dialing in synth pads for modern rock - help!

[beesea]

Hi folks
I'm primarily a guitarist, and feel like I've got an ok grasp on tweaking guitar & bass tones for different styles I'm recording - but when looking for keyboard sounds, I feel like I am just kind of shooting in the dark. I recently started using Addictive Keys for piano/electric piano stuff, and love it. But the preset pads in the Cubase synths and Keyrig sound even more lame than before when mixed in with the better piano sounds.
Are there any good online tutorials/books/blogs etc on dialing in/mixing together different synth pads? Or recommended software in the same level of user-friendliness and price range as Addictive Keys? I'm a total beginner at this aspect of music production, having pretty much always done everything with guitars, drums, and voices.
Good examples of what I'd like to get in the ballpark of: "Resistance" by Muse - the synth underneath the main piano theme, and the verses, or "It's Time" by Imagine Dragons on the choruses. Also plenty of Coldplay stuff. I'm especially interested in the really spacy, atmospheric sounding stuff. I'd like to be able to tweak things though, not just rely on presets. Just looking for a good starting point...

[andygabrys]

well, I can't offer much except for what I did:

I watched a couple of tutorial vids - Logic ES2 explained by Macprovideo and a number of the Pro-Tools_Expert videos where Russ uses very basic sounds (i.e. sine wave or square wave) in the Xpand instrument and builds some cool sounds used in present day productions.

I dropped the cash on the NI synths, Absynth, FM8, Massive, Razor etc. - bought them in the Komplete 8 ultimate bundle which was half price last year about this time. There are lots of presets in these, some of which you might find pretty inspiring (I know I did) but then a lot that are kinda duds in this day and age. That stuff has been around for 10 years so its bound to have been done before to degree.

and I have found ways to use some specific effects which help me create some new things.

i.e. distortion and bit crushing, filtered delays (made my own in Logic and in ProTools using two aux channels feeding forth and back and adding an eq on one to keep filtering every repeat), and reverbs that have a lot of their own character (the UAD Lexicon 224 has some great long duration stuff) - and also some all in one stuff like the Audio Damage Big Seq2 which can do some cool things. Some of that stuff was just from being so bummed out that the perfectly usable synths in Logic didn't seem to have any "current" sounding presets.

there are probably a lot of free synths out there (I know Crystal for VST is free but maybe pretty dated at this point) that you could get, and there are other synths that people seem to use a lot - the Omnisphere, the http://www.lennardigital.com/modules/sylenth1/ stuff, and then there are lots of others - like stuff from Ohm Force (currently on sale - look out!) https://www.ohmforce.com/HomePage.do and U-he http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebralette (zebralette is free and they have lots of others).

hope that ramble helps you.

[beesea]

Thanks again Andy! Yeah, more or less just looking for some things to poke around and experiment with at this point, so I will start with your suggestions and see where it leads me.
Hope you made your 12:00 deadline today...

[eeoo]

Also Soundtoys Echoboy is a great and inspiring delay plug-in too f*&%ck things up in a cool way, can't recommend it enough.

eo

[CHuckmott]

Great post and definitely would be interested what everyone has to stay on this topic. Chasing the same demon on this track which is supposed to have this sort of Coldplay/Imagine Dragons ambience to it. CAn't seem to quite nail it. Like these guys listened to a lot of U2 and went off and did their own thing. Although as Andy indicated I am starting to suspect a lot of this stuff steers away from a lot of the sample based pianos and other instruments and is working with more basic saw /etc waves. Starting to really appreciate this stuff and learning how to work that sort of synthesis. It's own creature with it's own learning curve but sure it pays dividends. I think you can get a good introduction to a lot of this sorts of stuff by watching the Omnisphere video tutorials on synthesis regardless if you own it. Take small bites so your head doesn't explode:).

[CHuckmott]

Without intending to hijack the thread, if anyone knows this sort of stuff, can we also include a discussion of production tips in this style (think it's relevant and was actually going to post the question anyway). Or if it is too much for one post maybe start another post if people like. Again, only posting because it is a similar ball park I think but Hear Me by Imagine Dragons is stuck in my head and is bugging me to use it as an ala for my own track(s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yr683VLxes

[andygabrys]

Thanks again Andy! Yeah, more or less just looking for some things to poke around and experiment with at this point, so I will start with your suggestions and see where it leads me.
Hope you made your 12:00 deadline today...

yeah its in. Thanks Bob.

[beesea]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Without intending to hijack the thread, if anyone knows this sort of stuff, can we also include a discussion of production tips in this style (think it's relevant and was actually going to post the question anyway). Or if it is too much for one post maybe start another post if people like. Again, only posting because it is a similar ball park I think but Hear Me by Imagine Dragons is stuck in my head and is bugging me to use it as an ala for my own track(s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yr683VLxes

Hijack away, Chuck, I would definitely be on board for open discussions on more production tips. I mentioned synth pads specifically because it is the area that I need the most help in, but maybe an "arrangers ears" discussion/breakdown of some specific tunes and what everyone is hearing for some of these AAA/Modern Rock a-la's that keep popping up in listings would be a good ongoing thread. I looked around for something like that, and didn't find a ton on the forum, but I could be looking in the wrong places.

[Len911]

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.

[CHuckmott]

Great links, thanks for posting....