Hey guys,

I am just curious as to how you find your instruments ? For instance, I am currently looking for a certain type of pad. I have been browsing so many presets (100's...) on Analog Lab 2, Prophet and Massive, without ever findng something close to it.

My question really is, do professionals actually browse presets until finding what they want? Or do they simply know what they want and create the sound out of nothing using their preferred synth software/VST?

I am kind of tired of browsing and not finding what I want. I am starting to wonder if I don't have the wrong method. Do i have to look into other types of VSTs ?

Thanks !

 

I have them hanging on wall and lined on floor. Just grab the 1 I need and I am ready to play

 

It depends on if you get lucky or not and find something you like right away.

Usually I give myself about 5 min to flip through stuff, when I find something close I make a note of it and keep going at the end of 5 mins I go back to whatever was perfect or closest and if it needs more work I start modifying it. Some people enjoy playing around the parameters of synthesis (I know I do) it isn't a chore and I might spend more time tweaking a sound than actually composing or creating my mixes. It's the same way when playing a physical instrument as well, working on a particular riff or pattern might take weeks or longer till the subtleties you want are in place, recording it might only take between 30mins to a few hours once you've practiced enough and are confident you can play it when you want how you want.

I've always held to belief that to compose and create one must actually enjoy the process as well as the product. Some might disagree but over the years one of the things that will come someone coming back to finish things is that if the process itself isn't just a roadblock but part of the journey.

 

i spent a number of years on sound design, so i could make it from scratch if needed, OR start from any point and rebuild for my needs.
i recommend researching sound design, and the origins and basis of synthesis until you fully know synthesizers

but also remember , the "sound" is the least important step and easiest aspect of music.

you should be able to take a piano and make a fully finished amazing song, before your anywhere near ready for fine tuning the "sounds" or arrangement.

the sound itself is "icing on the cake" the least important aspect to the listener, the feeling and emotion is not impacted at all.
whether you have a bunch custom synths, a bunch strings or pianos or guitars anything at all.

won't have any effect of how the music comes across to the listener, that is based on the musical structure and language.

you could have a beautifully sculpted beat spend months getting perfect or have zero beat at all ( because it is implied by silence)
it wouldn't impact how "hard the music hits"

 

Last edited: Nov 3, 2017

the pros make there own

 

Yep, always, from Mozart to McCartney, with their little hands, all by themselves, though it is well known that Miles Davis soldering iron technique for his trumpets was pathetic.

 

mmmmmmmmmmm hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm

 

Last edited: Nov 3, 2017

It depends. Having some insight regarding what type of instruments are suited for the job can save you hours. For instance, if you want to produce something along the "Black Coffee" lines (soulful house?) you obviously won't pick the TR-808 for layering down the drums.
If you want that aggressive Stephan Bodzin sound with the dirty low end that defines the Moog, you obviously won't pick a Yamaha DX7

I've seen you're into what people now call "melodic techno". The "nouvelle vague" that labels like Life And Death and Innervisions popularized with artists like Ten Walls, Mano LeTough, Tale Of Us, Mind Against...

The synths I recommend for that specific genre, generic approach, would be the Roland SH-101, KORG MS-20, KORG Mono/Poly, Roland Jupiter-8, Roland Juno-106...
For the "Bodzin approach" a Moog Sub-37, a Model D or even a Voyager ought to do the job.
For the "Recondite" approach, any given FM synth with a minimum of 4 Oscillators will nail it. He pretty much only uses Ableton's Operator and most of his tracks make use of the same patches arranged and processed in different ways.
This also means that you shouldn't waste your time with stuff like reFX Nexus, Serum (if you're not going to use it for sound design) and a couple more "mainstream EDM machines" that are out there.

Keep in mind that most of the gear that I listed has it's VSTi emulation counterpart and most, if not all of them, are available at the sister site. Having some sound design knowledge regarding synthesis (subtractive and FM), again, can save you hours.
A good rule of thumb would be to choose a Monophonic Synth, a Polyphonic one and and stick with those two for the rest of the project. A granular synth can also be of interest here.

Last, but not least. Keep in mind that production trumps synthesis. You can have the most dull sound in the world but if you know how to really make a good use of modulation effects, nothing can stop you. With just the synth alone, you won't be able to lay down the type of sound you hear in most of those tracks.
A simple saw wave provides enough raw material to be turned into pretty much anything, provided you have the right tools and knowledge.

Hope this helps.

PS. Just noticed that this thread's last comment is a month old :S

 

I’ve seen Deadmau5 scroll through presets for nearly 2 hours... I’ve also seen him make his own.... it’s just whatever you feel man.

 

Da fuck, you know deadmau5?

 

I don't know Deadmau5 but I've also seen him scroll through presets for what seemed like forever, and/or just make something on the fly.
He used to live stream for HOURS on end. Lots of videos up on his youtube of said streams as well. Have at it!

 

What do you mean? There ain't no freakin patches.

 

No patches but dozens and dozens of patch cables!

 

you have to build your own piano, and you can't use the same piano more than once.

when you can build them for each track with a blindfold then you are pro.

 

I like MMJ's approach, only he is a tad too academic. What is described as,

is a bit far from what is expected from an electronic musician these days of mass degradation and decadence. But i agree it's where everyone should be at.
My approach would be, taking for granted that you already know your chords and scales and can figure out basic song/track structuring, to learn the "tools of the trade" as Johnny Blaze implied. But also, learn how the genre(s) you want to produce/create came to be in their present state, what i call "the musicology lesson".
As a humble periodic electronic music teacher, I find the musicology-history part to be extremely important and very rarely, if ever, mentioned.
Only when you know what happened in the past and what exists in the present, you can build a solid foundation for the future. You will have a clear view of the whole picture before you and unravel the "mysteries" of the music you love and everything that comes along with it, like the tools used ,the influences that lead there etc etc. And most importantly only then (imho) you can truly differentiate yourself from the thousands of gimmicks and pinpoint your art in the exact spot, place and time. Because what music is, as mentioned before, is a collection of tonal timbres and noises. What makes every musician unique though, is their personal style and this is developed and sculpted through dedicated practice and a constant never ending learning curve. So try to split your effort not only in practicing/playing and learning music, hardware and software, but also into what was, what is and how it came to existence.
What i will post is a bunch of artists that became household names and their tracks, while they sounded nothing like typical pop music became ever so popular and are still considered milestones for the electronic dance music. What these artists shared in common is, yep you guessed it right, a thorough knowledge of the past and the present, so they added their own lil "futuristic" gems in the ever changing palette of the music world.

PS: My desert island synth would be any or all of these: Jupiter 8 - Juno 106 - Mini/Polymoog
PS2: Too much talk about Deadmau5 this and that. He is undoubtedly a talented producer. He has admitted himself though that he is much better with the mouse than actually playing keys. He is, as many, a control freak and one of the best sound/timbre manipulators of his era. When you see such a well known artist scrolling through presets it's not because he wants to use them per se. It's because he is looking for some kind of inspiration (while having fun going through the sounds), a starting point to begin tweaking to finally arrive with a sound that is completely his/hers
Thank you for your time
Rave on mate.

 

same here

 

I have collected quite alot of instruments over the years, which I also can play.
If I want a specific synth sound, I sound design and tweak knobs. Because I can.
If I can't play an instrument or create a sound, I learn how to do it, ask friends who can play/design or download samples/libraries.

 

JUST AS HELPFUL FOR SOUND DESIGN ALSO
when building your own sounds from scratch
if you wanna make yer own sounds try absynth, fm synth, string studio vst
analog synths

 

thank you sir.{the below comment is not toward anyone specific}
my approach regarding the academic is to fully learn and fathom as much of it as you can in order to put it in the subconscious
that way when you make music with inspiration, the academic part is "autopilot"
ex.
just as in the same way when we speak , we focus on the "concept" in mind and the words just come out for us we don't have to "audition" and try each word before we say a sentence.
yet with music IF a person has little academic knowledge{music language}(self taught or not)
they cannot work with music the same way that they can speak from concept.
they actually have to audition each and every thing as if you went to talk to someone and had to test each word the order of the words and if it was appropriate word ( before saying a sentence to a person)
so i ask YOU(anyone dealing with creation of music)..
is THAT the way you want to write, play ,record or perform music?
music is much much more simplistic then every spoken language
i think anyone should choose their path with music the way they want.( but be realistic about the results)
what do we think of carpenters that refuse to use tape measures?
what do we think of dentists, or surgeons that have no years of education?

in a new world where music means the least it has ever have and monetizing music is most difficult it ever has been and each day multi-millions of songs and albums come out to obscurity, where hundreds of millions want to write for each commercial, tv show movie and film (world wide)

now more than ever music is like any other profession, competitive, 10000 to 1 ( musicians to jobs)and people expect expertise like a carpenter that knows his tape measure and how to use tools and how woods behave
IE the opposite of ignorant of the feild they say that a professional in.
who is going to be chosen the person totally ignorant of music but made one good song or album? or another person that has knowledge and skill in every aspect of music and has made multiple good songs and albums and can adapt on the fly to any situation?

i guess the real answer depends of what you expect to achieve WITH music. how far do you actually wan to go wit it? what are you willing to do to succeed in achieving your dreams?
myself i work on learning every aspect of music and history of music because i have no other choice i couldn't stop myself even if i tried.
more than i am anything else with music i am a student of it.

memorize the circle of fifths and that will give you a fantastic start
(compared to those that dont know all their keys, all the chords that go with them and the natural chord progressions that stem from the way music really works {tension-release}

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2017