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There's a common sound in a lot of the new house/garage productions coming from the likes of Jamie xx, Fourtet, and older stuff from James Blake and alike. Now I'm useless at synthesis, so any pouinters on my way to getting the sound found in this tune at 2.13, I love the way he adds more distortion to it and layers it over the sub. But have little idea how to create the soft pad stab.

Soundcloud

That's a big track.
Minimal yet powerful in it's simplicity.

I tend to go for a more simplistic pad with a fair bit of reverb to create a good airy sound.
In the past I have chosen to take a light, bright pad with an airy ethereal feel.
Apply reverb to taste and lowpass when required.

I've taken a sample, stretched and reversed it in this example and pitched the sample to suite in a sampler.
I can give a deeper explanation later if you want.
Note this example in my track is naturally not identical but it is essentially the same sound used in a different context.
It starts rolling at at 40 seconds or so and develops through the tune.

Soundcloud

That's a nice sound, has kind of a Jungle rhodes feel to it, maybe i Need to have a dig at sampling rather than synthesis for that sound in the remix. I've been playing with so many goddamn triangle waveforms to try qand find that sound, I'm losing my fucking mind.

I would stick to sines imo.
I use Rhino for these sorts of pads because it adds a wonderful fm texture to things.
Let me send you a pm later with an explanation of how to synthesize it.

Much appreciated!

deffo FM or heavily processed rhodes, you won't get such a rich sound out of a subtractive
no idea bout the distortion though, has a really really gnarly texture. reminds me of some old darkside dubstep, think distances hotflush releases or innasekt. could be a clipping mixing desk or an emulation of that?

definetly spring reverb/delay involved, 6:04-ish gives that away.

Space Echo was used for sure. The track is so sparse, yet so full, it kills me.

data maxima venia, I'd say try stacked saw waves and bandpass one or two times until it sounds right, then lowpass it. Automate a distortion / tube drive plugin and apply reverb as an insert. But it definitely sounds more like FM than subtractive.

hasezwei wrote:deffo FM or heavily processed rhodes, you won't get such a rich sound out of a subtractive
no idea bout the distortion though, has a really really gnarly texture. reminds me of some old darkside dubstep, think distances hotflush releases or innasekt. could be a clipping mixing desk or an emulation of that?

definetly spring reverb/delay involved, 6:04-ish gives that away.

Either overdriving an analog input or cranking the tube drive or volume in a pre amp will result in that kind of distortion.

You're right Hircine it is in fact stacked saws after fiddling a bit earlier.

Electric_Head wrote:You're right Hircine it is in fact stacked saws after fiddling a bit earlier.

I'm not so sure about the distortion though, it sounds like phase distortion automated / with a long release delayed envelope. I know how people hate this, but you can get the same sound with Massive, just use a delayed, fast attack long decay/release envelope on the phase knob, modulating one of the saws you stacked, so it's only applied after the initial hit or "body" of the sound. Don't know if I was able to make myself clear.