question about sound ideas

[Zkeeto]

Hey all, so I've found myself using pretty close to the same sounds over and over agai jus with litte tweaks. So my q uestion to you all is how do you get ideas for your synths? I know a lot is just listening to other peoples music but is there any tips or advise out there that is different than jus listenin to music? Any and all advice would be great!
-cheers

[Refuzed]

a lot of the big artists that have a signature osund do just what you have done, one basic synth that they work off. building new ones is all down to experimentation and good synthesis knowledge

[Zkeeto]

well i have my own sounds for sure but when i use them in diff songs they jus all seem to close to the sounds in oither songs. guess ill jus work on em. thanks bruv

[Zkeeto]

well i have my own sounds for sure but when i use them in diff songs they jus all seem to close to the sounds in oither songs. guess ill jus work on em. thanks bruv

[-[2]DAY_-]

try just tossing your typical workflow out the window... use a synth you haven't used yet, or maybe see how fucked up you can make a sample in your sampler, pitch shift and comb filter it until it makes a cool tone, resample the tone and map it across the keyboard... experiment with loop points, maybe create new atmospheres with delay feedback.. pattern gating... i dunno theres a lot of ways to fuck with sounds.

also maybe just use some presets and work on playing different chords/melodies, actually write some music on piano or something

two completely opposite ways of breaking the mold you're currently stuck in

[Towany]

What i do is load up a Ghost track into my project. Which would be someone elses track that i really like at the moment and try and well not exactly copy but make a sound similar in that song. Since you won't get the sound spot on it suddenly becomes your own. Then resample that bitch till it sounds awesome!

[B-Frank]

Look at some random tutorials for your chosen synth on youtube. For example I watched a couple house synth tutorials... Incorporated some of the ideas into my synths that I already had. Presto, new sounds.

[elyhess]

Experiment man', having your own sound is good, make your other sounds off of that first one, try changing some major features of the sound

[orangeapplesauce]

some times i just sit there listening to presets and fuck with them, other times i just start from scratch and see what happens. when i take time just to mess with sounds, and try not to stress about a composition i find stuff just falls into place...

[B-Frank]

You'll often stumble upon a sound when fucking around with stuff that you wouldn't usually touch.

[Zkeeto]

all great advice guys. much thanks:)

[cmgoodman1226]

Some days I devote strictly to sound design, but typically I write a melody first. A lot of times this makes it loads easier for me to hear what I want a certain synth to sound like. I also spend loads of time on experimenting. It's not unusual to spend a few days on something, just to scrap it for something new. Also, I try to layer my synths. For the longest time, I thought the best way to get a "heavy" sound was just add as many oscillators and octaves as I possibly could, and I would usually end up with an unsalvagable mess. You'd be surprised by what just one oscillator can do on its own, when you resample a bunch of times, adding in more subtle effects each time. But when I'm layering, I'll experiment with different sounds and ask myself "which part of the frequency spectrum in this sound do I like the most?', and I'll dial everything else down and find another sound that compliments a different part of the spectrum. I don't want to sound like I'm assuming this is what you're doing, but experiment with parameter other than your average lowpass filter or normal distortion. Modulate feedback, or amount of chorus or reverb. Add some vibrato; experiment with envelopes on parameters like a notch filter or the amount of distortion on something. Add a ridiculous amount of reverb with a long tail and just record the tail (or just turn the knob so the dry/wet is set to 100% wet) and make that into it's own sound. And like Motu said, always keep it moving. I'm not saying (and I don't think he is either) give up on whatever you are doing now, but whenever I find myself going stagnant for an extended period of time, I do something else; I try a new technique, use a different synth, a different effect. Or since I like so many different genres, Ill start working on something in a different style. This, for me at least, allows me to break up the monotiny of the norm. Just my 0.02 cents anyways.

[Zkeeto]

hell yeah man. made a lot of sense thanks