Sound Design tips please?

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Does someone can give some good sound design tips or even links about making sound on Sylenth1, Massive and maybe Nexus 2. Also some tips on layering the sounds like how to layer 3 leads?

Why? Because i made a remake of a one track and i realized that my leads and basses didn't sound great and i am not good with making my own sounds.

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Thanks

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Sound design, focused on synthesis, is a bit like a trained muscle. Thus, it's unlikely that a few tips or articles will do much to get you to the place you want to be. I'd suggest that if you want to improve your synthesis results, you need to commit to mastery of synthesis, and especially your favored synthesizer.

To that end, there is no better move than to first read the manual of your synth from cover to cover. There's literally nothing more effective than that, per time spent.

Afterward, I'd also suggest occasionally doing goal-oriented exercises, where you have no intention of writing a song, only to practice synthesis. As I said that sound design can be like a trained muscle, then this process is akin to weight training.

Find a specific sound in a specific song, and try to duplicate it. For these practice exercises, avoid emulating styles of sound, and other generalities. Focus on a specific sound. A specific patch from a certain song. Reason being that the exercise needs to have a success condition, and a fail condition. This allows you to better identify what you've learned, and what you don't know. You can better identify what exactly you're doing, audibly, when you consider modulating a particular parameter. It trains your ear to identify elements of the sound("oh, this patch is using heavy detune, this patch is using a very finicky filter envelope, this patch is using an FM 2:1 ratio).

At first, you will fail at emulating your target sounds. You'll repeatedly be stumped. That's okay(and anyways, some sounds are so exotic that they defy emulation). When you're stumped, just come to this sub forum and ask, "How can I duplicate this specific patch?" And with each response, you try again, and eventually you'll get a handle on the finer use of different parameters, and you'll even sometimes succeeding at hitting your target. Every failure and success will make you a little more competent. And the more competent you are with your tool and it's mastery, the more capable you will be of making patches that are unique and satisfying.

I remember struggling early on to figure out how to make the lead from Underworld's Cowgirl. After I eventually got it, I then knew how to apply that particular technique to a wide range of patches, either as the meat of the patch, or as a additive spice. Each individual technique or parameter you learn compounds your sum capability and subtlety of sound exponentially. So one-at-a-time is perfectly good. No need to feel discouraged as long as you learn one new thing every few days.

Synthesis can feel very open ended and amorphous but in reality every synth has it's limitations and range, and every parameter can become recognizable, and predictable, with training.

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Thank your for response, this doesn't only answer this question but also some questions i had about production. Thanks again!

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Cool. If you have more, just post em.

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MOK19 wrote:Sound design, focused on synthesis, is a bit like a trained muscle. Thus, it's unlikely that a few tips or articles will do much to get you to the place you want to be. I'd suggest that if you want to improve your synthesis results, you need to commit to mastery of synthesis, and especially your favored synthesizer.
Lots of wisdom here. And if I can add from personal experience, pick ONE synth that you will start learning. Even though that synths like Massive and Sylenth share the same basic principles - that's the easy part of sound design. The difficult part is to learn its characteristics. For example, how does it sound if I pitch modulate the oscillator with an extremely quick LFO? Where is the sweet spot with cutoff / resonance? Etc and so on.

If I were you, I would pick a synth - and dedicate yourself to it for a month. Videos/tutorials are useful - but you don't really need it. Just start picking apart sounds from the presets. Change a parameter here and there to see how it changes the sound. You learn way faster that way.

/C
CLUB VICE for ARTURIA PIGMENTS
HARDWARE SAMPLER FANATIC - Akai S1100/S950/Z8 - Casio FZ20m - Emu Emax I - Ensoniq ASR10/EPS

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Totally agree with all that, though I'd dedicate to one synth for longer than a month!
Also, reverse-engineering presets did a lot for me too. Start taking away elements one at a time until you run into one element that's fundamental to whatever crazy sound you're examining. Dwell on that element, try to undo and redo it, try to adjust it functionally. Then try to do it from scratch. This teaches so much.

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Am i right that commercial presents for example for Sylenth are made to stand alone, and not to be layered together?

And by the way, do you know anything about phase cancellation in sound design? I know what it is like if you layer to kicks together and they are out of phase and are executing each other wave forms and making them both sound quieter and thinner. But what is does phase in sound design?

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TimeToProduce wrote:Am i right that commercial presents for example for Sylenth are made to stand alone, and not to be layered together?

And by the way, do you know anything about phase cancellation in sound design? I know what it is like if you layer to kicks together and they are out of phase and are executing each other wave forms and making them both sound quieter and thinner. But what is does phase in sound design?
I hate to say it, but the there are no fixed rules. Sure - there are some sounds that are clearly meant to be layered. Like a deep sub with a highpassed lead = layered goodness. But all those things can be done in the mix in any case.

The same goes for phase cancellation - it can be an effing nuisance or it can be a cool way to thin out sounds. You mash together two bloated bass sounds - and the phase goes all over the place? Good / bad? Totally depends on the sound of the phase cancellation. Sometimes it produces a weird 3D moving effect - sometimes it just sucks.

Again - speaking from a very personal perspective, but if I would be in your shoes I would start with sounds you love. Dissect them. Learn everything there is to know about them. Why the shape of the LFO produces that screeching sound or which oscillator is the one you like most. Start from what you love. Expand from that.

/C
CLUB VICE for ARTURIA PIGMENTS
HARDWARE SAMPLER FANATIC - Akai S1100/S950/Z8 - Casio FZ20m - Emu Emax I - Ensoniq ASR10/EPS

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Thanks for awesome advice guys, really good information in my opinion! :D

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Just one more tip and then I'll shut up.

Take one sound in let's say Sylenth that you like. Learn how to make it by heart, oscillators, filters, envelopes, effects - all of it. Then open up a a different synth, such as Massive, and try to replicate the sound by ear. You will most likely be shocked on how fundamentally different the two sounds will be.

This way you learn a lot of the character of other synthesizers.

/C
CLUB VICE for ARTURIA PIGMENTS
HARDWARE SAMPLER FANATIC - Akai S1100/S950/Z8 - Casio FZ20m - Emu Emax I - Ensoniq ASR10/EPS

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No you don't need to shut up, ill listen to your masterminds :)
Thanks for the tip i'll try be sure about that.
Today i did some of the tips like reading the manual of Sylenth1 and taking elements away. I also took some of the default presets and made my own sounds.

To be honest i learned alot.

So as said that i'm working with sylenth, i'm gonna work with it for a while! :D

Thanks again !

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I too am learning sound design it's quite confusing, I'm trying Synth1 I like the sounds of the 80s. What is a good patch to start with?

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You could start with the Supersaw!

It's popular, it's not too difficult, and the technique can be used to varying degrees on many styles of patch.

Go to youtube, search "supersaw," and maybe the name of your favored synth. I learned this patch first on Synth 1 with this video. I played it and replayed it about 5 times, working alongside it, pausing along the way to catch each parameter. This was the very beginning of my journey in synthesis.

This is not a very '80's' patch, because it was popularized on a later model of synthesizer, but it's nonetheless a cornerstone of modern synthesis.

Many 80's-esque patches came directly from the Yamaha DX-7, an FM synthesizer, but FM synthesis is a bit harder to get a handle on. I'd suggest waiting until you're comfortable with a more common and direct subtractive synth. A Minimoog or Juno-60 are some examples of subtractive synthesizers, and were used popularly in the 80's. Most modern softsynths are subtractive synthesizers, and will work and sound the same.

If you want something other than the supersaw, then pick a song and focus on emulating the synth in that specific song. Post the problem in this sub-forum if it's giving you a hard time.
Last edited by MOK19 on Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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