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Yo.
I've been digging around the forums and trying out different software. My question now is - how do you guys go about creating sweet sounding synths? I don't mean how exactly do you manipulate the software to make them, I'm well on my way to figure that out, I just wonder what your creative process is like. Do you already know what it's going to sound like more or less before you make it? Do you kind of experiment and see how it goes? Is there like a canon of a phat sounding synth?

I've cranked out a couple of dope sounding bass synths in Massive but, to my big surprise, even a fat sounding bassline is really boring without some sort of playing around with it in the song itself, if that makes sense.

tl;dr What's your creative process behind making synths?

Often I know what sound I want in my head before I make it, then load up my weapon of choice get as close as I can before processing/resampling. Other times (especially with weird noises) I kinda know the sort of thing I want but I try different things out. My approach is very much dictated by what other sounds/timbres I already have in the piece - so I think about what timbres will complement each other, the frequencies that I want particular sounds to occupy in the mix combined with a bit of free experimentation.

If i have a sound in mind, i'll just make it. When i don't have a definite goal, there's just a lot of very educated screwing around.

i try to sculpt what i hear in my mind
the rest is a bunch of experimenting and making it fit

stimulants



but seriously

for me i just fiddle till its right for the song, or spend a session only making patches and making synth/basses from sampling and looping tiny bits of it. maybe load up a drum sequencer full of different synth resamplings that interact with eachother already. then save them for later, but usually it turns into a song.

Generally I just have a type of sound. I never really think about exactly how it's going to sound I just think about a general style of sound. I know before hand I want a dirty sounding bass so I load up the best VST I have for creating that particular sound and then I just start messing around until I get something I'm happy with. Same goes for just about any other sound.

My reasonings for doing it like this is because I'm not very good at sound design. By doing it this way I don't really have any serious expectations of my sound, so it helps me leave the frustration of creating my sounds behind, and just leaves me with the freedom of experimentation.

To be honest a lot of my sounds end up coming from a preset in a VSTi. This is mainly for my melody sounds. Usually preset basses never sound how I want so I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to create basses on my own. For melodies there's usually presets that come close to the style I'm looking for, and actually hearing them helps give me ideas of how I want it to sound. Then it's just a matter of changing parameters around and adding little things here and there to get as close as I can to whatever idea I get from hearing the presets.

if i've gotten to the point of making a couple drum loops i'm happy with it's all about using the synths to color the rhythmic skeleton. if there's a specific sound i'm hearing up in the ol' noggin i'll try my hardest to see it to completion - this can be maddening and not at all easy but learning your equipment well enough to be able to run with the good ideas is essential. one must provide a channel for the great ones to spill forth...

if i hear nothing in my skull than i'll scroll through some presets, which i find to be generative and helpful at times as a launching point (although tweaking is almost always necessary to get the sound to my liking). layering is a huge part of my process as well -- for me it's all about layering several different synth sounds and using clever arrangement to create gaps and space within each synth's pattern and using the envelopes to create an interaction between the various sounds: stuff swelling in and out, using pan to give movement across the stereo field. it's all about the right sounds interacting in an interesting way. and then resampling that mofo

for basslines, my process is a bit more simple and methodic. even still, the process involves a lot of experimenting, layering, and resampling.

Basses are easy (relatively).

I'm addicted to simple sounding square bass. Each toon requires different amp/filter adsr settings, different saturation and what not, but all those are relatively simple. Like if the bass is more active I'll dial in a shorter amp attack or whatever for that track.

For other types of sounds... it's a lot more diverse. If I can already hear the line in my head, I try to focus on what the sound is that I'm hearing in my head. Then work towards that. Sometimes, I don't know what I want, so I might start flicking presets to see what kind of sound works (I've obviously got an idea in my subconscious, but can't access it at that time). Maybe hit a preset that sounds pretty good, I'll adapt and what not. Sometimes I'll hit up my folder of rendered audio, which is essentially a resampling bin.

Standard subtractive synthesis is quite simple. A few different waveforms with different types of harmonic content, which can be filtered in various ways, then the way notes and filters open and close over timer.

Wamo, that is 80% of it right there. Took me a long time to figure out how simple it all is.

i could write pages on this, but half the point i try to give with my posts is music is as much about experimenting and teaching yourself
without that we'd have a bunch of cookie cutter tunes

sometimes I'm on a mission with a rough idea of the element I am trying to add, other times I just need some new inspiration for whatver im working on so I make random things, sometimes they don't fit and its a waste of time, other times I save the sound for later ideas sometimes i get a really cool sound that fits with the song im working on.

a notebppk and going out in nature is all you need
go fishing today

deadly habit wrote:a notebppk and going out in nature is all you need
go fishing today

I just had to quote this because I agree and the fishing statement is epic

Usually start off with a saw wave just cuz I like the sound and its got most of the freq range covered, then I'll usually have an idea in my head of what I want so I just figure out what sound I'm going for in terms off fx (light distortion, lots of modulation etc) then I get down to layering up a few synths and EQ them individually to get them to sound as sweet as possible then I'll start building my fx chain and eventually I'll whack a parametric EQ on a bus/group just to make sure it fits in with the mix.

just how I do though, compared to what I've seen and heard from other people my workflow is a little tedious with things like layering EQs but that's just what I'm used to and it works for me

fuck around

surely you mean, how do you program your synths to create a sound.
Not how do you invent your synth.
Inventing a synth to me means coding the actual synth from scratch.

Electric_Head wrote:I should have read the OP before making myself look dumb

Fixed?

If you read it you would have clearly understood what he meant and you wouldn't have wasted your time on that post.

I'll generally scroll through presets until I find something that is on the right track, then I'll tweak to taste. If you haven't already, familiarize yourself with general modulation and FX techniques. This will help you modify presets and/or create ground-up sounds from whichever synth you are using. Resampling is also fun. Honestly, the best way to learn is simply to mess around. I think you'll find a lot of people on here will say the same thing.

Def mess around, but the rock bottom fundamentals should be learned first.

1. What the wave shapes sound like, the kind of harmonic content they have.

2. What the various filter types sound like, with resonance.

3. How envelopes work.

4. How lfo's work.

Once you got that, you can start putting it all together.

Well I first started messing with Soft Synths it was just a lot of "What's this knob do" now that I know the basics like mentioned above it depends. If I have a beat going already I make something that will fit good. Other times it's educated messing around, but most important is to always experiment and try combination's you haven't tried before because the results can be mind blowing.