The Synth Thread

smy1 said:
Nuno: he's right. You could just start with a sinewave and create something from scratch.

Otoh, I never use Omnisphere for "clear" sounds (like you mentioned: strings) but for the "weirdness" and for "ambience" that you feel rather than clearly hear. Then again: I don't think I've created synth sounds in the past 2 years that aren't heavily layered, so what sounds like 1 bass is really 5 basses divided into different frequency-areas.
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I agree.

Omnishpere, at least for me, is great for it's pads, and wierd ambience sounds. I would hardly call them weak at all, but they do need processing and manipulation.

Nexus I love a lot, but i do find I end up doing more to make it work in a most tracks. but I would agree, that out of the box Nexus has amazing sounds.
 
About creating sounds.. What I like to sometimes think of a synth's patch/preset/whatever, as only the starting point for manipulation. Heck, I've had fun with just a basic PT fx, delay with feedback into EQ, into flanger into whatever. Distort the sound, use that as a new beginning for something else; send it into reverb 100% wet to make a pad sound, chop it up (by hand or plugin) and put a delay on it to create a new rhythmic backing, sample that into a sampler, speed it up to make a new sound again to fx it some more, etc etc..
 
Updated the OP with the links and useful information so far posted. I will continue to keep the OP updated as new information comes in.

As for SocialNumb's and Nuno Felipe's discussion, yes certain synths can be more useful based on if the user uses preset or makes their own sound. Omnisphere is a very advanced S+S synthesizer that can do what synth like Massive and Sylenth can do plus it has a sampling engine. It can have two oscillator/sample per patch and 8 patches. Along with having AM and FM synth as well as granular synthesis the only real thing it can't do that I am aware of it true FM synthesis with operators, but for that, FM8 does the job, and considering FM8 can load Yamaha DX7 and DX8 patches why would you want to use anything else as your staple FM synth?

I think we can all agree that it takes layers to get good sounds, the big question is how to get there. If you have a sound in your head or are trying to match a similar sound from another artist, how do you systematically get there with as little guess work as possible.
 
Here's some NI Massive presets of some wobble basses I made
In the annotations there's some links to some EDM song's I've remixed

For lead synths Cakewalk Z3ta is the dopest.
Also automating 2 or 3 of the synths knobs works well.
Effects after the synth like
Ohm Force Omicide, Sugar Bytes WOW, CamelPhat and Camelspace
are pretty popular in EDM. Automate those too.
For layering route like 2 or 3 synths to one output bus and process them together, that's pretty cool beans.
 
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If you think that this sound at least descent, than I can tell you that there are few keypoints what makes synth sound at pro level.
-Modulation/ movement
-Clarity
-Stereo + depth
Modulation/ movement makes sounds interesting and it can be achievable though layering, but if you know your synth you can do stuff all in one like most cases Massive. Use all options to add that extra spice.
Clean your sound with EQ and keep in mind that most time EDM like bright and wide spectrum sounds.
Stereo and depth are achievable starting from designing your sound (massive have lot of options there) starting with chorus/phaser/flanger/ stereo enhancing and detuning stereo to using right reverbs and delays.

Also you can check out my youtube tutorial channel - NeZversTutorials
And I'm giving a lot of my presets away because I love sound design and do it a lot.
 
I'm going to be in the process of adding some quick tutorials of how to make some very basic sounds that I have picked up and link them in the OP. If anyone wants to add their own tutorials here on quick ways to get a certain sound, I will kindly add that to the list in the OP.

I must say because it seems this thread has gravitated towards it, I for this topic wasn't so much interested in weird Dubstep sounds but more traditional sounds that are common with various music genres. Also I have to say that I personally feel that most production and sound for most Dubstep is pretty bad. It may be because I got into EDM through Daft Punk, then Deadmau5 and Skrillex and while I like various forms of EDM its obvious why the previous three I mentioned are so successful is because they have a sound more polished than anything else in their respective genres. I am not interested in weird obscure Dubstep sounds, I am more interested in synths that make atmosphere. I want to know if it is possible and how it is possible to get VSTs like Massive to have a Roland like Supersaw sound. With the thread I posted that is linked in the OP, looking at how Kevin Moore (ex-Dream Theater) achieved the sounds in the albums he was apart of.

In the near future I will add lists of songs for other symth experienced members to quickly in a few words discuss how to reverse engineer the sounds and I will add those to the OP tutorial list. If this becomes popular then I will continue adding lists of sounds to reverse engineer. If anyone else wants to add a list of sounds they want to know how is made, then post what you want.
 
TheWinterSnow said:
I am more interested in synths that make atmosphere.
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NI Absynth. A Bastard to program IMO. Don't forget, a sampler is great for creating atmosphere.

Paulstretch, cut out interesting sections, loop. Import into sampler. Create atmospheric instrument.

There's a lot of ways to go about it.
 
TheWinterSnow said:
...I want to know if it is possible and how it is possible to get VSTs like Massive to have a Roland like Supersaw sound.
Click to expand...

Well I did tutorial for super saw sound in massive and you can work with this idea further and adjust.
My English isn't from the best but I like to share stuff I know

Although there is vst that is made to replicate one of Rolands supersaw synths and it's called - JP6k.

Post some sounds from Dream Theater you are interested. If I'll have time I would be glad to try replicate them.
 
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I will do, kind of in the process of doing that now, I will get you a list of stuff you may want to hash out. I have discovered some cool stuff through experimentation so I would like to get writing what I learned and share it. I have a really crazy idea with AM synthesis and I really don't think that is possible with massive or FM synths. I will need to do get an oscilloscope vst so I can see what is going on in real time but I think I have some cool ideas for making wicked dubstep noise.
 
vespiz said:
About creating sounds.. What I like to sometimes think of a synth's patch/preset/whatever, as only the starting point for manipulation. Heck, I've had fun with just a basic PT fx, delay with feedback into EQ, into flanger into whatever. Distort the sound, use that as a new beginning for something else; send it into reverb 100% wet to make a pad sound, chop it up (by hand or plugin) and put a delay on it to create a new rhythmic backing, sample that into a sampler, speed it up to make a new sound again to fx it some more, etc etc..
Click to expand...

There was a very interesting article in an issue of Future Music I read a couple of years ago, about what you're mentioning, "resampling" mainly. Making a synth sound, rendering and using as a sample, then destroy it in fun ways and sample it again.

This thread is relevant to my interests, I shall stick around. Thanks Jorge, awesome list!
 
JonWormwood said:
I have yet to find a great synthetic strings patch for metal.
Click to expand...

What kind of string sound are you going after, most keyboard string stuff is ROM based which isn't something you can really recreate in a subtraction synthesizer alone.

I have been able to somewhat recreate some of the old Kevin Moore sounding string synths from Dream Theater's album Awake. They are missing the PCM based samples that are in the JD-800 which he used for those sounds but its pretty close to the subtractive part considering it was done in massive.
 
Systematically getting to a similar sound as another artist using synth's is very hard to describe in text, since it takes so much experience in understanding how the different waveforms sound and interact with each other in unison with the filtration etc.
But personally i try to make a sound that is as close to the original as possible with one synth, then i go back and listen to the original sound to find what frequencies mine is missing and start adding more sounds on top of it to fill in those gaps(Usually between 3-8 sounds depending on the sound im after.)
I usually EQ the first sound to make it sound as crisp and clear as possible, then i start eq'ing the other sounds so they don't interfere with each other(high/low-passing and EQ'ing.).. when this is done i send all of the channels to a single strip where i process all the sounds together(This creates the glue which makes it seem like one sound.).

Here i only use one sound over two instances using a VST i will talk about at a later point(One of the synths is basically just filling in the bass @ -1 octave.): https://soundcloud.com/jay-rude-1/newsynthblurhp
As you can hear its far from finished, but its still very full and complete sounding considering its just 2 layers with a reverb, delay, eq and exciter.. the reason for that is that the waveforms are somewhat asymmetrical and smoothed(Which equals more overtones than basic digital waveforms.).

Sorry if i'm incoherent/rambling, i'm haven't slept much this last few days. :p

Edit:

Also, for anyone interested in modern edm you should REALLY check out Tom Cosm and his youtube channel(He has loads of tutorials.):
 
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