraD52]

One of the most comprehensive, yet easy to follow overviews of any synth I've seen on youtube. I've been a little intimidated by this synth up til now. I 'm ready to dig into it.Thank you.

[@brandonmoss7976]

1:42:20 that is so beautiful 😭

[@stuartnicholson8615]

As a complete noob I massively appreciate the effort that has gone into this video. Fantastic. Every section is a rabbit hole!

[@JH-pe3ro]

Ironically, I actually started the video, then installed Surge XT and played with it, made a patch and figured out pretty much everything without watching. It has a UI that can be explained very quickly to a experienced synthesist. But then, I've programmed my own softsynth engines, so I probably know more than most ;) With the XT additions, Surge ranks among the most comprehensive "desert island" synths. It's almost easier to talk about what's missing than what's present. Pretty much everything in the gamut of standard synth timbres is possible, some of the most common ones often have a dedicated oscillator engine in "Twist", you can do modulations from the simplest envelope up to "code a procedurally generated sequence in a formula LFO and control it with MPE", and you can also do the entire FX chain on top of that. Your DAW could "plug in" to a complex Surge patch and just be used to trigger scenes and move macro knobs. It's not a multi-sampler, and it doesn't have complex physical modelling like e.g. Pianoteq or the AAS plug-ins, or complex additive synthesis like Harmour. It could always have more filter or FX modes. But it already covers so much that you'll never run out of sounds.

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

Wow, absolutely EPIC Thanks 4 putting this together ! Man, I think surgeXT has 95% of all the functions possible in a synth. Anyone disagree ? I can only think of granular , samples , & wavetable editor off the top of my head

[@DavidKolbSantosh]

This is one very cool synth. I was able to make it actually count from 0 to 10 in the vowel/speech engine oscillator! And you've produced a great tutorial thanks a lot!

[@routinehead2481]

I ran my guitar into my DAW and used the Surge ring mod effect and WOW!

[@482F]

Got surge yesterday, looked very intimidating but now I feel I know how it's structured. Thank you!

[@TheBigLou13]

Very good and clear walkthrough! Its unfortunte that (at 22:00) the waveform display doesn't show the modulation of the wave, so _what you see_ is no longer _what you hear_ as soon as you use LFOs, etc. But surge seems so mighty, that I still want to continue watching/learning.

[@lichenmusic133]

Thanks a lot for this goldmine of informations. Surge is a hell of a synth, simply one of the best on the market, perheape THE one, and the fact that it's totally free is just fabulous. This new XT extension brings it to another level of epicness !

[@GarronsMusic]

Surge XT is unbelievable. You could just use it by itself forever!

[@Yasir178]

for someone who learns a lot through videos, this is the most informative and comprehensive single video I have ever watched. I started out as someone who knew nothing about synths and by the end not only do I understand Surge XT, I also feel I now know the basics of a synth. Thank you for this brilliant effort.

[@frakfeem]

Fantastic walkthrough. Should probably be mentioned that it now has the Eurorack modules Clouds and Plaits included as fx & oscillators. Kind of a big deal for some.

[@alefnull]

really? where can i find these modes? i've been searching all over the plugin and can't see them anywhere.

[@frakfeem]

@@alefnull For Plaits go to the oscillator section and next to the octaves it says Classic, click that and choose String or Twist (I think String is Rings and Twist is Plaits). Clouds is in the FX section as Nimbus.

[@alefnull]

@@frakfeem ahh thank you. i was looking for them by name.

[@cornbrains]

I feel like I am going crazy between "learning" synthesis, Syntorial (Primer), Vital, Surge XT, AudioKit SynthOne, Reaper, and Koala Sampler all at the same time but I guess it's better than spending money on hardware for now. Your tutorial really started to connect a lot of ideas of synthesis for me beyond just the Surge XT plugin. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge.

[@lowkeylu]

Hey Garron, big fan of your comedy work, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when searching for a video on Surge to see that you had created one as in depth as this. Massive thank you for this video and many others of yours which have brightened my days, it's exactly what I was looking for and I hope to buy you a pint someday if you're passing through Limerick 🍺

[@brickmastertube]

Best synthesizer movie I've watched. Thank you!

[@steveth4]

Thank you for this! I learned so much, in a much more engaging format than reading the manual. It's a crash course that goes surprisingly deep. I feel like the control surface no longer is full of mystery, just an endless supply of awesome possibilities.

[@DaddyT21]

I started with a korg minilogue, then moved to vital, now learning this, it feels like every step has been exponentially more sound possibilities. I cant even fathom how far the rabbitthole of sound goes.

[@T.H.W.O.T.H]

It's taken me 2 weeks, but I've finally managed to watch it all. Thanks for the tutorial - I actually learned some stuff!

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you! I’m glad it was helpful!!

[@rugososphotos3646]

Perfectly explained, I don't even think I had any doubts, awesome job making this video!

[@neuromancer9k]

Very kind of you to put even more time into updating this tutorial. This is extremely useful. Looking forward to composing with this new XT version. Much appreciated! Salud, Mr. G!

[@GarronsMusic]

So glad you found it helpful! Thank you 😃

[@TonyThomas10000]

The "Twist" OSC is based on Mutable Instruments "Plaits".

[@powerofthekitten]

Delicious Chords, Thanks Garron.

[@cmd_f5]

You are awesome. :D Was wondering if you'd do the XT edition and was not disappointed. Great work and detailed walkthrough as always. Surge is really becoming a powerhouse! Cheers

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you! Glad you found the videos helpful! Surge is epic!

[@alterbank]

You're awesome! Thank you for all your sound design videos.

[@GarronsMusic]

Thanks for watching 😃

[@jesusrocks7500]

Thanks to you and Venus Theory, I'm gonna save a lot of $! I was planning on buying a Hydrasynth Explorer, but Surge XT does even more! I just like creating sounds. (Bought a really nice laptop with 16 gigs of RAM for cheap. Surge runs smooth on it.) Thanks so much!

[@ah1245]

thank you for sharing this! Best synth movie I've ever seen 😃👍

[@alanj9849]

Wow. Great overview. Just what I needed. I loved that it was so comprehensive, but you went quickly so that if moved along nicely. If I missed something, I just went back and replayed a small part. Just the approach that I personally appreciate. Thanks very much. Subscribed and I'm going to watch some more of your videos. Well done.

[@hjvarfjell]

Hi. I just stumbled across Surge XT yesterday. After installing it I was really impressed, -and a little intimidated as well. After watching your video I'm even more impressed but not as intimidated. Thank you for taking the time and energy to help other people finding their way around this amazing piece of free software. I really appreciate it. 🙌

[@GarronsMusic]

❤️

[@ppp1364ppp]

After installing surge i realized how powerfull vst it is and its suprisingly free. I don't understand how serum costs 200$ and this one is free

[@jimmythebold589]

well, as an owner of serum, and a lover of surge, the difference isn't the sound (surge is actually warmer, and that's personal taste pref.) but it's the interface. serum is waaaaay easier to use than surge's interface, i like both, personally. i rented to own serum,, through splice, bth , for ten bucks a month...

[@ppp1364ppp]

@@jimmythebold589 Of course serum has a user-friendly interface and functionally more advanced but SURGE is FREE :) .

[@patternspatter710]

Oh and I think hour showing all these stuff around in Surge XT was really great!

[@StellarWorks2023]

Excellent work man, thank you. How in the living blazes the Surge team have given this to us for free is incomprehensible. I have a good few very decent paid synths but at just under an hour and a half in on this video and I have already had quite a number of WTF moments. A getter and keeper undoubtedly. Top stuff all round.

[@jonathanfry3042]

Excellent and very informative video, thank you for creating and sharing it!

[@dessiplaer]

This video was very helpful, as I have just downloaded this synth to my computer. As I watched, I was amazed at the power of this synth. Thanks for making this video!

[@Eichro]

Somebody has probably mentioned it already, but the Twist oscillator mode is indeed taken from something, in that case an Eurorack module (Mutable Instruments Plaits).

[@EvilDragon666]

Great overview! You have sadly missed the right-click options in Modern oscillator - you can set Triangle to other waveforms and change it into sub oscillator mode too. :)

[@GarronsMusic]

Awwwhhh dammnnn I knew I’d miss something 😂

[@lolilollolilol7773]

Yeah fantastic and super useful video, but for some reason it's in mono. Anyway, still a reference that was super helpful for me. We are so lucky to have this incredible synth for free. No excuses anymore !

[@VincentZauhar]

@@lolilollolilol7773 Make sure you use one of the stereo filter configurations :)

[@EvilDragon666]

@Jason Bratcher Yes, that is correct!

[@ernestojr.angeles9707]

Mind blowing this exists at all.

[@05degrees]

Thank you very much for the second installment! 🙏 Haven’t had time to watch this one yet but soon yay.

[@05degrees]

Finally, watched! Thanks again!

[@floralemmens]

I've never used a synthesizer in my life before. But literally... for someone who has never used one before... this is a monster hahaha. I'm amazed by how many buttons there are. You could create anything you want with this if you understand how it works. I'm a noob so it's hard for me but with just playing around with it I'll get a long way.

[@cloudthief8918]

Same here. The only one I've ever used is the stock synth in Waveform 11 and that's simple compared to surge 🥲

[@baconpaul5772]

What an amazingly comprehensive video. Thank you!

[@GarronsMusic]

Thanks so much! 🙏

[@BirdTho]

I appreciate that in all your talking about things, you're not cussing and swearing. It's clean. Again, I appreciate it.

[@lorem16]

yuuuuuup garronnnnnnn been trying to get my head around surge, looked up a tutorial and its my fellow fenian, its a rarity

[@JipJonker]

Excellent tutorial / walkthrough! Thanks.

[@VincentZauhar]

Amazing, and somehow even better than the last one. Well done! 🙂👍

[@GarronsMusic]

🙏

[@macronencer]

Roger Linn sent me here (indirectly) :) I have a Linnstrument and I'm looking forward to trying Surge in MPE mode with that. Thank you, this was a really comprehensive video! I have just a handful of extra questions, but I'll check out the manual.

[@georgekokoropoulos2826]

Great video! I have been using Surge with VCV Rack for about a year and love the modules but this is a gamechanger! Awesome1

[@doopiej]

Very helpful! Just started out with using synths. Although the UI is self explanatory (for an electrical engineer anyway), this video covers everything that would otherwise take so much time to figure out. Thanks for taking the effort to make it!

[@kingsqueak2221]

Great job on running all this down, huge help, thanks.

[@musician1971a]

I can't thank you enough. This video got me going with programming my own sounds and actually understanding what I was doing

[@deppam]

Thanks Garron again for this video. It is comparable to a college degree. I have learnt a lot. Cheers

[@GarronsMusic]

I’m so glad to hear that! Thank you!

[@davidpetersonharvey]

Oh, man! I'm not new to synths by a long shot but this one has been difficult for me to get my head around. I tried simple things and getting a good sound is definitely not an automatic thing like my analog synths or even my digital hardware. This video has totally opened this up for me. I'm watching the part on the effects now and hoping you go into the macros and assignments for LFOs and the like next. I love the flexibility of a good routing matrix but this synth is wildly overcomplete and beefy without even going there, I'm stunned. Thanks for a great video! Watching it in bytes when I'm not in the studio or teaching music.

[@mario_israel]

Thanks a lot for your effort!!! Great introduction in SURGE XT... helps me (as an absolute beginner) much understanding this great plugin and synths in general... 🙏🚀

[@XDarkstarXUnknownUnderverse]

I was floored the minute I saw Waldorf wavetables. This thing is a monster and I thank you for explaining everything. I plan on mastering this synth to understand and improve in synthesis overall

[@crnkmnky]

@BlindLibrary 😯 That's some Stevie Wonder stuff. ✨ Has it happened for you yet?

[@XDarkstarXUnknownUnderverse]

@BlindLibrary Nah, I try and stick to my own sounds.

[@russisaac813]

Best Synth tutorial ever!

[@davidpurcell366]

I can't believe the "Follow me I'm delicious" guy has such synth knowledge. This is amazing.

[@nickkositsyn4597]

Вот это да! Огромное спасибо за видео, колоссальная работа!

[@musicmike22]

Thank you for this. I love your dedication.

[@freewillbeatz-jd4pq]

Oh wow Am really impressed by this Thanks alot man Just getting into sound design and this had helped alot

[@Hexspa]

Thanks for the video. The LFOs now have separately addressable outputs for the entire modulator, the raw shape, and just the EG.

[@GabrielPerboni]

Thank you for the video, very helpful!

[@rodneywood3399]

I have to say tht I have been trying different daws and instruments for some time now and also mainly on linux but couldny get this to load on my latest distro. I finally went back to an old windows laptop and managed to load it straight away onto my waveform daw. Convinced I now need very little else to have a full working setup. Half way through watching this but thanks again.

[@zerstaerker]

It's became my favourite synth VST. The only feature I miss is modulation of the filter cutoff frequency by one of the audio oscillators. Filter FM.

[@herrram3649]

Thank you for these videos, man!! I've watched the previous surge video/movie, and I'm watching this one from start to finish because I think they are super interesting. I like the way you explain things

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you so much! So glad to hear that!

[@alejandromagana1554]

Amazinggggg thanks so much for this ♥️🐈‍⬛🎶

[@GarronsMusic]

🤘🍀

[@mario_israel]

Thanks a lot one more time... 😄

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you so much!!

[@DynastyUK]

Great video man! Cheers! :)

[@GarronsMusic]

Thank you 😃

[@williammckinney3362]

Thats the best tutorial Imhaver seen! Thank You.

[@claudioricci431]

The Almighty Emperor of Freeware Synths. The features set is frankly insane, unbeliavable, and you can spend a lifetime creating new sounds every hour of a day (also avoiding the import of new waves). With the massive voice stack and detune for each oscillator, and two layers, immensely fat pads, textures etc are easy to create. The modulation options are insane too, with tons of highly configurable LFOs/MSEGs/Step Seqs etc. And all of this is freeware, high quality and very CPU efficient. Totally overkill. The only (light) downside are the effects (imho) : lots of them are far from top notch, and act weird, with confusing controls (no big deal... I use external effects and I am done).

[@kesavel5335]

I just downloaded this and im a complete noob so i was very lost haha u saved me thank u so muuuch

[@arnottrogerscom]

Fantastically clear and informative. Thank-you!

[@vvinyard4423]

Very big heartedly thanks for your effort

[@redbirdsaraceno]

The only thing Ive been having problems with so far (other than the wave shaper type menu not staying open) is the MPE aftertouch setting is just way too sensitive with my controllers and midi keyboards. I cant figure out how to turn down the sensitivity and even when I barely press a key or pad it just uncontrollably cycles through like 9 or waves at once at a very rapid pace like a second or something. I tried uninstalling reinstalling but it’s still going crazy . It’s actually better for me when I disable after touch on my controllers because that way it at least stays on one wave shape instead of going crazy hyper cycle mode.

[@ognyannikolov4752]

Thanks

[@GarronsMusic]

THANK YOU!!!

[@bci3937]

This soft synth is together with vital a real synth-marketplace-crusher... - Thanks for this most complete tutorial. cheers*

[@TheeWonders]

Quality Content 💪

[@patternspatter710]

The Window-thing looks and sounds kind of like what Bazille's Fractalize-thing do, this is the first time I see that Fractilize-thing in a plugin other than Bazille, it kind of Sync-ish sounding but still a different flavor, which I think is nice.

[@dudearlo]

Oooooo I remember Bazille. I was using the beta for the longest time xD Ended up picking up Cardinal to get my free modular synth fix

[@taninaknowles9399]

Alwayz was interested in microtuning.I would appreciate a video on tuning in SurgeXT...

[@Descenacre]

Excellent video, recommended it to my friends Great channel in general!

[@lukewood2662]

Thanks for the video, man, I'm starting on sound design and this is extra helpful. I just realized that I don't need to buy any of those riser VSTs to have a riser that adapts to the song's timing because I can just time anything musically on Surge, just set the amp to immediate attack, full sustain and immediate release and LFO the gain to a musically timed saw shape(deformed to a smoothed curve I stead of the linear) on inverse motion. I guess you saved me some bucks so take my like and sub.

[@OlivierSarfati]

lá fhéile Pádraig sona :) Thanks for putting this up and taking the time.

[@barraza222]

thank you so much!! now it’ll get way easier to engineer my own sounds/instruments in surge 🙃

[@pleadingblowfish957]

dude, holy shit, thank you

[@vmood0]

Excellent walk-through, thanks!

[@Marisueksu]

Excellent show and tell video

[@robbret]

Thanks for making this video, which really helped a lot. Love the accent too. On another note, I've never understood the need to categorize 3rd party patches per author. If I need a bass sound that is not in the factory patches I need to wade through all the 3rd party names to find one.

[@nicolesproducerpack]

Wow amazing tutorial thank you! 😍

[@MacCooney]

amazing video - brilliant!

[@VimDoozy]

As far as I can see, there is still no stereo spread or width parameter for unison voices. The unison is mono. The addition of this feature, which is commonplace in modern soft synths, has been delayed for over 4 years.

[@GarronsMusic]

Unison is not mono, please watch the filter routing section where I explain how the filter routing interacts with the master width control

[@polznbladz3242]

First of all, wow you know your synth inside out. Second to that you did a great explanation of the layout of it. I'm around lower intermediate level of understanding synthesis and sound design. I prefer to tweak a preset. I thought Dune 3 was hard to get my head around. It's my favourite synth to use and the fx's in the synth sound great. Would I right in saying that Surge has pretty much every synth going in one plugin? I never seem so much going on in one synth. I will watch this tutorial again and then think about downloading it. As a rule I don't like having too many plugins & synths to learn. I prefer to get what I can out of what I have, understand it better. I didn't download Vital for that reason. I want to have something I already understand and can work with.

[@polznbladz3242]

@Jason Bratcher I don't know about the FX part to it. I'm watching this tutorial through again. I'm surprised how well thought out it is. Far too advanced for someone like myself b ut I can learn slowly I guess. My favourite sounding synth is Dune3. Surge looks like it outclasses even that synth

[@-KingOfKhaos]

Saw both your Surge movies which are simply amazing! Can we do an ODIN II, ANTHOLOGY movie next? 😅

[@bodanerius]

Thanks friend. This is a life saver

[@rodneywood3399]

wow what a brilliant presentation. Thanks again - I finally found a great vst that does it all. Heading to your track put together. Can you point me to the putting it together as a song etc. Had a look on your site but cant see which one it is.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

The MPE is a riot with a Jamstick Studio midi guitar.😁🎵🎸🎹🎶Play On

[@MarkusAliasCmn]

brilliant tutorial. thanks a lot.

[@Zodliness]

@Garron - At the intro you're demonstrating the various samples in a window I can't locate in Surge XT, is it safe to assume you've installed additional plugins or using separate software?. As I last played around with music with Dance eJay in 1999, (yeah I know an old-fart in revival mode) I've picked up the basics of Surge XT quickly watching this video, (thanks) but can't seem to work out how to assemble aforementioned multiple samples into a playable track as you nicely demonstrated. If I'm missing something obvious, please by all means enlighten me. I can't seem to find anything in their manual either relating to this subject... Despite that, I haven't had this much fun creating noise in decades! 😉

[@svenk.7682]

Thanks so much! Good work

[@Cynjim4eva]

Thank you, a great video!

[@Fabio_Costa_Music]

Excellent work, thank you!