Any tips or tricks on adding "bite" to synth lines?

[Nephew]

Working on a track right now, have a nice Juno sounding synth line going with some distortion and a bit of overdrive on it with a filter afterwards. I have the filter on low pass and have automated it to open up to let the distortion tear through, but it sounds rather dull and doesn't have much "bite".

I haven't EQ'd or done any mix downs yet though, but is there any tricks I should try or is it something that will come through after I do the mix down?

[seattletruth]

Try a different preset? Maybe try a trancegate?

[siliconarc]

put the filter before the overdrive? sounds like your lowpass is killing the growl.
or have a proper play around with the Saturator device and leave the filter out of it.

[Nephew]

I'll try messing around with the order of the FX and try using the Saturator. Not very familiar with it but I guess now's a good of time as any to learn it

[sacredgeometry]

Selective eq, saturation and overdrive then fatten it up with some compression

A little q on the filter helps to make the filter scream through the sweeps.

[Nephew]

When I EQ on my mix down I always do subtractive, but I would assume I'm looking to boost certain frequencies to add that "bite" and "scream"?

And is that a common chain for adding bit?

EQ>Sat>OD>Comp?

[MPGK]

Watch out with the Compressor, a low Attack setting can kill the transients and take the energy out of your synth. Do you really need it after saturating and overdriving the signal? This also adds compression! My experience is you need less saturation and distortion than you think to make sounds bite.

If you own Suite though, you should give Amp & Cabinet a try. The plexi-Marshall emulation ("Rock") can add a nice frizzle to sterile synth lines. Prepare yourself to experiment with the Dry/Wet of both Amp and Cabinet a lot. Hard to get the right ratio.

[Badger123]

Try routing it out of Ableton to a real guitar amplifier or PA. Then re-record it with a microphone at various distances from the speaker!

[duro]

I can't say enough about frequency splitting.

1. Use an effect rack. Start with one multiband compressor. Turn the compression Amount all the way down (meaning, don't apply any compression). Then set the Hi, Mid, Lo frequencies to taste.

2. Duplicate the chain and Solo the Lo, Mid, and Hi bands on the three chains. (basically you end up with the same multiband compressor on three chains, one with the lo solo, one with mid solo, and one with hi solo). The result should have not changed the sound at all, but now you have three chains that each have a diff freq band running through them and you can effect each one differently.

For Bite:

3. Apply redux to the mids and hi
4. Add some overdrive to the hi
5. Put a little stereo delay on the hi to give them some more stereo spread

That's just my take.

[duro]

Oh, and be sure to throw some compression on all three chains (not using the multiband, just insert a compressor on each chain

[Nephew]

I can't say enough about frequency splitting.

1. Use an effect rack. Start with one multiband compressor. Turn the compression Amount all the way down (meaning, don't apply any compression). Then set the Hi, Mid, Lo frequencies to taste.

2. Duplicate the chain and Solo the Lo, Mid, and Hi bands on the three chains. (basically you end up with the same multiband compressor on three chains, one with the lo solo, one with mid solo, and one with hi solo). The result should have not changed the sound at all, but now you have three chains that each have a diff freq band running through them and you can effect each one differently.

For Bite:

3. Apply redux to the mids and hi
4. Add some overdrive to the hi
5. Put a little stereo delay on the hi to give them some more stereo spread

That's just my take.

This one makes a lot more sense to me, been doing this already but just with two chains on the Effect rack and using filters to slit the two, but I never thought to use the multiband on each chain. Thanks for the idea!