After covering some of the fundamentals of synthesis in our Become A Synth Power User feature from page 12, it’s now time to dig deeper into your synths. The fact is, if you own at least one software synthesiser, it’s likely that you’re sitting on a goldmine of untapped musical potential. As a producer working in today’s digital world, we all take these powerful virtual instruments for granted, only using them for specific tasks or their bundled sounds.
So over the following pages, we’re going to use some of the world’s most popular softsynths – including Serum, Bazille CM, Sylenth1, FM8, Diva, and more – to walk you through common (and some not-so-common) synthesis features you’ll find within the majority of electronic instruments: from self-modulation and polyphonic glide to DIY synth creation, filter tricks and much more. We have a tour of the lesser-known features hidden inside NI’s frequency-modulation powerhouse FM8, for example. There’s also a guide to creating wavetables in Xfer’s modern classic Serum. The idea is that we’ll show you around these powerful sonic weapons with the aim of inspiring your sound design adventures, no matter the genre.
We also have accompanying audio files and hands-on videos, so if you’re a newcomer to concepts, or an old hand in need of a refresher, you’ll be able to follow along at your own pace. Either way, if you’re interested in sound design and becoming a power user of your own synths, these practical examples should inspire you to fire up your favourite synthesiser and get twiddling!
Synthesis for performers
Synthesiser presets are generally designed to be played via a MIDI keyboard controller, so when creating synth patches geared for the performer, it makes sense to use these handy performance controls to modulate parameters. And even if your keyboard skills are lacking, drawing in per-note modulation within your MIDI region is an awesome way to create dynamic riffs and evolving sequences.
When playing a traditional piano, the strength of your note strike will determine how loud and bright the resulting note is. The equivalent to this in the MIDI world is velocity data: the harder you press down on a MIDI key or drum pad, the higher the value sent to your virtual instrument. Velocity is most typically used to control volume – the lighter your key press, the lower the resulting note’s volume, and vice versa – but in reality, velocity can be used to control any synth parameter. Tell it to modulate the pan of your oscillators for width; apply velocity-dependent modulation amounts for more dynamic responses; or make your filter close with higher velocity values. The more aggressive the playing, the more dubbed out the sound.
Aftertouch (pressure sensitivity) is the MIDI data your keyboard outputs when additional pressure is applied to a key after it’s been struck. Map it to the tune of your oscillators for a different take on pitch slides, or use it to modulate other modulators – for example, route an LFO to modulate a band-pass filter, then control that LFO’s depth or rate with aftertouch.
Your MIDI keyboard’s modulation wheel is another way to control synth parameters while you play. While many ready-made patches are designed with vibrato pre-assigned, the mod wheel can control pretty much any synth parameter, so go further and use it for distortion amount, LFO rate, wavetable position, filter resonance, envelope mod depth and beyond.
> Step by step
1. Designing a performance patch with Bazille CM
1 Load an instance of u-he’s Bazille CM in your DAW, then call up the Bazille Bass preset. Although the tone of this midrange bass is OK, we can use velocity and pressure modulation to turn a simple riff into
