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Alot of my synth patches are using massive w/ bandreject + sine shaper + alot of phase on the modulation osc. They sound really heavy and really unique except I cannot clean up this one synth. I have spen over 8 hours just trying to clean it up. Anyone else run into this problem and can give me some ideas where to start? I would like to keep the dirty vibes of the sound but really have it sit clean in the mix. I have eqed + reverb + phaser + exciter + chorus. I cannot seem to clean it up. Can anyone throw me some ideas before I loose my mind? I also have rebuilt the patch and started from 1 osc but no matter what I cant get it clean but still raw sounding.

Advice would be awesome. . <3

Turn down the wet/dry or drive effect of the sineshaper most likely. That shit gets out of hand quickly, especially when stacking with other effects. The phase can easily get too filthy too.

Yeah I have turned down both but then I loose alot of the grit and it doesnt sounds as heavy as I would like it.

A good example would be like Requake - No Pain No Gain or Requake - Rage Face. They got grit but sound hella clean in the mix.

Well, maybe reroute your effects? Have you bounced a cleanish version and then resampled it?

try using a bit of the classic tube or change one of the oscilators
personally id cut out all the frequencies that sound messy and layer another instance + change up the second layer. eq each layer different and you will definitely get it cleaner by doing that

The fx are applied on the massive patch itself. But I have returns for fx where I send the synth to . It still sounds shit imo.

Big ups sunny_b I will deff try that. Eq out the freqs that sounds like shit. Then duplicate the massive, change some osc. Eq it so its opposite from the first synth and maybe cleaner freqs will be there. And some harmonics too!

Since my patch is actually 3 osciallators. I might duplicate each massive 2 more times so each massive has its own oscialltor so I can have full control over all three parts and treat them seperate and blend em all together after. Don't know why I didnt think of this before. Stoked to try.

Yeah, honestly you probably just have to much going on in that one patch. If you had like 3 patches working together to get a thick, tangible yet disgusting sound.
Just think about what you want to hear and make it dude.
And i dunno if you resample anything, but it's pretty easy to fuck up a nice sound and make it ridiculous.
Also, there's an edit button.

Try resampling, instead of wacking FXs all once, take it slow and resample a lot. After resampling to distort / shape the tone, split the frequencies. Reverb on his, chorus on mids, make sub / low frequencies mono and compress those, glue it all together through compression.

Big ups everyone for the replies you have sparked too many ideas Sometimes all I need is just to hear one idea and then im set thanks fam!

Word dude. Post some before and afters if you get the chance. Would love to hear your results man.

try using more distortions I recon, turn down the sine shaper a little, turn up the feedback distortion, slap a classic tube distortion on the fx, maybe use a saturator or tube distortion in the fx chain coming off the end too, then you can use smaller amounts of all the distortions rather than going mental on just one and pushing it beyond your ability to tame the harmonics. Chorus/Flanger/Unison detune type effects used after the distortions can also help settle the bite and give it a wet, phasey polish that isnt as harsh.

I would add the reverb last too, probably on a send where you can eq it individually as it will add noise through the sound which will be picked up by the effects you add after and will muddy them. Ive destroyed tons of basslines in the past by using reverb too early in the chain, when I listen back to older stuff I can hear what its doing and its often unpleasant. The dimension expander isnt too bad but certainly standard reverbs with a defused tail.

no problem and also add a bit of camelcrusher/camelphat or saturation at the end of the chain.
id say use of compressors/limiters could get things sounding better as well (however if doing compression makes no difference then id leave it).
also i hate to admit it but if your using FL Studio then using a bit of Soundgoodizer in small amounts could PROBABLY clean/beef it up further as well since its a saturator/maximizer/compressor.
maximus has similar saturation to this though so if you want further control then give that a go as well.

So this is my game plan.
1. Gonna devide each massive patch so there are 3 one for each oscillator.
2. Apply different fx inside of massive to clean all 3 oscialltors up.
3. Turn down sineshaper on all 3 maybe even remove it on some.
4. Switch to classic tube on some.
5. Send all 3 massive into a fx chain with csmall bits of chorus flanger unison and exciter.
6. Bounce the final into a wav.
6. SPlit the freqs and apply reverb to highs, chrous to mids, turn lows into mono and then compress all 3 freqs to cglue them together.
7. Apply camelphat and another reverb to make them even cleaner.

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Will post a before and after tonight when I get home from work. hope people can learn from this one.

I spent about 4 hours last night trying all the methods above and I even went beyond what I planned on doing. There was nothing I could do to clean up the original sound and get it sitting good with in the mix. So I have just scrapped it and am going to re design my sound. Better luck next time

If you really can't clean it up and still feel like it, pm me.

dubstallion wrote:I spent about 4 hours last night trying all the methods above and I even went beyond what I planned on doing. There was nothing I could do to clean up the original sound and get it sitting good with in the mix. So I have just scrapped it and am going to re design my sound. Better luck next time

it could have seriously worked, maybe layering with a more different but clean sounding bass would have done the job. also 4 hours is quite a long time to be spending on one sound, i guess it depends on how you do things but with experience you'll definitely be able to sort out almost any problematic sound.

EQ out all messy sounding signals, and then layer it with another patch in which you'll have clean signals on those ones. Or think about using other methods to get grit, maybe instead of using a sine shaper use 5 or 6 instances of another distortion unit instead which should make your distortion less messy