Dirtying Up Your Sound

hen it comes to programming and playing distorted lead synth sounds there are several approaches you can take. Some of the most revered prog/metal players went all-out shred guitar player in their sounds (I’m talking about Jens Johansson, Derek Sherinian, Jordan Rudess and many others), where they developed deeply saturated overdrive tones for their leads. This comes mostly from the distortion effects and sometimes actual guitar amps that they use, and we’ll discuss that approach more in a future column. This month I want to explore a more middle-ground approach, which can retain more of the timbral quality of your lead sound, but