EXCO 625 - WubCo

2 credits
WubCo is a deep dive into the world of EDM/Bass Music. We will listen to and analyze your favorite EDM songs to gain a deeper appreciation of what the conventions and interesting facets of the genre are. We will try to quantify what makes a drop “hit”, how a buildup gets you excited, and how synth texture and timbre are integral to certain subgenres, and more! However–this is not the only focus of the class! Meeting twice a week, we will only spend our first class section each week on this. The second half of the class is devoted to fully and completely understanding synthesizers and sound design. We will learn and utilize the powerful FM synthesizer Vital in order to create our own sounds, and to gain a better understanding of the effort and decisions going into each EDM song. We will learn about oscillators, waveforms, effects, automation, FM, and everything else you need to make your own sick bass-y wubs. Oh, and the best part? Vital is completely free, so, while the skills you will learn are transferable to pretty much any synthesizer, you will be able to hold onto the tool you learned with forever. If you like bass music, synthesizers or both, this class is for you. The class assumes some musical background generally, but none specific to electronic music. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Sam Thiel
sthiel@oberlin.edu
Link to Syllabus
Link to Application