

In fact, many hardware modern synths do, too! However, if we relate it to strings for a second, a sound that’s narrow may also sound like a soloist, rather than a section.įor example, check out the opening modular-type synth sound in Björk’s “Arisen My Senses.” Many older analog synths had a single output. Narrow sounds are often mono (one channel, not necessarily monophonic!), or have a clearly defined position in the mix. FM synthesis in particular uses sine waves as the basic building block for its sounds and allows you to create unique harmonics that would be really tough to mimic anywhere else in nature.
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However, it could also describe the sort of hug your ears get from a big analog polyphonic synth, or even a mono patch with some creative unison settings - think about how bass sounds are often described as warm, like in this huge, lush bass sound in Little Dragon’s “A New” (around 0:48).Ĭold sounds tend to be pure, higher in pitch - think the delicate icy sine waves in Trentemøller’s “Miss You.” Certain methods of synthesis really excel at these kinds of patches. We tend to say a sound is warm when it’s harmonically rich and dark.

When you roll that low-pass filter cutoff down, you start accessing a darker tone, like the bass sound in “Look to the Skies” by Calyx and TeeBee. Check out the lead sounds in the middle of this massive remix of M83’s hit, “Midnight City” (around 2:17 or so).

A bright sound is harsh - think about a raw saw wave with the filter wide open. This one might be pretty obvious, but think about walking outside on a sunny day without sunglasses. Synths are not that different! We can turn descriptors like “wobbly” and “seething” into meaningful patching decisions when we relate those words to different kinds of modulation, methods of synthesis, and parameters. That way, you can listen to a piece of music and say, “man, those col legnos in the double bass sound super menacing!” and start to make informed decisions about accessing a sort of menacing sound in your compositions. If making that kind of music is important to you, you’ll internalize what those mean, and what they sound like. If you open up a string library, you’ll encounter things like col legnos, sul tastos, pizzicatos, sul pont, etc.
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To access the rest of this lesson, plus hundreds of instructional videos and tutorials on production, songwriting, composing, mixing and more, subscribe here.ĭifferent disciplines have their own languages. + This is an excerpt from Soundfly’s Advanced Synths and Patch Design for Producers.
