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Getting the most out of your synth... (pg. 2)
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| G-Con |
| quote: | Originally posted by Anz_
spot on man im having the same problems your having, the very same exact problem mate. great thread. but i think a few people are bouncing off topic. i often have troubles creating sounds, i mean i know pretty much all the basics to the fullest, and i detune many of my sounds for good results, but when i hear sounds like adam v's soundsets i just dont understand what im doing wrong. i spend alot of time just tweaking synths to get something different. what are some paremeters i should focus on that could really play a big role in creating progressed sounds/fatter sounds. |
Yeah this is what i mean. All the sounds I create sound incredibly samey and a bit boring compared to the stuff I know you can get out of synths. Problem is I dont know what I should be tweaking to get these great sounds... |
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| Derivative |
| quote: | Originally posted by Anz_
spot on man im having the same problems your having, the very same exact problem mate. great thread. but i think a few people are bouncing off topic. i often have troubles creating sounds, i mean i know pretty much all the basics to the fullest, and i detune many of my sounds for good results, but when i hear sounds like adam v's soundsets i just dont understand what im doing wrong. i spend alot of time just tweaking synths to get something different. what are some paremeters i should focus on that could really play a big role in creating progressed sounds/fatter sounds. |
What do you mean by 'detune all my sounds for good results' because I don't see how detuning anything necessarily leads to good results.
Ever heard this expression? If the only tool you can use in your toolbox is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail.
Well its the same with synths. There is a reason why you are given so many variables. Some synths have more than others but thats not the point. You don't have to use all of them to make a good sound but you do need to know what everything on your synth does and how it works. Otherwise you are just bluffing your way through sound design and if you make a good sound its because you get lucky. Don't know about you but I think this is a really ty and unreliable way of doing things.
Its the same deal with presets. If you rely on presets as the basis for the sounds you create, then you will always come to rely on having appropriate preset sounds. And you won't always have appropriate preset sounds. If you can't program a synth from scratch at all and never try then you are in a world of because you won't be able to make anything without having presets first. |
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| G-Con |
| quote: | Originally posted by Derivative
What do you mean by 'detune all my sounds for good results' because I don't see how detuning anything necessarily leads to good results.
Ever heard this expression? If the only tool you can use in your toolbox is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail.
Well its the same with synths. There is a reason why you are given so many variables. Some synths have more than others but thats not the point. You don't have to use all of them to make a good sound but you do need to know what everything on your synth does and how it works. Otherwise you are just bluffing your way through sound design and if you make a good sound its because you get lucky. Don't know about you but I think this is a really ty and unreliable way of doing things.
Its the same deal with presets. If you rely on presets as the basis for the sounds you create, then you will always come to rely on having appropriate preset sounds. And you won't always have appropriate preset sounds. If you can't program a synth from scratch at all and never try then you are in a world of because you won't be able to make anything without having presets first. |
ok but i know the basics of what everything does but am asking where to go from here to achieve good sounds. I never use presets as i dont want to rely on them but i cant get sounds that are that far way from the original synth sound |
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| Synchronicity |
Personally, I think it's amazing the habits we can all get into sometimes. I had the same problem as you - where I was trying every vsti under the sun.. when I cracked that I got into the habit of always going for the saw, detune and unison!
The way I got out of the habit was to spend a bit of time - even just a couple of minutes, to plan my attack (no pun intended).
For example I'll say - 'right, I want a kind of smooth, crystally sound that is 'plucky' but has a reasonably long tail etc. etc.'.
I could approach this in a number of ways, like getting a close timbre with the oscillators then shaping the sound with the amp env. I'd probably do it the other way round though. Then maybe filter type, filter env. and lfo's. A lot of the time this will get me reasonably close and then I have to just tweak (sometimes randomly) to polish off the sound.
Sometimes I'll just aim to 'see what sync and fm can do'. Or 'I wonder what'll happen if I use the filter env. to mod the PW of an osc from fat to thin while the filter env. also mods two other oscs' tuning away from each other' - kinda thinking in pictures/patterns/symmetry.
So I definately think it can help to have a plan or a sound in your head first. Otherwise it's very easy to fall back into bad habits. |
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| Anz_ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Derivative
What do you mean by 'detune all my sounds for good results' because I don't see how detuning anything necessarily leads to good results.
Ever heard this expression? If the only tool you can use in your toolbox is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail.
Well its the same with synths. There is a reason why you are given so many variables. Some synths have more than others but thats not the point. You don't have to use all of them to make a good sound but you do need to know what everything on your synth does and how it works. Otherwise you are just bluffing your way through sound design and if you make a good sound its because you get lucky. Don't know about you but I think this is a really ty and unreliable way of doing things.
Its the same deal with presets. If you rely on presets as the basis for the sounds you create, then you will always come to rely on having appropriate preset sounds. And you won't always have appropriate preset sounds. If you can't program a synth from scratch at all and never try then you are in a world of because you won't be able to make anything without having presets first. |
im sorry i didnt mean to say detune. i can just pull basic sounds. |
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| Derivative |
| quote: | Originally posted by G-Con
ok but i know the basics of what everything does but am asking where to go from here to achieve good sounds. I never use presets as i dont want to rely on them but i cant get sounds that are that far way from the original synth sound |
Depending on the synth, the presets can be quite good. The preset banks that come with ImpOSCar for instance have quite alot of good sounds as far as monophonic leads go and theres a good variety of timbres. I dislike using the ImpOSCar presets mainly because many of them seem like interesting sound design tests and clones of classic analogue sounds - there are 303 clones, rezo moog leads and moog basses etc.
The rest is down to effects and sitting the sound in a mix, and these things have a huge impact on a sound.
For instance, if you ever get a JP-8000 you may notice that that supersaw style patches sound rubbish without the inbuilt chorus and delay. Chorus has a huge effect on supersaw type sounds and you will never really get close to a JP supersaw without the appropriate chorus.
Its a similar situation with many other sounds. I've never really been satisfied with a 303 sound until it has a tonne of effects on it - most commonly some form of saturation or overdrive and a chorus effect.
If you can build sounds in ImpOSCar for instance that wouldn't sound out of place in an ImpOSCar preset bank then your sound design is quite good. The advantage of doing it yourself from scratch is that you can tailor make all your sounds to fit into your mixes easily and you can build more unique timbres.
I tend not to like Vanguard and I dislike the sound of the oscillators and the filter. I dislike the inbuilt effects too but I guess it depends on what you want to do. Vanguard always sounds slightly metallic and hollow to me so I have never found it an approriate synth for resonant monophonic lead instruments. Thats not to say you cant do them with Vanguard. You can, but for that purpose I just think ImpOSCar is better. Vanguard however is good for noise based effects as its noise waveforms sound quite nice. The only downside is that the synth doesn't have a whole load of moduation options and theres no modulation matrix so it puts a limit on what you can do effectswise. |
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| ASFSE |
| quote: | Originally posted by Derivative
What do you mean by 'detune all my sounds for good results' because I don't see how detuning anything necessarily leads to good results.
Ever heard this expression? If the only tool you can use in your toolbox is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail.
Well its the same with synths. There is a reason why you are given so many variables. Some synths have more than others but thats not the point. You don't have to use all of them to make a good sound but you do need to know what everything on your synth does and how it works. Otherwise you are just bluffing your way through sound design and if you make a good sound its because you get lucky. Don't know about you but I think this is a really ty and unreliable way of doing things.
Its the same deal with presets. If you rely on presets as the basis for the sounds you create, then you will always come to rely on having appropriate preset sounds. And you won't always have appropriate preset sounds. If you can't program a synth from scratch at all and never try then you are in a world of because you won't be able to make anything without having presets first. |
good post here.
is impOSCar your favorite synth deriv? i have trouble using it, i'm more of a z3ta guy....
anyway, it really comes down to a matter of time, practice, patience, and trial + error.
there is a reason why most people that are pro know how to get good results out of thier gear...it's because they know thier specific pieces of software/hardware inside and out. they've spent countless hours fiddling around and perfecting certain sounds.
advanced concepts will usually click out of know where. i know i've seen this discussed before...it's the whole "platau"(sp) thing.
posting on a message board and asking a general question about "how to get more out of a synth" will probably yield only a minimal amount of helpful answers(i havnt seen one in this thread that actually helps you get "more out of your synth" except the audio thing which isnt really synth related). you just have to work at it...
and i know it's frustrating, but to be "advanced" you actually need to WORK HARD, like this doesnt ccome easy or else everyone and thier mother would be producing records. if you've mastered the basic concepts then you're past reading about sound design...
it's time to grind away at the synth until it makes sense to you.
post some examples of some patches you've programmed so we can see where you're at. |
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| mysticalninja |
| only thing i never use in vanguard is the reverb, yuck. it ALWAYS sounds metallic. |
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| TRNG |
yeah theres no easy way to tell you this
open ur synth and around until you don't want to do it anymore and your brain hurts, then do it for another few hours after that. go to sleep, wake up next morning, and keep ing around. this is the only way to learn. |
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| Derivative |
| quote: | Originally posted by ASFSE
is impOSCar your favorite synth deriv? i have trouble using it, i'm more of a z3ta guy.... |
My fav synth used to be my Virus B. But now I dislike the sound of the oscillators and most of the wavetables so I have mixed feelings on it. ImpOSCar is now my favourite synth and it is the one I use the most. And for monophonic analogue leads and basses it is probably the best sounding out of the synths I do own (including the Virus).
And yeah its a bitch to program at first. I remember fiddling with the demo and not liking it a couple of years ago but I was newbie then and I didn't understand it. Then I got a Virus B and did most of my subtractive synth learning on that (this is an excellent synth to learn on once you have the basics covered).
Then I went back to ImpOSCar and it just 'clicked' like you said. I think the only reason it clicked is because I recognised some similarities to the way you program a Virus. Once you figure out what everything does on the synth and what it sounds like then it becomes easy to program. The only issue I have with it is that a number of the pots are really sensitive. The pitch mod and envelope mod pots are just stupidly sensitive. You have to wrestle with it to get them on their zero point values. The LFO is also way way too fast.
If you want to get into ImpOSCar bear this in mind:
Alot of the variables on the synth are linked so that changing one variable has an knock on effect on another. For example: the LFO -> Filter pot and the Filter -> Envelope pot.
When you think about it then it makes sense but if you set up the LFO, filter and filter envelope a certain way, then you change the filter cutoff, it will change the way the LFO sounds and also the the rate at which the filter opens and closes via the filter envelope. Thats because all of these variables are modulating the filter when not set on their zero point values.
So by just changing the cutoff you can change loads of other different aspects of the sound at the same time. Which used to confuse the out of me until I sketched a rough signal chain on paper and reasoned it through and by doing a few simple tests. You don't need to sketch a signal chain because the synth is laid out with arrows to show you what modules the signal passes through and in what order - I just never noticed it before then because I'm dumb.
So everytime you change one of these variables it also changes the effect of another variable. After I figured this out, I make a mental note of what the LFO and filter envelope is doing on every patch I build. If I have to change the filter/LFO/envelope settings, I find it usually makes more sense to reset all of these pots to their zero point values and rebuild the filter/filter envelope and LFO from scratch again.
Otherwise it can get sort of messy.
I tried the zeta+ demo for a couple of days but not really long enough to get into it. The demo output fades out every 10 seconds or something and I remember finding this so annoying that I stopped using it.
I found the UI really weird as lots of things are hidden in sub panels and so forth. I know Pendulum use zeta+ for their reeces and they sound good. And its specified like a Virus only with decent sounding oscillators so I get the impression its an awesome instrument. But I never really gave it time to set in. I think I will at some point but ImpOSCar seems to handle analogueish sounds well enough so I don't really need another VA. If there was a softsynth at the top of my to buy list it would be NI Absynth. Which I've been meaning to buy for ages. |
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| verdonsky |
| Derivative, you'd probably love Korg Legacy Cell. |
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| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by G-Con
On a side note, is it me or do all the waveforms in Vanguard sound incredibly similar to each other? |
Wow, this is a very dense thread, I'm gonna have to re read it after I go out tonight (gonna see Clapton:D ) OK, I am not the greatest synthesist ever, I really need a lot more practise, I'm still at the level of basically scrolling through presets looking for what i want. But the only advice I have for you is to try a different synth, vanguard is too simple I think, try absynth which is clearly laid out (although a little fiddly being multipage) or z3ta. Just try and find a synth (singular not plural) which suits you.
z3ta was where I started to learn synthesis. Just look around for either absynth, z3ta, albino, fm8, massive (not recommended, too much CPU). Then play! And yes, its a good idea to aim for a sound then try and create it, not just noodle. If your running out of ideas, try playing with the envelopes a little more maybe, they're probably my favourite part of a synth, esp. the filter env:p That might give you more unusual sounds, but if you want truly experimental stuff, you need absynth. |
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