Go to plugs/itb techniques for 'nicing up' flat sounding soft synth leads

[KT1]

Originally Posted by Rush84

Hi, my first post even though I've been here a while , hello all you wise slutz
Let's get off on the right foot, as i dont think I have anything life changing to tell everyone ,I'll begin by asking a little question




I know this info is covered very generally in many other threads,

Im just looking for different angles regarding (mainly) saturation
And fx/processes (soft/itb) that would be considered a major part of the
'sound' you are looking for BEFORE you start to compose

For instance if I am indeed wanting a warmer fuller sound ( usually the case with soft leads/ bass for me) I might saturate , eq and compress and then start to
Noodle

For example, on a lead synth that I want full and warm

Typically I might use- Eq to shelve or filter the unwanted ranges
nick crow preamp emu, lots of input and drive
Still well Rocket comp, no set numbers just listening
Eq to bump up 50-250ish <a dB or two

Naturally this is totally different settings every time
I just ' go to' this or a similar chain if I feel a synth is sounding cold digital flat and boring.
I've ' written off' synths before only to rediscover them more recently through chains like the one above and find them to be useful.

I understand why I'm using this sort of chain I understand otb theory etc please please don't flame me with hardware biased aggression and pls don't tell me I'm not using my ears, I'm interested in the chains that you yourself have used or your own general method, and your opinions and thoughts, not the exact settings you dial in, I'm not trying to sound just like you! Nor do I want a run down on harmonics or transistors thanks
I have many plugs but especially the better known sat/tape emus really suck out my CPU so I guess I'm looking for something that I may not have considered just a new approach that's in practical use out there


Would anyone like to comment on this method, suggest me something new, or share a 'go to' chain that you perhaps throw on a weak flat cold digital or lifeless sound ????

That you so much in advance for any input you may give


This is my first post
I USE FLSTUDIO to record mix and master, and my only mics are an
Akg and a behringer both costing less than 50quid
I've sent a master with very little DR and bad mix and listened to how crap it was on radio but I still mix with loudness in mind
(always best to air it out on the first day of school hahaha get the hallway
Beating and lunch money loss out of the way)

You appear to be aiming to change the sound ..if you want more life ..generally any movement will do. Have you tried using an lfo or simply creating an envelope?

The second part of your post appears to be focussed on thickness. I have to say don't try and change the world. Above and beyond saturation and perhaps other effects like mild bit reduction there isn't much voodoo..

If i think about what effects a patch the most aside from the choice of osc filters. So the style of filter or multiple filters could also be a good shaping tool.

Like I said lots of choices for movement and shape but not so much for thickness..the source has a lot to do with that. This is the fundamental reason people get synth lust because of the timbre/tone in differing synths.

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk

[Rush84]

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated and backing up some things I was suspicious of

I sold a dx11 a while back before I had a clue. 15quid. Woops. Have been indulging in some tech house too, it would have been handy maybe

So im right when i say a moog emulation through a preamp impulse then a tape impulse can't ever be as nice as the hardware itself because the moog emulation isn't good as we would like even if the impulses are blinding?

I can't afford any hardware synth that sounds truly good ATM so I suppose better techniques/impulse files are the way for now, chip away at the exposed surface

I'm in no way unhappy with the synths at my disposal I'm just not under any impression that they sound good from from go

Can anyone tell me actually in practise how common it might be to put a tape and/or pre impulse on every channel in modern dance/pop music. While tracking/mixing . Does anyone actually do this?

[aproblem]

soundtoys filterfreak using the resonance to sweep for and then boost or cut certain frequencies. To add a little life you can add a delay to it, or put any other fx plugin on it and automate some of its parameters.

[KT1]

Originally Posted by Rush84

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated and backing up some things I was suspicious of

I sold a dx11 a while back before I had a clue. 15quid. Woops. Have been indulging in some tech house too, it would have been handy maybe

So im right when i say a moog emulation through a preamp impulse then a tape impulse can't ever be as nice as the hardware itself because the moog emulation isn't good as we would like even if the impulses are blinding?

I can't afford any hardware synth that sounds truly good ATM so I suppose better techniques/impulse files are the way for now, chip away at the exposed surface

I'm in no way unhappy with the synths at my disposal I'm just not under any impression that they sound good from from go

Can anyone tell me actually in practise how common it might be to put a tape and/or pre impulse on every channel in modern dance/pop music. While tracking/mixing . Does anyone actually do this?

I really do think you are mixing about 4 issues within a single thread.

Tape emulation etc was recognised for mild harmonic saturation. Yes a lot of emulations will give you that tape color. Yes they do consume a lot of CPU (well the good ones with exception of UAD DSP stuff). This alone isnt going to change the source so much that you suddenly feel like you're rocking an analogue.

You will get MUCH more direct change in sound from straight distortion like soundtoys decap etc..

I think of the emulations as another color.

I love the tape / channel plugs like the offerings from Slate. They make something that sounds good sound a little better.

Now - Once again what are you really asking here. lets not confuse things.

- 1) Soft synth to sound more alive? Create movement as stated.
- 2) Soft synth needs more body - saturation/mild bit crushing/eq etc.
- 3) Is tape emulation/input/output stage emulation viable - yes - does it need some CPU - yes. Do people use it on every track - Yes CPU premitting. What are the options - Slate / UAD are the big names. Other offerings do exist.
- 4) Which of these will have the most impact 1) & 2).

[Jpchartrand]

Nebula AlexB Korg Filter+Korg Amp In
UBK-1
Sknote Grasso
FabFilter Saturn

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by Jpchartrand

Nebula AlexB Korg Filter+Korg Amp In
UBK-1
Sknote Grasso
FabFilter Saturn

Brilliant plug

[Rush84]

Kt1 thanks you are right I am mixing all sorts but it was a question (or questions ) years in the making as ive been a secret slut for a while, if i was here in person you would probably need to ask me to shut up !! thanks for your replies

last project I exported each track with waves tape on the master so they all got the tape, then mixed the audio back thru tape again, I liked what it did to the hats but not every element benefited, next time will be more selective in applying


Been using the sound toys actually last few weeks, very impressed so far,
have been delving much deeper into saturation plugs, mostly spurred on by a dj pal requesting 'louder', trying to touch the mouse and turn the fl mixer into a line of reds, but very quickly i realised that I probably needed to saturate more and in different ways to get the modern sound he was after

Thoroughly agree with your prioritising points one and two

I shall experiment more ( and make any future questions a bitmore focused )

I'm basically hunting this warmth I hear on a track called 'you and I' by fur coat feat. Cari golden if anyone wants to listen and comment

i read that some of these nuDisco / deephouse artists like to push desk channels into red but apart from that I can only listen and guess,
the chain I described in my first post works alright on sounds to warm them up and because I found myself using similar chains a lot on a variety of sounds I moved on to thinking about emulations of hardware to impart this character a bit more.
I feel I can get 95% of the way there with VA's, modelled eq's and comps (and lots of tweaking) but im still not getting things nice as I want it

I'm sure a lot of these artists are fully itb yet some stuff has a creamy warmth that seems to elude me, even after paying attention to the arrangement, gain staging and separation etc


All your thoughts and comments are welcome

Thanks people

[Rush84]

Jpchartrand thanks I've not used those before ill check them out

[Resonator]

+1 for Saturn

Also Camelphat and Camelspace

[Rush84]

Great -I've heard of 'camelphat free' I'll dig that off an old magazine cover disc I'm sure I have it somewhere

[KT1]

Originally Posted by Rush84

Kt1 thanks you are right I am mixing all sorts but it was a question (or questions ) years in the making as ive been a secret slut for a while, if i was here in person you would probably need to ask me to shut up !! thanks for your replies

last project I exported each track with waves tape on the master so they all got the tape, then mixed the audio back thru tape again, I liked what it did to the hats but not every element benefited, next time will be more selective in applying


Been using the sound toys actually last few weeks, very impressed so far,
have been delving much deeper into saturation plugs, mostly spurred on by a dj pal requesting 'louder', trying to touch the mouse and turn the fl mixer into a line of reds, but very quickly i realised that I probably needed to saturate more and in different ways to get the modern sound he was after

Thoroughly agree with your prioritising points one and two

I shall experiment more ( and make any future questions a bitmore focused )

I'm basically hunting this warmth I hear on a track called 'you and I' by fur coat feat. Cari golden if anyone wants to listen and comment

i read that some of these nuDisco / deephouse artists like to push desk channels into red but apart from that I can only listen and guess,
the chain I described in my first post works alright on sounds to warm them up and because I found myself using similar chains a lot on a variety of sounds I moved on to thinking about emulations of hardware to impart this character a bit more.
I feel I can get 95% of the way there with VA's, modelled eq's and comps (and lots of tweaking) but im still not getting things nice as I want it

I'm sure a lot of these artists are fully itb yet some stuff has a creamy warmth that seems to elude me, even after paying attention to the arrangement, gain staging and separation etc


All your thoughts and comments are welcome

Thanks people

Big no no! Driving your gain in the digital world into red will create digital distortion. This is not the good stuff. Now we are getting into gain staging in the digi vs analogue world. 0 db is 0 in the digital world. Gain staging is key to this. The saturation you're talking about by driving the output in the analogue world caused harmonic saturation as result of transistors. As the saying goes in The analogue world redder is better! In the digi world you get nothing from eating up headroom and negative effects of digital distortion beyond the 0db floor.

Budding saturation such as using it on a drum buss is a great way to thicken mixes.

I'm no mix engineer but I can tell you that two things are at play with tape saturation in the digit and analog domain.

Noise floor and saturation.

The sound is not realised independently it is a compounding effect over many tracks.

This emulates the tracking to tape effct. Little analogue noise plus saturation multiplied by number of tracks.

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[Rush84]

Thanks kt1 yeah I stay minus six or lower on all tracks in my Daw as of late except this project where my dj pal co producer kinda took over

Mostly i do this so plugs on my master buss don't clip ( waves ren eq to filter extreme low and highs) often I still turn down the renEQ itself to avoid it clipping

I read that certain deep/tech/nuDisco artists were clipping hardware mixers for warmth/mojo definitely not daw mixer channels, and vst don't clip amazingly well even if they do have a sort of sound when they do

the dj I was producing with just thought it sounded 'better' when he pushed each thing louder one by one, and I was knackered so i let him get on with it. in the end I rolled it all back off a bit, saturated a bit here and there and put a limiter on the kick after he went. he preferred it.

Thanks again

[Sinner]

Ill tell you what i do but of course there are many ways to skin this cat. These might be used alone or in combination:

Thick very short early reflection reverb.
Multiband saturation/distortion. Ex. Ohmforce predatohm. De la mancha has one i forget the name maybe urban something.
Very tight q'd eq on offending freqs.
Stillwells tinman plug. Resonant filter.

[Rush84]

Yes that's a great suggestion- I haven't tried ERs from a verb yet, I've used one of logics verbs to put ERs on a weak rap before, defo made it thicker now i think back, I tend not to use much verb at all and not til late in a project.
I'll slap one on a buss early on and experiment more with this

Also I shall dig through the filters I have access to as I tend to just grab for the same one or two filters.
some people really love the filters in certain pieces of hardware I think I should familiarise myself with the subtle differences between the filters I've already got

Volcano is one I use but off the top of my head I can't remember any others

Thanks

[aproblem]

layering can also help to bring some life and warmth to dull leads.

this is related:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan1...mingsynths.htm

[Rush84]

Thanks aproblem

I've read many SOS articles but never found this one
it's got lots of stuff, if not all the stuff relevant to my original post
Great recommendation


Im not sure what the section titled 'low-harmonic distortion' means thou

[Rush84]

Whoops sent by accident

It's just worded in an unfamiliar way
To me 'low-harmonic distortion'

I'm pretty sure I understand, ill just google I'm sure it's as straightforward as the rest of the article which I'm understanding

With regards to my issue as well I think i just need to put in more hours between the monitors (partner and kids allowing ) whilst actually 'in my zone' rather than just noodling and laptop maintenance

I've never discussed much with other prod/engineers/musicians before and on such a level it's a real positive for me, I'm very grateful for all posts

thanks everyone