multi instruments to get power?

[GLJdrew]

I've spent a lot of time messing around with synths and stuff but I need a few pushes in the right direction. I'm completely learning this from scratch and haven't even been really listening to electronic for that long either, so my "ear" for certain sounds is still getting better. But something I notice is the sounds that really get me are the ones where it sounds full, thick, etc. when browsing VSTS, whether its abysnth, massive, or kontakt, none of the presets are really anything to get excited over. There are some awesome sounds in the browser but when it comes to just a basic powerful synth I cant seem to find what i'm looking for. Seems like these synths are everywhere in songs but nowhere in the library. I'm starting to think these instruments are just the results of resampling over and over with instrument combos...is this right? I dont want to just use the sounds in the library i'd like to be able to see how they are made so I can see the settings and tweak/experiment. Heres a few clips to get you to hear what im tlaking about. please let me know if there's other ways to go about doing what i'm trying to do! again, i'm still learning synth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjbYmnV5Kg&ob=av2e 1:38

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTa864Fa4N0 1:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOFYBo38i7Q 0:58

thank you for any advice on this topic. it's definitely a buzz kill when u have an idea and spend 2 hours clicking the down button and still come up empty

[merges]

A lot of the sounds you hear are probably multiple voices/synths, often with multiple automated or oscillating filters, and many are processed after they leave the synth. For instance, in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTa864Fa4N0 1:30

I assume you're referring to the "fatter" synth. It sounds like multiple voices to me. There's a quieter square-ish sounding synth, plus the saw synth, which may be split into a couple of octaves and probably itself consists of multiple voices. The lead saw sound is spread in the stereo field, maybe with a chorus or some other trick to simulate the Haas effect. In fact, listening again to it, there is a harmony playing along with the melody, so that's another synth. Almost certainly these have been processed with a reverb of some sort as well, to give the sound a bit of space even though it's quite dry.

So in that example there are at least three distinct synths that I hear. At least one, possibly more, consist of multiple voices—either the same notes, detuned or differently filtered, or different notes, to create a chord. Many synths, though I'm not sure about the ones you mentioned, can create these effects by using multiple voices, multiple distinct filters, etc. All which contribute to the "fatness" of the sound. Then stereo spreading, chorus, reverb, etc. can do more to add harmonics and thicken the sound. Or you might just play several synths, several different presets, at once, to achieve the same.

I wouldn't expect too many softsynth presets to sound like that out of the box, dry. There are some. But the fun is in figuring out how to make the sound more like what you want.

[GLJdrew]

Hmm I cant believe I never thought of making octaves...i play guitar and octave leads are some of my favorites! hahah So in theory, I can have a lead that I play over say, 3, octaves. Each of those 3 notes can have like 16 voices, then I can add a chorus/short delay for an even bigger effect..plus harmony and maybe the same thing with a different synth itself.

How does that do on CPU? would you resample that after creating the synth??

Andrew

[oddstep]

this is layering. i'd guess that unless I wanted the specific effect of resampling (linking envelope speed to pitch for instance) I would probably keep on layering until I got what I wanted or ran out of cpu. if I ran out of cpu I would start recording tracks to audio or freezing tracks.

detuning is pretty std n all. 2 copies of a synth/oscillator but tuned a couple of cents apart.

[GLJdrew]

thanks for your reply...when you say the effect of resampling is linking the envelope speed to the pitch what exactly is that? i know its not relevant really to the original post but I thought i understood envelopes..Isn't it just the automation u make for a parameter..like i can go to the "sync speed envelope" and dictate how it changes over time, or i can just make the pan envelope change from L to R over each bar. isnt that an envelope? So how is there such thing as an envelope "speed." Isnt the speed of the envelope just the speed of the song?

[oddstep]

yeah, I blame Ableton...
There's clip envelopes - like the panning you used as an example, and then there's synth Attack Decay Sustain Release (ADSR) envelopes. on a synth/sampler the attack/decay/release times usually default to staying the same regardless of the pitch - so a pad always takes the same length of time to fade in, regardless of whether you're playing high or low on the keyboard. if you resample a synth - unless you use timestretching in the sampler, the sample will take longer to play back at lower pitches. In the pad example this means that low notes will take longer to fade in than high notes.
this can be great. some of my favourite junglist bass sounds are sampled 808s with the pitch drop taking a lot longer on low notes, giving a rhythm to a track just by varying playback speed. Zomby does it as well, by resampling arp lines and playing them back on different notes -- so the arp rate changes dependent on pitch.

[puzzlefactory]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmjbYmnV5Kg&ob=av2e 1:38

I'm really liking this synth sound in the above example, obviously it's some sort of distorted saw wave but i think there is more to it than just that. I'll have a bit of a play around and see if i can't recreate it.

In the mean time if anyone else has made something similar to this or has some ideas about it, let me know as i would love to here them!

[merges]

How does that do on CPU? would you resample that after creating the synth??

It depends on the synth, on the number of effects you use and how you route them, etc. Some synths are extra bad about CPU usage (Circle) and some quite good (Zebra). But oddstep has explained one of the "advantages" you can get/effects you can get from resampling.

In the example, it sounds like "normally played" synths, not resampled. But that's just to my fairly amateur ear.

[oddstep]

none of the op links sound like resampled synths to my amateur ears either.
Dom Kane's patch here gives a excellent example of how to get a REALLY MASSIVE synth sound. Basically its layering with audio outputs and stacking synths.
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=153101

[GLJdrew]

I'll definitely have to look into all these possibilities.. I think the whole "envelope" thing will become clearer too once I start working more with the synth experimentation...Is the envelope for synth basically just telling the synth how fast to decay or attack etc? So the attack envelope increasing makes it swell in vs hitting a short attack like a snare?

Just wanna clarify a little more!

Thanks

[merges]

Is the envelope for synth basically just telling the synth how fast to decay or attack etc? So the attack envelope increasing makes it swell in vs hitting a short attack like a snare?

Yes.

And you can usually set envelopes for many parts of the sound. For instance, there is the ADSR (or similar) envelope for the synth generally. That might be for the whole synth, or on a per-voice basis, depending on the design. Typically filters and other effects can have their own envelopes. Even LFOs, which can be used to automatically change the values of filters and effects, can often have an envelope applied to them. So, a filter with an LFO designed to sound "wobbly" might have a long attack envelope so that the wobble effect fades in over time, etc.

Your synth manual would be a good place to look for details on this, but yea, experimentation is the best.

[pencilrocket]

Hmm I cant believe I never thought of making octaves...i play guitar and octave leads are some of my favorites! hahah So in theory, I can have a lead that I play over say, 3, octaves. Each of those 3 notes can have like 16 voices, then I can add a chorus/short delay for an even bigger effect..plus harmony and maybe the same thing with a different synth itself.

How does that do on CPU? would you resample that after creating the synth??

Andrew

When you are going to create thick synth sound with them complex harmonized you can work easily on powerful CPU. (You won't have to do routine work of freezing - rearrange - freezing - rearrange -... if you have powerful enough CPU to handle a lot polyphonies of the VSTi.) Complextro generally eats fairly amount of resources while composing.

[Vresky]

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