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Storyteller
Supreme tracneaddict

Registered: Feb 2005
Location: The Netherlands
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Oct-31-2011 18:12
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KilldaDJ
birth.school.trance.death

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: tranceaddict wants to know your location
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Oct-31-2011 21:08
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Richard Butler
Supreme tranceaddict

Registered: Apr 2009
Location: London
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I'd advise you to spend a few years twiddling knobs and experimenting, for me thats how you learn, no book would get anywhere close really - I read Mr snows Dance music manual but it's very basic.
That preset is very plastic sugar sounding and is what I try to avoid. I find Gladiator makes a lot of those sugary sounds too.
For all sounds, reverb is key and I dont mean obvious typical hall reverb. Firstly room reverb - back in the day the reason synths / instruments often had a great character (from people like Stevie Wonder and M Jackson) was because they piped the synth sound back into a real space and then recorded it. Somehow this gives you a vibrancy and it's a major trick a lot of people (inc me often) miss. Paying attention to this can give you a more organic 'alive' feel when done right.
You can re - record your synth thru a mic or you can try and use room reverbs to create this short verbed prescence.
Now you don't always have to have this room reverb, sometimes just a main longer verb will suffice but you really have to make your all verb choices very very carefuly, I cant stress this enogh. I find when you get this just right, the difference is significant but it means a lot of experimentation. Each sound will suit different verb settings, differnt density, different room msize, pre - deyal and so on. I find dedicated verbs are better for a more refined sound than built in synth verbs.
Often pan the main longer verb or delay and consider strapping some modulation accross the verb such as phaser as this gives movement energy.
SOUND DESIGN - when you build a patch try and find those little unusual touches such as a little pitch envelope, a little fm mangling and so on - always think outside the box.
LAYERING - I'd say the most important thing I've learned is to make the right sound choices and in my case this takes time, it just does. I might find a layer that is good - but is there an even better one - keep making a list of possible sounds for that next layer and then whittle it down to the very best one. The reason a real orchestra can sound so refined is that each instrument is doing the parts that are perfect for it.
Some argue you cannot learn to make great sound choices, it's just innate in some people, but all you can do is keep practicing and hope you refine this skill.
DYNAMICS - the way 'the sound' (which might be 2+ layers) decays is critical. You might need 2 or 3 different compressors / dynamics tools (such as a maximiser) to pin down the way the amplitude of the sound decays over it's legnth.
A typical dynamics chain for me might be = SOUND > BBE SONIC MAXIMISER > FLUX ATTACK SHAPER (transient designer - something to bring out the initial attack) > DAW SIDECHAINED COMPRESSOR.
This is just dynamics. There could be other processing.
WARMTH - Rich Jones (a respected techno producer here) said to me it's all about warmth, from the kick down. Something I'm only just starting to work on properly. Get your sounds warm and rounded (maybe not every sound like a hihat though).
My sound choices were bad for a long long time, but I think I'm getting better. I just never realised how much care was needed in this matter so I often ended up with a mushy shitty sound once the track was finished.
UNDERSTAND THIS - know that you may make 19 shitty leads and 1 really good one - just accept this reality and you wont beat yourself up so much. Each fail is a step closer to a good sound.
___________________
https://soundcloud.com/butlerrichard
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Oct-31-2011 22:05
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DJRYAN™
www.djryan.com

Registered: Aug 2009
Location: Atlanta, USA
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I've read this now 3-4 times. Mostly because I want to make sure I understand this. But I have a question. You said something about "dedicated reverb" versus, built in "synth reverb". What's the difference and what were you talking about exactly?
Secondly, the part about piping back in the synth. It would probably be best to have some sort of room treatment in order to get this perfected- right?
If that room treatment isn't available, you'd concentrate on just using reverb.
I usually use reverb as a conditioner to the overall sound. To give it that extra fullness that. It sounds like your implying that it can do a bit more. I'll start initializing my reverb patches and getting some of that down.
Sound Dynamics sounded the most appealing. I kinda gathered that what you were talking about, and this might sound basic, but is to pick out a piece of the synth. I'll call it an artifact. An unintened sound that lies deep within the patch. THen with the eqing, reverb, fx, etc. The goal would be to extract that sound, refining it and making it the primary focal point of the track- right?
So, combining synths, and adding fx, would either create a decent sound, or have different pieces that could be pulled from, in order to make a song?
I have so many questions its unbelievable.
But thank you for taking the time to give me a littl more insight. If there's anything else you think I should know, I'm interested in listening.
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Oct-31-2011 23:12
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