free synths, or Massive, or...?

[mthrfnk]

check the big guide to produce dubstep in the stickies at the top of this forum...it will tell you everything you need to know from daws, to synths, etc.
. . .
if your on windows check out Reason, FL, or Fruity Loops. I would suggest Reaper but its kind of hard for a beginner to pick up.

I do have Reaper and have been managing to get things done with it, and I paid my $60 because it certainly seems well worth it. From reading and asking around in this forum I found out about and downloaded these free synths:

angular momentum: karbass, wavedraw, freehand, retronix, table synth
amvst unifyer
anti-traspirant
charlatan
crystal
dahornet
fmmf
hercs abakos
stepper4free
subduer
synth1
tal: noise maker, bassline, elek7ro, u-no-62
u-he zebra2

but still I like the sound I heard from the wobbleboss vids better than any of the presets I've heard in these synths so far. I thought wobbleboss was a synth with good presets. That's what I'm really after. There are probably good dubstep packs of presets for some of the synths I've got, but I don't know how to find them or how to apply them. I see lots of dubstep preset packs for Massive, and for Ableton which is what made me think it was a synth.

Get HamVST too, best presets.

[ineffable]

You're still insisting on the wobbleboss idea haha.

Well, guess their marketing shit and ghost website reviews work.

[titchbit]

Presets can be helpful, but you aren't really gonna find presets for "dubstep" sounds. Synths are not genre-specific. Wobbleboss might have a couple sounds, but some day (pretty soon), you're gonna want to either alter them or make your own original sounds, and you're gonna feel ripped off. And from the looks of it (google images), you can't do much besides change LFO rate and envelopes of presets in wobbleboss. You might find a massive growl bass preset off youtube, but that's pretty much it. I highly doubt there is an abundance of "dubstep" presets for ANY synth.

As long as you've got an LFO, you can make wobbles. I've never used any of those synths you listed, so look through them and see which ones have LFOs. This is a basic overview of how the most basic synthesizers (subtractive synthesizers) work:

- Oscillators generate sound. They have a specific note and octave (like a piano). They have a waveform (sine, saw, pulse, triangle, etc - mess around and you'll learn the difference). Most synths have about 3-4 oscillators. You can have as many as you'd like playing at a time.

- The sound from the oscillators goes through one or more filters. You've got highpass, lowpass, and bandpass filters. They let all frequencies above, below, or inbetween certain cutoff points "pass".

- The sound will go through an amp envelope. There are 4 knobs - attack, decay, sustain, release. Attack controls how long it takes for the sound to reach it's peak volume. Once it reaches that, it starts to decay, until it reaches the sustain phase, which is the volume the sound will sustain at until you release the key (or the MIDI note stops playing, whichever). Once the signal is released, the release phase begins. The release knob controls how long it takes for the note to become silent. Envelopes can also be applied to things other than volume. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSR_envel ... R_envelope

- Finally, you've got effects, LFOs, and other types of modulation. LFOs aren't very difficult to understand. Like envelopes, you can assign an LFO is any parameter. You can adjust the rate (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16) and the waveform of the LFO (generally the same types of waveforms as oscillators).

So, to make wobbles - take any bass preset your synth has, and then turn on an LFO. Alternatively, make your own patch. Just use a lowpass filter for bass and lower-octave notes.

[Electric_Head]

zebra 2 is not free.
You've pirated it.

Read 'how to make a noise by simon cann'
It will teach you how to synthesise.

[nopEda]

You're still insisting on the wobbleboss idea haha.

Well, guess their marketing shit and ghost website reviews work.

I like the idea of a synth with a bunch of presets like that. I guess it would be like 20 cents a preset or something, and if a fraction of them are worth using it would still be worth it from my position even if I do learn to make some decent noises myself, and especially if I don't.

[nopEda]

Presets can be helpful, but you aren't really gonna find presets for "dubstep" sounds. Synths are not genre-specific. Wobbleboss might have a couple sounds, but some day (pretty soon), you're gonna want to either alter them or make your own original sounds, and you're gonna feel ripped off. And from the looks of it (google images), you can't do much besides change LFO rate and envelopes of presets in wobbleboss. You might find a massive growl bass preset off youtube, but that's pretty much it. I highly doubt there is an abundance of "dubstep" presets for ANY synth.

As long as you've got an LFO, you can make wobbles. I've never used any of those synths you listed, so look through them and see which ones have LFOs. This is a basic overview of how the most basic synthesizers (subtractive synthesizers) work:
. . .

Thank you for the explanation! That gives me at least a fraction of a clue what's going on, and makes the controls make a little more sense. If you know any specific tests or exercises or whatever to suggest for any particular free synths I'd like to try them.

[nopEda]

zebra 2 is not free.
You've pirated it.

Read 'how to make a noise by simon cann'
It will teach you how to synthesise.

Oops on the zebra thing. I thought everything I have must be free since I didn't pay for any of it. Maybe I should trash zebra. I downloaded Tyrell last night which I think is by the same people and I know they said that was free. I can't get it to work in Reaper though. It has two folders in the plugins folder where most of the stuff Reaper uses is located. After unzipping Tyrell and getting it set up I opened Reaper and it seemed to get stuck opening because of the tyrell.dll. It said something about that in the little opening window and got stuck never fully opening. Not knowing what else to do I restarted the computer since ctrl+alt+delete doesn't seem to do shit to shut down particular programs in Windows 7. Anyway Reaper doesn't list Tyrell in its VSTi list even though it's in the same folder as a bunch of stuff it does list. It has two folders and a .dll as well in the folder they are in. So I copied the .dll to both of the other folders too hoping to be sure Reaper could find one, but it still doesn't appear to see it. Maybe it's the wrong version, like 64 bit when I need 32? Or what?

I bought a copy of "how to make a noise" but haven't gotten anywhere with it yet. I tried downloading Vanguard because he says he uses that, but I guess it's not free? I didn't manage to download it yet. Would some other free synth do good enough to get the ideas he's presenting?

[Electric_Head]

He explains simple concepts that you can easily translate to other synths.
Tyrell is good as is charlatan, tal synths, crystal, oatmeal, zebralette .....
Vanguard for example is just a 3 osc, subtractive synth.
You'll manage with most of the above synths.

Regarding reaper, it may well be yoir 32bit issue.
Just make sure you're using the correct version.
Put the working .dll in the relevant vst folder.
Open reaper and rescan vsts if it doesn't automatically.

Shutting down programs in win 7.
ctrl+alt+delete, right click on program, choose show process, end process.

[zsuffa]

If i may hijack this thread for a simple question; How do i modulate the pulse width in Massive? I've googled it and tried searching relevant phrases within the manual, but didnt find anything really. I'm rather new to synthesis, so if anyone could point me in the right direction that would be much appreciated.

Edit: Never mind. Found it.

[ThisIsSovereign]

You're still insisting on the wobbleboss idea haha.

Well, guess their marketing shit and ghost website reviews work.

I like the idea of a synth with a bunch of presets like that. I guess it would be like 20 cents a preset or something, and if a fraction of them are worth using it would still be worth it from my position even if I do learn to make some decent noises myself, and especially if I don't.

Here's the thing though, it's not even a synthesizer. All it does is play a small handful of samples made in other (actual) synthesizers. The sounds are also total trash and you can't manipulate them. I've tried it to see just how horrible it is and trust me when I say it's not even worth 5 dollars. It's a total scam.

[Benji]

I just watched the demo video for Wobbleboss and it blew my mind, are there a lot of horrible synths like that around?

Also, Massive does seem to be the way to go for sheer versatility but you can get some really snazzy dubstep basses out of Sylenth1, I only really use it for non-brostep type dubstep though

[nopEda]

You're still insisting on the wobbleboss idea haha.

Well, guess their marketing shit and ghost website reviews work.

I like the idea of a synth with a bunch of presets like that. I guess it would be like 20 cents a preset or something, and if a fraction of them are worth using it would still be worth it from my position even if I do learn to make some decent noises myself, and especially if I don't.

Here's the thing though, it's not even a synthesizer. All it does is play a small handful of samples made in other (actual) synthesizers. The sounds are also total trash and you can't manipulate them. I've tried it to see just how horrible it is and trust me when I say it's not even worth 5 dollars. It's a total scam.

Well I had to find out and you guys are right. It sux. Instead of presets they have what they call kits, and the keys make all sorts of different noises and I don't see any way you can make any sort of melody. I think in a couple of the kits some of the keys do as much as an octave, but mostly it's just a bunch of different noises in no order that I can figure. I was going to try to make a document listing them and maybe some named note programs to try to get something out of it. But that seems like too much trouble for too little gain. I emailed them and they said it's no problem to get my money back, so I'll go for that instead.

[Coolschmid]

If i may hijack this thread for a simple question; How do i modulate the pulse width in Massive? I've googled it and tried searching relevant phrases within the manual, but didnt find anything really. I'm rather new to synthesis, so if anyone could point me in the right direction that would be much appreciated.

Edit: Never mind. Found it.

Gotta have a VA wavetable

[Bass_Jacka]

Well I had to find out and you guys are right. It sux. Instead of presets they have what they call kits, and the keys make all sorts of different noises and I don't see any way you can make any sort of melody. I think in a couple of the kits some of the keys do as much as an octave, but mostly it's just a bunch of different noises in no order that I can figure. I was going to try to make a document listing them and maybe some named note programs to try to get something out of it. But that seems like too much trouble for too little gain. I emailed them and they said it's no problem to get my money back, so I'll go for that instead.

Good luck trying to get your money back

It's not worth much now that you've paid for 'wobblebass' but seriously, you should listen to the advice people give you on here. I can see how 'wobblebass' could be kinda appealing to someone who wants to produce dubstep but doesn't know much about music production itself.

Massive is a beast of a synth; you can create ANY sound you want with it, as long as you know what you're doing with it. My advice would be to pic a synth, free or paid for (if you can afford it GET massive) and stick with it. Spend endless hours playing around with the different paramaters and get to grips with what each one does and how it effects a given sound. Also its worth noting that a lot of the sick dubstep sounds you hear don't rely only on the synth itself; often there is a lot of additional proccessing involved, using other effects vsts.

There's plenty of tutorials on youtube that can help you get to grips with a given synth - when i first started learing to produce I'd spend hours upon hours following tutorials to learn Massive. Also, there are plenty of dubstep preset packs out there for all kinds of synths - some free some you pay for. It's worth picking some presents and 'deconstructing' them to see just how that preset was made. However, in my opinion, it's always best to make your own sounds - cant beat a bit of decent sound design!

[syrup]

how the fuck.... jesus christ,

[ineffable]

how the fuck.... jesus christ,

"DubTurbo is throwing in their best wubwub vst..."

holy fuck don't make me laugh that hard when i'm at work wobbleboss pls

[ThisIsSovereign]

how the fuck.... jesus christ,

When he literally said wubwubs my head almost exploded.

[Electric_Head]

I can't believe op actually went and bought wobbleboss despite everyone saying don't.

Dumb fucking stnuc up in here.

[DJens]

how the fuck.... jesus christ,

When he literally said wubwubs my head almost exploded.

this

[Crimsonghost]

You've got a whole forum full of people telling you something is a shit product and you buy it anyway? Why bother asking for advise if you just going to tell us fuck off.