I love Cosmic Gate's sound on their leads... the intro to Mental Atmosphere with the staccato synth notes at the beginning is the sort of sound I am going for, but am having troubles getting.
I use Reason and have tried Malstrom and Subtractor, tweaking everything, but I never come close... Bass is no problem but the treble, high-band part is... Anyone have any pointers on getting that sound?

I believe they used FM or additive based synthesis for that sound. After that, it's all clever EQing. Look into your phase effects, and run that by your synth, b/c they have some kinda weird phase effect....or at least i notice that.

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'-.SgtFoo.-'
My SoundCloud

quote:

Originally posted by SgtFoo Look into your phase effects, and run that by your synth, b/c they have some kinda weird phase effect....or at least i notice that.

Sure its not Pulse Width Modulation.

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1 out of every 4 people in this country are mentally disturbed. Look at your 3 closest friends. If they seem okay, then you're the one.

it makes me sad that that last comment flew so far over my head

quote:

Originally posted by Damie Mckeown it makes me sad that that last comment flew so far over my head

Don't worry mate, I just made it up to sound like I knew what I was talking about.


Seriously, PWM is something that I don't think you will find on too many softsynths. I'm not aware of any that offer it. You understand what pulse width is yeah. Most subtractive synths should have a pulse width dial for the oscillators. Well pulse width modulation is simply modulating (making it go up and down) the pulse width with another source. Generelly speaking, this other source is a low frequency oscillator. In the mod matrix, you assign an LFO to modulate the pulse width of the oscillators. Make sense.

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1 out of every 4 people in this country are mentally disturbed. Look at your 3 closest friends. If they seem okay, then you're the one.

Where did you get this info on synthesis?

Is there something I could read or do you recomend a hands-on approach?

I run a virus. i get all my info from experience.

Reading tutorials and stuff can teach you a lot, but you need to experience things to understand what kind of change something will make. For instance, I just read something by a sound engineer about mastering. A lot of the stuff was usefull and made sense, but a lot of it could not be properly understood without hearing the changes he was talking about.

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1 out of every 4 people in this country are mentally disturbed. Look at your 3 closest friends. If they seem okay, then you're the one.

The pro 53 has pulse width modulation. I used it on the secondary bassline on my latest track. It also has frequency modulation which I use a lot too.

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Most recent tracks:
1) Ilan Bluestone - Spheres (State of Matter Eleventh Hour Mix)
2) MK-S - Illuminate (State of Matter Revival Mix)
3) Scarab - Vagabond (State of Matter Revival Mix)
4) Ferry Corsten & The Thrillseekers - Sublime (State of Matter Revival Mix)
5) State of Matter - Saving Icarus (Original Mix)

https://soundcloud.com/stateofmattermusic