Gripe of the day: synthesis

[eggnchips]

I feel my productions are improving nicely and I'm becoming adequate at drum programming and sound efx etc.
My hard point is sythesis, something I would like to improve. I never seem satisfied with the results and everything sounds too cheesy when I'm looking for dirt. I'm improving though but I feel I'm a million miles away from being musical.
I have started using a Jx3P.
Just a thought that's all.

[steevio]

the jx3p isnt the best sounding synth out there, and control is limited, but you should be able to get some sounds out of it.
i can imagine that its a frustrating machine to work with, it might be worth moving it on and trying to get hold of something more usuable.

do you have difficulty with soft synths ?

synthesis is about experience and experimentation, you just have to put the hours in.
but if there are a couple of important things to keep in mind, i'd say ;

work on getting interesting textures and movement with your filter half closed.
cheeseyness usually comes from wide open filters.

add as much movement from different modulation sources and destinations as possible to keep the sounds interesting, have some modulation synched to clock in differing divisions, and have some un-synched and developing over time.

modulate your envelopes and take time getting them sounding exactly right for the track.
the more i learn about synthesis, the more i realise the power of envelopes.

stay away from effects and reverb, get your sounds right first, use the release of the envelopes to colour your track instead of smoothering them in a random reverb.
use the synth as an effects machine and create the effects as an integral part of the sound in the first place. i never use effects, other than a tinge of reverb as glue for the track.

[oblioblioblio]

i agree that you need to put the hours in.

I learnt from simple soft synths, effects, dissassembling/reverse engineering presets (good to learn from imo, some soft synths employ VERY talented sound designers, and as long as you have the honesty and integrity to use their work as something to learn from and not as a full stop).

Synthesis always fascinated me more than sampling, you can make sounds that have never existed before, and the more you dig into it, the further out you go. And you make sounds that are both completely alien and new, but somehow human and sound like *you*. It was always fun to me, but you do have to motivate yourself to do the shite jobs, and discpline yourself.

Unless you're a proper outboard fanatic I reckon soft synths are perfect to learn with.

I agree that using effects can be distracting, but one of the things that inspired me was just doing stuff for fun, and I wanted to try everything. Although I do agree that you can use a synth as a full sound machine and force yourself to find everything that is possible inside it, which will bring the rewards further down the line.

[AK]

Do you set out to make a specific sound and then can't make it, or just feel uninspired by the sounds you come up with?

Like Steevio said, adding movement to an otherwise static sound is necessary in my book to bring things 'to life'. I always experiment and get to sounds that, when I come back to, I wonder how I ever arrived at such a sound. I kinda have an idea of what I need. ie: Say I have a bass part running along with a basic beat, I might want a sound suitable for some chords, so I'll start out with a basic set of oscillators playing those chords and then work the patch into the music getting a feel of how that sound needs to be in order to be effective in its context. That just involves altering various parameters and envelopes until I reach something I like but I always start out with basic sounds and never really save or use presets as I like to feel fresh in my approach.

I'm one for mixing in noise oscillators and reducing high frequencies out of sounds too, I think sounds, when too clean, can leave the music sounding kinda Electro House-ish. I use a bit of software still and I have this one plug-in ( which I'm really fond of ) which has these different 'output' sections/shaping, like transistor, diode, rectify etc which turn otherwise, mundane and 'synthy' sounds into something a little more organic and less obvious. And that's the key - at least for me, making sounds feel a little 'worn' and not overly clean and precise.

[AK]

Synthesis always fascinated me more than sampling, you can make sounds that have never existed before

I know where you're coming from but if you've ever used a sampler and had it function like a synth, that really doesn't apply. I get a lot of mileage from samples but for the more musical purposes, I will use waveforms ( which I have a collection of and have been looped )

By doing this, you could for arguments sake, have 10 different waveforms mixed and pitched together, from a variety of sources and have the ability to set each of those waveforms to its own pitch, give them all their own envelope, filter type and modulation and come up with fantastic sounds. It can be time consuming though but it's great for ambient textures and background stuff, esp when you are mixing in some weird industrial noise or field recording sample alongside other stuff. There's infinite possibilities using a sampler in this way but unfortunately, there's a lot of people who do little more than use them for sample playback. ( that's not saying what you were doing, just saying )

[oblioblioblio]

yep, you're right, you can get a sampler to sound like something sompletely new.

I guess I prefer the method of synthesis, to start from simple tones and manipulate them.

[lem]

yep, you're right, you can get a sampler to sound like something sompletely new.

I guess I prefer the method of synthesis, to start from simple tones and manipulate them.

I switch between the two, my preference changes every couple weeks normally. After a few years I got an idea of what to go to first for a certain type of sound.

[s.k.]

whichever method you chose, don't limit yourself to it exclusively, the engineering side is also very important, although i personally never made much difference between them.

but back on topic, like AK i also have found waveshaping effects to sound real god, especially rectifying. i was always drawn by the idea of mixing kick and bass like this - by rectifying the upper half of the kick wave (leaving only the negative part of the wave) and the lower part of the bass (0 to -1), but the results were never outstanding when i tried that... synthesis is endless, definitely my biggest love but not the only one.