[alexjplant]

I bought a Moog Mother-32 and read the manual - I remember it being very thick (for modern music gear) and informative. I didn't do too much patching but by the time I was done I understood the basics of subtractive synthesis.

A few years earlier I also had a DX9 that I foolishly used to try and emulate analog sounds. Somehow I stumbled across an article on Fourier series and how infinite sinusoidal summations could be used to create the other types of fundamental waves. Programming a 4-op DX synth to emulate these and looking at waveforms in Audacity gave me a natural intuition for how time series waves relate to frequency and harmonic content.

If I had to do it all again I might get a Korg Minilogue since it can display waveforms on its LCD and is digitally-controlled.

[alfiedotwtf]

Yes! The Minilogue was where it clicked for me - solely because is its oscilloscope