FX and Lead Design Tips

[ChrisPlatow]

Ok so I have been working on my sound design intensively for the last few months, and I like to think Ive got it down to a pretty good methodology by now. Bass sounds come easy for me b/c thats what Ive focused the most on and their seems to be a surplus of tips on bass design.

When it comes to making leads and FX however, I dont have a lot of creative ways of making new sounds. So I was hoping to hear some pointers, or ideas, or tips, or just general methods that others use when going about making FX and leads.

[ChrisPlatow]

Ill start by saying some of the coolest effects I have made come from using envelopes in unexpected ways. Such as routing the pitch envelope in abletons operator to the 'LFO Speed' and having the LFO effecting some other parameter (like filter, pitch of an oscillator, tone, time, etc).

And a lot of times when I just try to make chaos in a synthesizer and tweak every parameter I get some good results.

Not exactly groundbreaking tips but its a start.

[Banesy]

I do agree with that. A fun toy to play with is xfer lfo tool. Some of the presets can turn a simple lead into something really interesting.

[WolfCryOfficial]

Yeah i would grab just a regular wave in massive and turn it to +/- on the spectrum.

Go to envelope 1 and turn the attack all the way up.
Put envelope one on the +/- knob and put it all the way up.
Do the same with the volume except use another envelope that way you can control how long it takes for it to reach the "peak."

Last but not least. Take an LFO and put it on the volume and set that to MAX. Take envelope 1 and put it on the "rate" for the LFO wobble so that slowly over time it starts wobbling faster and faster and you will have a pretty fucking good fx