Best way to make softsynths sound warmer

creature · Post by **creature** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:00 pm

I use camelcrusher a lot for warming things up. just use it subtly and not as an all guns blazing distortion unit. I really like the sound of the simple compressor built into this plugin. used this puppy on 3 albums now.

Steve

sleepwalk · Post by **sleepwalk** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:06 pm

my feeling is the best way to make them sound more 'real' is sending them out to a nice amplifier, and then record audio back in. i have a 70s fender twin, which does a nice job on sounds like rhodes, organ, mellotron. dial in your eq, brightness, and reverb on the amp. the true amp sound adds some dirt and character and subtle randomness. with good sounds like scarbee, b4 and mtron i think you can fool most people this way. also helps on vintage analog synth sounds too.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:21 pm

Reamping as described by several others here is the best way. It's also sometimes good to contrast the dry synth with the reamped one, you can do neat things with stereo placement of the original source and reamped versions.

Otherwise saturation plugs can help a bit.

I still prefer Magneto (bundled in Steinberg's Cubase SX, but as it's written by Houpert Digital it plays in Live, Soundforge or anything else I use so long as the dongle is on). Vintage Warmer is pretty good, IMHO it works better on electric guitar, especially overdriven chords. I don't think Live's saturator's are that great but they do help.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:53 pm

someone already said its bout the sound design and thats basically it..

stuff like adding an extra oscillator an octave down but really low..

synths with pre filter overdrive

an eq with a nice wide Q taking a couple of DB out of the mid range

duplicating ur sound and adding an LP filter leaving just some rumbly...

SubQ · Post by **SubQ** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:04 am

Studying analog desks and tape saturation, figured out some things: 1- is the lack of some kind of distortion (latu sensu) that gives a ``dry´´ perspective to digital audio; 2- analog mixing desks (i.e. SSL) have two mono outs in the master, each one independently compressed, instead of a stereo out, as our DAWs.

That said, the deal is to apply some kind of dirt on it. I´m getting pretty nice results with voxengo varisaturator, RSO tape emulation, Crane Song´s Phoenyx and the built in distortion in sequoia. But Im sure saturator and other plugs would also cut it.

cheerz

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:40 am

nebulae wrote:
djadonis206 wrote: you spelted biatch wrong

\

I'll spell byatch any way I like, BYATCH!

*hugs* - how're wedding plans coming?

They came and went - legally hitched now for 2 1/2 weeks

it's cool really...much cooler than I expected

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:21 am

djadonis206 wrote:
nebulae wrote:
djadonis206 wrote: you spelted biatch wrong

\

I'll spell byatch any way I like, BYATCH!

*hugs* - how're wedding plans coming?
They came and went - legally hitched now for 2 1/2 weeks

it's cool really...much cooler than I expected

wooohooooo!!!!!!!!!!! congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me know when the sex stops.

NorthernMonkey · Post by **NorthernMonkey** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:26 am

nebulae wrote:
djadonis206 wrote:
nebulae wrote:\

I'll spell byatch any way I like, BYATCH!

*hugs* - how're wedding plans coming?
They came and went - legally hitched now for 2 1/2 weeks

it's cool really...much cooler than I expected
wooohooooo!!!!!!!!!!! congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me know when the sex stops.

He's been married for two and a half weeks. It's already stopped.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:45 am

I have a quadraverb gt and a midiverb 3 that can make softsynths sound real nice.

to me warmth isn't just "a bit of grunge" or "add some gain" it's more about the listeners overall perception of the sounds being heard IN THE MIX. to me, the quadraverb gt and the midiverb can add alot of debth to your mix. I've made a few tracks that never really got finished where everything was softsynths and everything sounded thin until I ran just one of those synths through my rack effects and all the sudden the sound just opened up and got much deeper.

or just get yourself an analog delay, or a boss rsd 10 which is a digital delay with limited bandwidth.

sometimes even just the faintest tape hiss sound can help your mix even if you aren't actually even using tape

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:52 am

^ interesting - will have to try that as well - nice suggestions, bro - I've got an older midiverb

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 3:07 am

Double tracking with slight patch differences.

hangar17 · Post by **hangar17** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:00 am

90's child wrote:PSP Vintage Warmer

+1 and add just a wee bit of reverb to it

funknotik · Post by **funknotik** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:42 am

Compression and saturation usually does the trick for my puproses, but indeed stereo re amping is a good idea. Need good mics though...

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:46 am

MidiVerb is fucking lame ass reverb....I hate that thing...
I don't like anything Alesis....

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 7:38 am

I read an article many years ago about Talvin Singh where he was saying he goes to the bother of routing out into a keyboard amp then miking it up - I actually think he was talking about hardware synths because there weren't too many soft synths around then, but is sounded like a good idea

personally I think if you're after real world/analogue warmth then you're probably better off actually using real analogue hardware - even like a radio shack amp or something - some old bit of kit that smooths the sound with real analogue circuitry

plus the limitations of the mic and speakers/amp would add to that

could always mix it with the original

Best way to make softsynths sound warmer

Re: Best way to make softsynths sound warmer

Re: Best way to make softsynths sound warmer

Re: Best way to make softsynths sound warmer