I can get the sound (synth,pluck etc.) sounding similiar but i can't get them to sound REALLY identical.

Can yall tell me what i am missing because i couldnt find it myself

Is it just an experience thing or is there something i need to know

 

just in general? Like you hear a sound in another song and you try to recreate it? or do you have any specific examples. for specific examples this forum (not me) seems to be pretty good about figuring it out. just in general its an experience thing imo, just keep doing what you're doing you'll get closer and closer the more you learn.

also, does it matter if it's identical? close enough generally works for me haha but then again i just do this shit for fun.

 

yeah just in general i love recreating sounds and they do teach me a lot about things

it doesnt really matter if its identical haha but i just want to be like wow this is almost 1on1 i cant really get that

 

Well I wouldn't say it's too difficult but not easy either, and tell you why.
First it depends on the limits and capability of synths you're using to replicate sounds
Then it depends on the type of synthesis of the device, analog, digital, sample playback, hybrid, physmod, fm, etc.

Usually you can easily recreate sounds when you dealt and messed and played with lot of them and know them so deeply that you can recognize even their presets at times.

As a guideline, however, the easiest type of sound is analog subtractive synthesis, let's say a minimoog where you have a set of waveforms oscillators (sawtooth, square...), filters, lfo etc., and does not differ much in principle from other analog synths.

You can try Syntorial that leads you step by step in this field.

Other types of sounds can be so difficult to recreate because of possible multiple layers and different type of synthesis.

 

The context. You're missing the context. The same sound in different songs will sound differently.

 

I am using vital (because my broke ass cant afford serum and when i use the cracked version it crashes on me mid project)

I am not like super beginner level synthesizer user but i am still relatively new im just learning synthesizers

And about syntorial i just dont think that is to right way to learn just too long of a course to get anything out of it i would rather get used to my synth of choice ( i know its good for ear training but i think that is a skill that comes with time and listening to music instead of just strictly training your ear for it )

 

How do i figure out the context then just by ear?

 

i say thats hard.
in some cases i think you'd need to know which specific synth the artist has used.

 

Eric Bowman on YT has a couple of educational videos that might help. This one details approaches that may not be super obvious (counting harmonics etc). More on his channel.

 

helped until a point
after the music theory side of things i couldnt

 

Then skip that step, that is not your primary purpose.
But the rest including harmonics analysis is a valid method.
And if you have additive synthesis it is easier (I don't know Vital), though I guess you'll never get an absolute equal, null compared sound.
And BTW in the mix a "dry" sound can be very different.

 

Practice, practice, practice.
The more synth sounds you create and compare, the better you'll become at it.

 

It's an experience thing.

 

I guess it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you want to recreate a preset, it is kind of easy. If you end up with the exact same positions for all the parameters that made up the sound, you will have achieved your goal, obviously. However, if you are trying to recreate a sound within a mix, it is a completely different beast because you will have to recreate all the effects, equalizer curves, compression, etc. as well. But even if you would be able to achieve that by chance, your preset without all the other instruments would not sound 100% like the sound in the mix. In some cases the final sound with all the effects will not even be remotely similar to the preset that you are trying to recreate in the first place. Even if you would manage to nail the preset, you still wouldn't know that you achieved your goal if all the effects and the context were not correct as well.

That said, maybe try to recreate presets first. You could choose a random melody, and a random preset. Add the same melody and the same synth to another track and initialize the preset. Then start to recreate the preset. By doing this, you will be able to switch between the sounds easily to compare plus when you are happy with your recreation you can compare the two synths, and you can assess how close you were visually. If you find differences, you can then adjust them accordingly. The last step will help you learn a lot because you can focus on what you were missing.

Personally I would set myself a time limit of 5 - 10 minutes per preset. Within this timeframe try to get as close as possible. Working fast and without the fixation on getting it 100% right. It will help you reach your goal more quickly, because you will be able to identify your errors sooner.
Take as much time as you need for the correction part, listening to each change and really try to understand what changes are happening when you are adjusting the different parameters.

I don't know if I would choose vital as there are far too many options for the wavetables. A more simple subtractive synth might be a good idea to start with, that way you can get a feel for the sound of the different waveforms, filters, lfos, sync modes, etc. If you are using vital, I would look at the wavetable names used in the preset and set them accordingly. Finding the actual wavetable that was used in an unknown sound that you want to recreate is not a rewarding endeavor as there is an infinite number of possible wavetables. You can try to identify some characteristics of the waveforms though. That way you will be able over time to decide on a similar wavetable for sounds that you hear.

Finally, I don't think anyone will be able to recreate sounds of a certain complexity 100% unless you know the used synth, the preset and the effects that were used to create the sound. Even then it might not be possible if there is complex automation present or the sound was bounced to audio and altered further, edited, stretched or whatever else can be done with an audio file.
A lot of artists create their own wavetables exactly for that reason, so everything you will be able to create never will be 100% accurate.
Also sounds can be layered. So there are two or more synths playing the same melody. You will not be able to recreate these sounds using just one synth. Then again, you can try to build up sounds using the same technique, trying to identify parts of the sound that you can recreate and layering them together.

 

Last edited: Apr 5, 2024

I think this heavily depends. If it's some sort of analogue synth, barely treated, it should be possible to come pretty close. If it's a modern digital (VSTi), it could impossible if you don't know with which synth it was made or how. Think of waveforms, esp Wavetables, amount of oscillators, onboard modulation and FX and treatment in the mix. One MB saturation/distortion FX could make it impossible to figure out how the undistorted sound sounds.