Designing the "right" synth sound

[vespiz]

Here's one link to get you started. http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/studio/5821/analog.html

Analog (subtractive) synthesis is probably the most common "foundation" found in synths these days, even those mega-workstations use the same kind of methods for creating sounds (yes, debatable, but you get the idea..).
Just change VCO to sample/wavetable, VCF to TVF etc...

It gets annoying at first, since there are different names that companies use for the same parameters.

I can try and help out.

 

[Metaltastic]

Thanks dude, being the only resident keyboard player here (that I know of), I was hoping you'd chime in! I'll peruse that over dinner!

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Because of what Vespiz says about that the new synths all imitating the old school stuff like Moog, Jupiter, Arp, etc, I would advise to youtube moog and arp and jupiter and all. There are much more synths variation then for example guitar pick-ups. I prefer to hear then to read. But doing both can be good.

It starts here :


And then there are like 120389 youtube links like the one about the Fairlight, which is probably the grandmama of all synths we know today ( intro of many parts ) :
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gno7xqWR9fg&feature=related[/ame]

Btw, Doctor Moog should have a statue.

About the Tascam Piano, 1st, I didn't even know Tascam made vsti! 2nd, it sounds much more fun then the other free DSK Acoustik Piano, which is not very exciting but can do the job. Must try it out.

I think Massive is okay, if I remember correctly it's the one with the Jump sound from Van Halen? Or is that the Mercury? I love Albinos for non-natural sounds. And I don't know what's that 8th growling thingy.

And you're very welcome. This forum as enlightened me more then a few times so you know, if my not very big experience can help, then cool.
And now I'm wondering what could be written as a tutorial about all the oscillators and lfo and everything.

And I once was told that when you have a lot of keyboards in your metal songs you want to put a lot of high mid in the guitars and not a lot of bass and high frequencies. But I am not a pro and I never tried to mix metal music without keyboards. <--- Hypothesis

 

[vespiz]

Because of what Vespiz says about that the new synths all imitating the old school stuff like Moog, Jupiter, Arp, etc, I would advise to youtube moog and arp and jupiter and all. There are much more synths variation then for example guitar pick-ups. I prefer to hear then to read. But doing both can be good.

It starts here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z0cbMkOvY0

And then there are like 120389 youtube links like the one about the Fairlight, which is probably the grandmama of all synths we know today ( intro of many parts ) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gno7xqWR9fg&feature=related

Btw, Doctor Moog should have a statue.

(snip)

And I once was told that when you have a lot of keyboards in your metal songs you want to put a lot of high mid in the guitars and not a lot of bass and high frequencies. But I am not a pro and I never tried to mix metal music without keyboards. <--- Hypothesis

Thanks for the vids! I agree, it is easier if someone shows you what the hell is going on, but it certainly doesn't hurt to know the theory behind it.

I've never been that much into the Fairlight, the old Moogs and Arps tickle me more!

About mixing, I'd probably do the opposite, ie. make the guitars darker by allowing synth parts to poke through better. This is of course highly dependant of the material.

And yes, Bob Moog should have a statue!

 

[Erkan]

Why didn't I ever think of youtubing about the basics of synthesizers... thanks for the vids Moonlight Seeker

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Thanks for the vids! I agree, it is easier if someone shows you what the hell is going on, but it certainly doesn't hurt to know the theory behind it.

I've never been that much into the Fairlight, the old Moogs and Arps tickle me more!

About mixing, I'd probably do the opposite, ie. make the guitars darker by allowing synth parts to poke through better. This is of course highly dependant of the material.

And yes, Bob Moog should have a statue!

Well of course understanding the theory can only help widen the horizons. But you don't learn to swim in a book! Hehe, well I'm speaking for myself here.

I never actually played on an old school synth. I played with the Arturia Minimoog plugin though, and it was pretty fun. But they are darn too complicated for regular "plug & play" keyboardist. However, it seems that all synths today imitate the Fairlight but with less options. With the fairchild you had a screen where you could DRAW the wave form. I don't know a modern synth that does this. So, in my perception it seems that the new modern synths imitate the old school synths and simply install the best-of of the sound modifying functions. I may be ignorant to some synths btw. So I think the modern synth companies think we are stupid! This is a bit why I am saving for the sexiest piece of hardware my eyes ever fell upon... on youtube :



About the guitars, well it depends on what you're looking for and etc. But if I aimed for the "smiling EQ" I would be afraid it would be too low and too fizzy but blah. It's not as simple.

Why didn't I ever think of youtubing about the basics of synthesizers... thanks for the vids Moonlight Seeker

Well youtube helped me understand some nifty stuff. But as I said, with the Fairlight it seems as if you could control EVERY part of the sound. Not with modern synths. And as Doctor Moog points out in the last part of the Fairlight presentation, in the old days it use to take 3 days for a professional sound FX crew to make a stupidy funny song with farting sounds. So I would say the evolution of the synths is only in the user friendliness. Which is cool because the first keyboard I bought was also veeeeery easy to use. I wanted to play! So yes they are synth basis, but to my knowledge they have never been more detailed... if that sentence makes sense.

 

[vespiz]

(snip) So I think the modern synth companies think we are stupid!

Yeah! It's more bling-bling than anything useful in my mind. The last few years almost all major brands (Korg, Yamaha, Roland) have just re-packaged their old synth engines with some tweaks here and there, mostly just more sounds. But nothing that is truly innovative. Props for Roland for trying with the V-Synth (have to try it out someday..) Or did I miss something?

Nothing like this:

Oh yes, it will be mine one day. Oh yes. Mmm.....

Whoop, this got a little off topic..

 

[Erkan]

The Arturia Origin looks niiiiice!

 

[Calippo Tecks]

Well, I'd say start from the presets and try to layer some things together but keep in mind layering can make it even more sloppyer too sometimes, certainly with synths, always try to layer sounds and give them the same attack, reverb, etc...
I used to play keys in a band with a Roland Juno G and that's what I've learned from that. And ofcourse there's still nothing better then just spending alot of time screwing arround with synths.