To build a synth you need three elements: sound, shape, and control.
Sound
Choose one of the synthesis techniques you have learned in Lesson 2, and build it on a brand new patcher to produce a sound with Max. You should have something like this if you have chosen like me to use FM technique:
Fig 1 – Basic Fm sound ready
You might choose different synthesis techniques or might come up with your personal combinations of techniques. As long as you respect the overall amplitude limit to avoid unwanted distortion, anything will be good.
Shape
One of the most interesting parts of sound making is to give your own shape to a sound, a sort of “making it appear over time”. Using amplitude variation over time is what gives the sound its shape. The best method, although maybe not the fastest, is to use in Max an envelope function to draw its shape. This you have seen it in Lesson 3. If I attach that to my initial sound I obtain something like this shown in the next picture:
Fig 2 – The Fm sound and its shape
Control
As you can see from Fig 2 there are several objects that can sensibly affect the sound. I have highlighted them in a different color in this picture:
Fig 3 – Areas for sound control
There are some things quite evident, like changing the center frequency to change the pitch; changing the type of wave of the oscillator, by swapping the cycle~ object for some other ready made waveform available in Max (rect~, saw~, rand~, phasor~…), to obtain a different timbre; you can adjust the speed and depth of the modulation too, for expanding the harmonic content and thus the timbre more elaborately; finally and of course you can change the shape and duration of the sound. All these parameters make pretty good sense in musical terms and in timbre creation.
Others operations instead are less evident, but they too can greatly affect the sound. For example, the trigger button for the envelope (in blue in Fig 3). This can be manually triggered by you each time, but can also be triggered automatically, or by some timing criteria you can accurately and creatively plan in Max. When you press the button that is, in fact, creating a musical event.
Or, another example, the settings for the center frequency and the modulator can change over time, making it possible for very intricate evolution of the sound across time. That is applying an action along the sound existence to variate it dynamically.
This is where things get exciting.
Sounds can really be modeled accordingly to your imagination. What is important is learning how to plan and build all these events and actions that occur with a sound.