Creating "warm" synths

[deadly_habit]

Do you have any outboard gear? A trip out of the box through a preamp, eq and comp might help out.

Or in the box, saturate pretty heavily, roll off the highs, and make a bump in the mud zone, around 300 - 500 hz. That is generic recipe for warmth. In certain contexts I think warmth is inappropriate, in many contemporary tracks, people spend a lot of effort sucking the warmth out of their tracks for whatever reason, it is just the aesthetic.

Maybe think about going back to the source, which synth are you using? Maybe you can start to generate the warmth there?

Ask those top level producers who think you need warmth, how they would go about warming up the synths? eh?

[Ldizzy]

saturation...

maybe cuttin a bit of his off of it... people are always so scared to cut his haha

here's what I would feel like doint just today... and that is just me : (may do it differently tomorrow)
resample as wav and put in kontakt
then modulate the pitch with a really fast rate... but with very little amplitude... not even as noticeably as a tremolo.. really subtle..
bus it to three or four busses of split frequencies...
maybe slightly compress the lower one just to allow it to sit nicely on the bassline
and add SUBTLE fx to the rest... mainly saturation... but very subtle...
rebuss to one signal.. eq with narrow q so it sounds creamy...
then add saturation + wide eqing in the lower mids..
remove hi's...

or maybe im overdoing things.. the pitch thing really helps me a lot.

[GRAYSKALE]

Hey all. This is a pretty general thread, asking for tips and advice and techniques on how to create "warm" "organic" sounds. I realize those words can be rather subjective, and are abstract by nature - but I am of course leading towards sounds created by kryptic minds, matt u.etc. I am NOT asking about basslines - I have a pretty good idea as to how these are made now, but I am having trouble keeping the tonality and organic-ness throughout my higher frequency sounds.

Anyone?

I'm pretty sure there is a kryptic minds producer masterclass in this months computer music magazine, not sure if it's any good cause I'm yet to pick it up myself, but might be worth looking at. When I looked through it I noticed they have a pretty extensive hardware/analog kit list, which probably explains the warmness.

[judge_banks]

Try some plug-ins that model analog gear - overload them, etc. a lot of times that will give you a nice warm feeling

[GRAYSKALE]

Try some plug-ins that model analog gear - overload them, etc. a lot of times that will give you a nice warm feeling

Vintage Warmer is amazing for that, definitely worth the price tag for that!! Used sparingly of course, if you overload it stuff just sounds nasty and dull. Used correctly and it'll probably give you the sparkle you're looking for.

[Ldizzy]

ive never been able to tweak it properly,

a friend of mine says its his most valued tool for mixing.. and he mixes really well,with a lot of flavour... i wish i knew how to tweak that thing

[GRAYSKALE]

ive never been able to tweak it properly,

a friend of mine says its his most valued tool for mixing.. and he mixes really well,with a lot of flavour... i wish i knew how to tweak that thing

I use it in a lot of my mixes, but if you wack the drive up too much it gives stuff a nasty digital sounding distortion. I'd say maybe try using it as a light limiter and using light boost between 500-1000khz for warmth and real gentle boost beyond 4khz for a bit of sparkle and adjust time settings to taste, though I usually have a reasonably high attack to try keep some dynamics. It's works real nice on snares though, if you wanna get a nice fat punchy one any one. Don't tend to use it on synths too much really to be fair. Why don't you get your mate to show you how he uses it? It's definitely a plug-in worth getting your head around.

[Ldizzy]

my mate is hella busy, he's always in the middle of a session and has his presets...

plus im even more busy, i work 24 7 as a tour guide, im always on the road. season's over soon tho!

ill try to ask him somewhere during the second part of the summer and ill tell yall about it, cause i swear his mysterious preset does wonders.

[skwiggo]

buy a monotron (around £39 now) and feed your sound through the aux in and then back into your computer = instant MS-10 filter warmth for a fraction of the price! or record your synth onto cassette and then back to the computer although thats a wee bit too lo fi maybe. as others have said investing in some outboard stuff to run your synths through is probably the easiest way to achieve a 'warm' analogue sound with digital synthesis.

other stuff you can do to help ITB (some has been mentioned) is bit reduction (not bitcrusher though), chorus, saturation (especially saturation at the filter stage of the synth/sampler/whatever, ableton built in synths are good for this), ferric tape saturation plugin, rolling off highs etc.

[Manic Harmonic]

Great idea! I have a monotron, I've never thought of it as anything more than a toy!

[skwiggo]

Great idea! I have a monotron, I've never thought of it as anything more than a toy!

I love my monotron and i definitely think that it can be used as more than a toy, I try to use it on as much stuff as possible. Granted there's no MIDI control or whatever but it sounds great, its totally analog and you can definitely use it creatively for effects, acid like bubbly sounds (with high self oscillating resonance), using the LFO on pitch to create laser sounds and kick drums, I also made pad sounds on some of my tracks before by putting the LFO into the audio range where it just blurs together. PLUS I can't wait for the monotribe, im goin to have an arsenal of mini Korg analog synths

[samurai]

like most people I find the term "warm" to be very subjective. it seems to be an extremely broad term that people use to describe all manners of sounds...

regardless. usually when I want to "warm" something up I just saturate and filter it a little. then I send it into my sp-404 or vhs tape and record it back into the computer. I usually find that I can spend ages trying to get a certain sound ITB but I instantly get something nice if I put it through my sp-404. take into account this is an cheapo sampler with some really cheap lo-fi effects. same with recording it to vhs tape.

[amphibian]

All good - I figured it out anyways, thanks for all the tips guys. Tips and help went into the below tune:

http://soundcloud.com/phybian/enigma

In case you were wondering what it was being used for

nowaysj - I did ask them actually, and they have their own advice. I like to ask as many as people as possible, plus my own reading - gives me the most thorough understanding of what it is I'm trying to do.

[cloak and dagger]

buy a monotron (around £39 now) and feed your sound through the aux in and then back into your computer = instant MS-10 filter warmth for a fraction of the price!

crazy, as I literally ordered one a couple of hours ago for this exact reason!

[nowaysj]

PLUS I can't wait for the monotribe, im goin to have an arsenal of mini Korg analog synths

Got my hands on a monotribe today. Couldn't put it down. Didn't get to actually hear it, but I kept walking around, and noticing that it was still in my hand...

Can't wait, it is legit, no jokes.

[Earjax]

reverb, chorus, weird plugins like soundtoys crystallizer, bit of saturation, old compressors, i've used bass amps before on random stuff and that works

[Praya]

buy a monotron (around £39 now) and feed your sound through the aux in and then back into your computer = instant MS-10 filter warmth for a fraction of the price!

Whats the noise like on these things, i remember hearin it was pretty bad? Im thinkin of pickin one up for xmas for the sole purpose of running stuff through it, but dont wanna bother if its unusable. Dont get me wrong, i like noise, but i like to have control of how much.

[3za]

my thread
http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=162300

It's basically just a link to SOS, but then a whip round, by the guys, and girls.

Has anyone ever tried resapmling via speakers -> mic -> DAW?

I'd imagine that could warm it up.

Yeah I have done that, not really a technique i like to use, but others are doing this.

peace.

WHO THIS tnuc BEING ALL NICE AND HELPFUL AND SHIT!?!?!?

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

WHO THIS tnuc BEING ALL NICE AND HELPFUL AND SHIT!?!?!?

we call him Tyler Durden but we're not supposed to talk about that

[Artie_Fufkin]

What do you guys mean by warm?

edit: nvm, read 3za's thread.