I am still pretty new to synths in general, so I really hope you guys can help me trying to figure out what kind of synths and how many layers there are in this song. It would really help me a lot in getting better at making and understanding synths. Thanks!
Intro/verse @ 0:00 - 0:30: What kind of synths are here? There's something that gives a bassy feel, but is it just one synth playing low octaves as well?
Chorus @ 0:38 - 0:54: How many synth layers do you think this is? Or is it a single synth with many oscillators? Is it saw waves?
Chorus pt. 2: 0:54 - 1:07: So this is the part I am most curious about. This part sounds very fat, crunchy and wide. How do they achieve that? What are the synths that are sidechaining here? There's obviously a bass, but what kind, and is it also contributing to the "crunchy" sound? Or is that mainly the synth(s) on top of the bass (that you can here alone @ 2:13)? And what kind of synth is that? Maybe there are more than this one synth on top of the bass in the chorus? Which synth gives the mid frequencies? And how do they get the whole thing to sound so crisp/crunchy without "stabbing" in your ears?
I have a really hard time creating a bass that sounds fat and crunchy, so when I heard the chorus in this song, I was like "wow, that's exactly what I am looking for". So I really want to know what kind of bass that is, and what's on top of it. Maybe it's not even the bass that gives the sound that I am looking for, but I can't tell where the bass "ends" and where the synths on top "begin", and how many layers there are.
Intro/verse @ 0:00 - 0:30: What kind of synths are here? There's something that gives a bassy feel, but is it just one synth playing low octaves as well?
0:00 / 0:17 is somewhat different (but not much) compared to 0:17 / 0:30. Single oscillator saw wave playing thirds. Filter envelope 0 80 0 0 with env > filter very low, not more than 10% resonance (depends on actual character of filter used).
The reason it sounds so bassy is because there's a single oscillator sinewave playing the root note of those thirds an octave lower at exactly the same time. Detuning will not make it sound more wide, so you have to find another trick for that, I'm guessing a little bit of stereo widening.
At 0:17 the sound is virtually identical to the Black Eyed Peas' "Dirty Bit" - again playing thirds, but with portamento. These are two separate melody lines playing the same patch, and again it's a very simple saw wave. Filter ADSR 0 25% 35% 0 (not all filter envelopes may do this correctly, but this basically opens up the filter quickly and then keeps it constant at a lower ratio).
At 0:30, a supersaw an octave higher is layered on top of that. It's not a complicated trick per se - look at any Swedish House Mafia member's "in the studio" video and you'll see that they often duplicate their melody lines, play the melodies with different plugins and leave out certain notes so you get a fully layered sound that's not completely in unison.
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Chorus @ 0:38 - 0:54: How many synth layers do you think this is? Or is it a single synth with many oscillators? Is it saw waves?
2.
Often you don't want to use a single synth because then your opportunities for careful EQing go out of the window.
By using separate instances or synths you don't push everything through the same filter, which may make the filter react differently (gain staging for oscillators). JP6K is very suitable for this, even more easy than Sylenth1.
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Chorus pt. 2: 0:54 - 1:07: So this is the part I am most curious about. This part sounds very fat, crunchy and wide. How do they achieve that?
Width is not necessarily due to synths, it's due to mixing.
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What are the synths that are sidechaining here?
Everything is sidechained to the kick.
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There's obviously a bass, but what kind
Besides the supersaw on top, the thirds are played by a different patch; not that different from the one in the intro, only this time it's using square waves. Bass sounds like a filtered saw.
Here, watch and be enlightened.
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Do you have a patch for Sylenth that sounds like the supersaw and the bass in the 'What About Us' chorus? Would be really amazing. What makes the bass sound so fat and crunchy? Is it the supersaw or the bass that fills the mid frequencies?
Can you recommend any plugins for post-processing? Soft-synths in professional tracks don't sound as "digital" and "sterile" as the sounds that come directly out of Sylenth for example.
Supersaws in Sylenth are the easiest. Menu > Init patch. Set the number of voices of oscillator A1 to 7 and make sure the waveshape is a saw. Turn up the Detune knob of A1 halfway.
If you play the note repeatedly, you notice that it has a "pointy" attack. The JP8000 doesn't have this. To get rid of it, switch the "retrig" button off.
This is the basic, unfiltered sound used for so many sounds you hear in popular music. That's all there is to it. Now, compare this with the sound at 2:13 again - that sound is much more focused. More focus = less detune (and in this case, none, because the sound at 2:13 is virtually identical to that used in the intro from 0:00 to 0:17).
These oscillator combinations (in this case, 7 stacked and detuned saws) are what you have to learn by heart when you want to deconstruct sounds.
What sound is it then? And is it also playing in the chorus? Is it just the bass with a lot of low cut?
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Originally Posted by Yoozer
Bass sounds like a filtered saw.
Is filter = cut off / hi cut? As said, I am a synth noob, so I really appreciate your help!
How do I make this kind of bass? It's really hard for me to hear where the bass ends and where the synth on top starts in the soundscape. Does the bass add nothing to the saw-ish feel in the chorus of What About Us? Is that mainly the supersaw?
The bass from 0:28 - 0:37 and 0:55 - 1:04, is that only a bass or does it have a synth on top that gives that saw-ish sound? If it's only a bass, what kind of bass is it, and how do I make it?
A single saw wave. You could add a slight bit of noise (LFO waveform) to modulate the pitch with to add some dirt to it.
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Is filter = cut off / hi cut? As said, I am a synth noob, so I really appreciate your help!
The default filter for any subtractive synthesizer is a lowpass filter; it's the most useful.
Think of a guitar string. When it's plucked, you get a bright sound with lots of overtones. As the string vibrates, it loses its energy because of resistance of the air surrounding it. The overtones are the first to go, until the string vibrates with its fundamental frequency - and then when that vibration diminishes as well, it just drops down in volume. That's the phenomenon that a lowpass filter can simulate.
Low pass == hi cut, but hi cut is as a term reserved for equalizers.
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How do I make this kind of bass? It's really hard for me to hear where the bass ends and where the synth on top starts in the soundscape.
Then put the song through an EQ and filter away everything that's not in the frequency range. With melodical parts that are too fast to follow, slow the song down with a wave editor.
The bass consists of two layers; the sub to give it more weight, and the saw-ish part that's low-mid.
The bass from 0:28 - 0:37 and 0:55 - 1:04, is that only a bass or does it have a synth on top that gives that saw-ish sound? If it's only a bass, what kind of bass is it, and how do I make it?
Thanks man!
That particular saw-like sound is achieved with a band-reject filter (the opposite of a bandpass). It's also referred to as a notch filter.
So how many synths does the chorus consist of in What About Us (just the constant sidechaining ones)?
Do you think the sub-bass and the low-mid saw-bass are made out of 1 synth entity with more oscillators, or is it 2 individual synth tracks on top of each other?
The bass at 1:56. Is that 1 synth track or 2? I'm just trying to understand if a bass track can have that saw-ish top, or if it's 2 separate synth entities. Is it the same bass in the chorus (at 2:50), or does that have more low-freqs or layers to it?
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Originally Posted by Yoozer
That particular saw-like sound is achieved with a band-reject filter (the opposite of a bandpass). It's also referred to as a notch filter.
But is it 1 synth that makes the entire bass (top and bottom), or is it a sub and a synth on top of it in the Flo Rida track (Whistle)? Do you know or have a preset that sounds like it, or can you make one? Would be awesome!
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