dialing in synth pads for modern rock - help!

[Len911]

Learning the synth basics is not only for synths, the LFO's, envelopes,step sequencers, etc. can be used for modulating audio effects as well. If you have a 6 band effect, you can even divide the frequency spectrum in up to 6 bands and modulate each band separately. Modulating, automating, you can really get quite complex and lost in the possibilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3cLwbmt ... e=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-69N5m3 ... e=youtu.be

[Kolstad]

I like to start out with really boring pads, and then use fx on them like tremolo, delay, reverb, and distortion. Get them to move and dirty up the sound kind of thing. Also a very neat thing is to sidechain synths with the drums, with a gate, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ux7qb5e98k and then f*** them up with a delay, bit crushing or something..

[beesea]

There are many different types of synthesis, virtual analog (VA), is a subtractive type synthesis, most common, additive, granular, spectral, fm, am ... Here's a couple of links that will give you some of the basics, the second one it's not necessary to go through all of the parts mainly the first 14 or so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsZKvLnf7wU
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm

There are some common terms you should know what they do, oscillator, filter, envelopes, LFO's...
Alchemy is a great synthesizer, it gives you a few choices of synthesis, granular, additive, VA. There are also some excellent video tutorials by Dan Worrall. You can also import audio files. The principles can be applied to any synth.
http://www.camelaudio.com/tutorials.php?tID=14
Besides the standard presets there are additional libraries you can buy by third party sound designers. You can use the presets to get you started and tweak them. Alchemy isn't the only synth but an example of many synths that have 3rd party developers.
http://www.camelaudio.com/Sound-Sample-Libraries.php

That should point you in the right direction.

Great links, thank you. Especially the camel audio tutorials; EXACTLY what I was looking for!

[Len911]

YW, happy to have been helpful!

[coolhouse912]

....the preset pads in the Cubase synths...sound even more lame than before when mixed in with the better piano sounds.

Which version of Cubase are you using? C7 comes with Retrologue & Padshop Pro both of which are excellent synths capable of providing sounds in the Muse ballpark.

[Cruciform]

Which version of Cubase are you using? C7 comes with Retrologue & Padshop Pro both of which are excellent synths capable of providing sounds in the Muse ballpark.

I'm not a Cubase user but I thought Padshop was so awesome I bought it as a plugin.

[coolhouse912]

I'm not a Cubase user but I thought Padshop was so awesome I bought it as a plugin.

Yeah Rob, I use it right next to Massive, Absynth5, Reaktor, & FM8 in almost every track I do. My bag of tweaks started to sound stale to me recently so I bought a tutorial vid to get deeper into it. It's a great sounding instrument.

[CHuckmott]

Regarding the sounds in Padshop, I'm not familiar with it. I would say the synth is an instrument like any other, and it takes awhile wrapping your mind around it and some experience getting it to sound musical. Now that I am starting to get a little more familiar with the process, when I start venturing (to my ears anyway) into the land of cheese I ask myself the follow questions : Did I pick the right patch, or should I go with another ? If I'm pretty sure I'm in the right neighborhood, could the patch you some sort of editing or production twist to make it gel better? Or is it the feel, the playing and the fact that the part might be better off being played by a musician or synth "expert" who I may be better off trying to collaborate with? Finally if I feel like my best option is to remain the DIY kind of guy, does the part need to be there given my "chops"? Gotta tell ya, guys like Rob, Coolhouse, really starting to appreciate the time you put in getting your synth to sound like an instrument and musical in it's own right.

[CHuckmott]

Spending some time over the weeked fooling around with a lot of the under the hood synt possibilities in Omnisphere. Seems though that te more possibilites there are, the less clear things become. For example, just the oscillator iteseld becomes mind boggling when you consider the possibilites. SO where would be a good jumping off point - again since this is a general synth thread doesn't (shouldn?t) be Omnisphere specific.

[CHuckmott]

This article seem a pretty good introduction for those of us relatively new to synth programming: http://tweakheadz.com/programmer/