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How many oscillators do you tend to use for a pluck / lead?

Sorry, I'm starting too many thread lately.

I know it will vary from sound to sound, track to track, but lets say for example you were wanting the best pluck you could get out of something like Sylenth, how many oscillators would you use?

3, 32?

I've tended to be a bit guilty of piling on as many osc's as possible to thicken the sound, but I'm starting to wonder whether this leads to loss of definition.

1 or 2 osc. usually I feel it's more to do with what type if verb and how much delay. To getting a nice sounding pluck.

But I always layer them usually 3 layers.

Are you sure you don't mean voices? Do any synths even come with any more than 2 or 3 OSC?!?

In terms of voices, I don't hear much of a difference beyond 12.

number of oscillators doesn't matter here, they will only add fullness to the sound to reach the desired taste... pay more attention to the VCA and delay, avoid too much reverb most of the time... plucks are very easy to program...

A nice starting guide for you:

http://www.audiopioneers.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Are you sure you don't mean voices? Do any synths even come with any more than 2 or 3 OSC?!? In terms of voices, I don't hear much of a difference beyond 12.

This, i think z3ta has 4 oscs, about voices 8 is the number for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Are you sure you don't mean voices

Voices yes.

the root of 13 oscs and e^2,4 voices.

Re: How many oscillators do you tend to use for a pluck / lead?

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler I know it will vary from sound to sound, track to track, but lets say for example you were wanting the best pluck you could get out of something like Sylenth, how many oscillators would you use?

There is no such thing as the "best pluck", in the same way there is no "best kick", "best pad" or "best cowbell".

In a given mix, some plucks are going to sound great with very few Oscs/ Voices, some are going to sound great with a heap. In a mix, everything relies on everything else happening around it.

This concept of "the best" won't help you in your production journey. It will mean you struggle to fit "the best" sounds into your mixes because they simply aren't right for that particular song. Sometimes sounds (such as plucks) which sound quite unimpressive on their own happen to be "the best" pluck for your current song.

128

42

I almost took that one seriously mister Cyrus .

A nice pluck has a lot to do with the filter env too. With some saturation it could sound fat

You can really get a fat sound regardless of how many voices you use. Obviously you want a couple just to have it be a little more spacial but, the more voices you have, the nastier phasing you're gunna get. For any pluck I make in Sylenth1, I usually use 3 oscillators for the saw waves, each at 2-4 voices, and I have one tuned an octave down, one normal, and the last an octave up. Adjust filter envelope as necessary, and just find little tricks here and there to make it sound bigger. Reverb plays a very big part, and I usually stray away from the built in reverb on the Sylenth, as it sounds very metal-y and doesn't compliment plucks very well (at least I don't think). There are tons of easy tricks to make it sound bigger and have a louder attack that can be easily done. On the fourth oscillator that I'm not using, sometimes I'll throw in a noise wave (at extremely low volume, like 2%) but it gives it a nice sharp tone in the beginning. Also, compression with a healthy attack on it can make the beginning of the sound pop a LOT if done right. A lot of times I'll hear people make the decay on the filter envelope way too short, so you barely get a sound other than an initial 'pop' of tone, as they are trying to recreate the loud transient that some of the pros have, but thats definitely not the way to do it. Reverb & filter envelopes are your best bet, and also the comment above about saturation is a very good idea as well, and could really give your sound some low-mid meat, which is always good! Hope all of this helps

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