Is each Ableton Live Synth more appropriate or better suited for designing certain sounds? Or can you use any of them to design any sound?

 

every synth has its own sound, but every synth can also (within that range of timbres) make most varieties of sounds (with differing levels of difficulty)

 

It's really all about workflow. (As stopped suggests above, different synths make it easier/harder to realize different sounds.)

You really need to get to grips with the basic principles of synthesis and the easiest way to do this is by mastering the granddaddy of them all, the subtractive synth. (The mini moog is the most obvious model here.) The stock Ableton subtractive synth is probably Analog, but it's not the most helpful synth to learn on -- primarily because the user interface doesn't *look* like a typical subtractive synth, and while the sounds are OK, they aren't going to rock anybody's world.

A better virtual analogue synth to learn on would be something like Sylenth.

That said, Ableton does have some great stock synths. Between Wavetable and Operator, there isn't much you can't do. But I couldn't get my head around how other forms of synthesis worked until I got my head around subtractive. It may be different for you.

 

Yes. Absolutely!

No. The type of synthesis matters. Like subtractive vs FM. You can get close for certain sound(s) even with different methods of synthesis, but you asked for any sound.

 

Yeah totally agreed, an FM synth bell is going to sound quite different from the bell of a purely subtractive or wavetable synth. Close but also distinguishable.

 

they can do whatever you want, the result may vary a little because each will carry the characteristic of the synthesis type used and none of that matter at all until you are in deep into to the rabbit hole of sound design. In other word, just use Drift.

 

Drift is fantaaaastic, definitely replaced Analog for me as far as stock synths go

 

The Wavetable synth is the most flexible, since it basically covers wavetable-synthesis, but also subtractive synthesis and FM in one device.

 

Drift is the best beginner synth I think.

Drift is an analog synth. Like the other one in ableton, Analog. But drift has a better layout for the beginner. Analog has many pages, Drift has more stuff up front. Analog was the first, the others try to improve upon it.

I would check out https://learningsynths.ableton.com/, a visual approach to getting a feel for the parts of the synth.

Most synths share a bunch of the same parts. Once you know each part, you know that part in every synth.
They usually have a filter that filters sound frequencies, an amp that controls the volume, and modulators that move amps filters and other things up and down over time. The main modulator is the Envelope, most also have a LFO or three and a separate envelope that controls the filter.

First you learn what each part does, then you learn how to modulate, how to make the LFO or Envelopes control the sounds over time, by changing filter frequency, resonance, amp level or other things.

What differs between synth types is the tone source. The Analog Synth tone is the oscilator. Oscilators are real simple. Wavetable synths have wavetables, kind of like monotone audio recordings, but you only pay one cycle at a time, so a static wavetable sound can sound much like an analog synth. But then you can move or modulate the cycle, which makes wavetable synths incredibly rich and complex, but as easy to use as the analog synth.
Once you understand Drift, Wavetable will start unlocking itself to you slowly.

FM synths were the first alternative to your typical Analog Synth to come out, around 1980. Ableton has one FM synth, Operator. FM Synths have operators instead of oscilators, and that whole thing is kinda maths-y. They tend to sound like shit if you just mess around with the operator controls, so presets are fine here.
The things you want to tweak on a preset are mostly the modulators anyway, and maybe the filter a bit.
So once you've mastered Drift, you'll be fine with tweaking Operator well enough.

Samplers: Sampler, Simpler and Impulse. Guess what: After the sample playing stage... they're kind of like analog synths. Learn Drift!

Emit is a granular synth. Those take samples and chop and scatter them to make swarm-like sounds. Emit is pretty simple, you'll learn a lot just by playing around with it. I'd watch videos on granular synthesis in general rather than tutorials. Learn the wider view.

Then you have the physical modeling synths. I have no idea what they do under the hood, it's computer models, maths, made to sound like different instruments.
What you need to know is that Physical modeling offer you different parameters than the other synths. They try to offer you controls that affect the sounds as you hear them. So in a way, they're less abstract than other synths, you can visualise what they do by thinking of the instrument they try to emulate. Mostly.

Electric is a Piano type physical modeling synth, and the controls correlate with the physical parts in a piano: Hammer, fork, damper/pickup.

Electric is so simple that you just open it, and start messing around. It tells you what it is. But it's mostly limited to the sounds of pianos, harpsicords and other hammered tone instruments.

Tension is the same but for strings. It's a bit more complex looking. Don't put it high on your learning list, but do open it and mess around with the buttons. Beacuse that's fun and also how you'll learn most of these things.

The last physical modeler in Ableton isn't an instrument. Corpus emulates various sounds, as an effect. So you run a basic synth sound through it and it makes it try to sound like a marimba, or a string, or whatever else. But I mention it because in many aspects it behaves similarly to the other physical modelers mentioned. In fact, I don't know if it's actually physical modeling, but it doesn't matter when you use it.

Lastly, various effects can do as much as the instruments in shaping your sound. Corpus is probably the most grand of those, so, weirdly, you won't use it much. The simpler an effect device is, the easier it is to use. Reverbs are dead simple, really, and you think about reverb for all sounds. You don't always use it but you consider it. Ableton Suite has like 50 of the bastards. So give yourself time. And enjoy!