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I have always been fascinated by the buzzes, acid leads and hoovers of Hard NRG, especially by the likes of GULD and Einhander.
Studying track structure, reverse engineering the sounds and lots of experimentation is a given I guess, but truth is I am looking for practical stuff that requires you to know/learn DSP.
How does one go about producing an approximation of those effects using dedicated hardware or a DAW with VSTs?
Thank you!
If you’ve heard any of Sherkel’s new tracks then you’ll know we have another aspiring producer who has well and truly nailed the Einhander leads. I wonder if he might be willing to offer some advice?
I’d be happy to add some ideas too, but I’m very much an amateur. If the thread stays this quiet I’ll add some thoughts when more time allows! The classic go-to was Alek’s hoover tutorial on his site, but I don’t think that’s available anywhere…
@PlasmaDancer: I managed to find the tutorial you mentioned on the wayback machine: here. Even the intermediary sounds are backed up.
Thank you very much for the heads-up!
Feel free to give any sort of advice, even if it is not much. I am an absolute beginner in music production, so I will take anything.
I will make sure to check on Sherkel’s tracks and ask him for advice as well!I wasn’t sure whether or not this was directed at me at first seeing as I arrived at what I got through pure experimentation rather than knowing the exact production techniques and such. I could put together some presets and/or screenshots soon, but you’d have to use FL as your DAW and use the plugins I happen to have. Not exactly a practical explanation…
That Alek tutorial on the other hand is a great find and could probably be followed to a decent degree without Reason or the Alpha Juno synth. I’ll post again once I’ve tried it out. It reminds me of a conversation that unfolded on Facebook when I asked about one of Grimsoul’s leads. Alek himself gave Chip’s comments a Like, so this should be good to have on hand too: http://pastebin.com/6bTy9QTw
I can confirm from experience that getting a “freeform lead” is almost all about effects and filtering. In terms of a “base” you shouldn’t need much more than a preset or a few layered oscillators.
It’s so good to see the hoover tutorial again, thanks for digging it up 🙂 It’s funny, only yesterday I had the thought that I should see how much of the FINRG site is archived, but a quick look suggests that only the forum topics are viewable…there were some production threads there that I’d love to read again.
You’ll see the latest post on the main site soon enough (more coincidences, it was already in draft form before I saw this thread), but the ‘twisted’ tutorial is worth adding here too:
Wow, that’s the very definition of a FINRG lead right there. Not sure whether or not I should be pleased that I didn’t know about that video till now. That should be a great start for anyone, and uses a free VST to boot.
Yes, I was aware already of Hyphen’s tutorials on the matter. Very useful to document the making of freeform for the future generations :p
Too bad the FINRG forum production threads could not be salvaged. At least I managed to find a mirror thread with Rx’s music production advices there.
Another great link. Everyone’s approach is different, but I always like seeing the ways artists I look up to describe their creation process. All that prescription-strength musical advice aside, I shouldn’t be sherking my duty here, so here’s something more practical to help get you started.
Here’s a lead I’m currently using without filters applied. Maybe this will come in handy for your production. Here’s how it sounds playing a few notes with the filter turned on, for reference.
After watching that LDO tutorial a few times and listening to Sherkels clip, I came up with this:
It’s actually a lot easier than I thought tbh, its just the detune, wavetable choices/position (if you use a wavetable synth) and a few other things you need to tweak to high heaven to get right lol
edit: URL playing up, the one you want is called moar soaw (don’t ask)
@Dyzphazia: I cannot reach your sample because your account is private.
So yeah, I did some experiments with FL and a few synths (Sylenth, Z3tA), followed some tutorials, got the basis for supersaw leads and hoover, and indeed it does seem like the secret sauce is the effects + filtering thing.
Now that I think of it, the filtered leads given by @Sherkel does sound reverb-ish. Even so, I did not reach something like this.
The sample in @Sherkel’s pastebin is not there anymore (404).
I realize I haven’t been very helpful here. The base for the lead I tend to use before each track takes it in its own direction is actually Nexus’s “German Trumpet” presets. The point where I realized I was onto something two Septembers ago was when I had just that selected and a Fruity Blood Overdrive in the mixer! If you go into one of the tabs on the side in Nexus you can click “ply” (short for polyphony?) and then 1/16 or 1/32 to give it that “quick fade in” effect that’s all over the little we’ve heard from Einhander and especially Betwixt. Beyond that it’s amplification, EQ, and whatever effects gel well with it (I think I threw one called “chorus” on the ThermalForce-esque lead in Yarai) until it sounds a way I like, and then finally a filter. The trick with the filter is to have quite a bit of low pass if you want to use a synth as a lead instead of just background, but especially to jack up bandpass and high pass in general. Then right-click the bandpass frequency knob to make an automation clip and start telling it how to slide. If it feels like you’re swinging around a very heavy weapon, you’re probably on the right track (literally!). If there’s anywhere I should be more specific I’d be pleased to elaborate. The link in the Facebook discussion wasn’t of much value to begin with, so don’t worry about that. I think it was just a few seconds of an everyday saw with some gating and bandpassing put together in a minute or two. Also, I’d be interested to hear what results you have come up with so far.
Resurrecting this thread…..
@Sherkel, you have my more explicit, public thanks for describing your process of creating leads in greater detail. It turns out what most softsynths actually have a factory preset very close to the German Saw preset in Nexus, and thus can be used instead.
Combining different saws from different synths can make things more exciting too.Finally, this seemed particularly relevant to what you just described: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaG25wP43k0
Now, let’s say I laid down tracks and arranged them to my liking: how would you proceed with the mixdown and mastering? Both in terms of process and plugins used.
I am using FL Studio.I have this thing where I did gain staging, volume levels, panning and EQ on every of my tracks. I am now considering using compression, but I don’t know whether it should be applied separately on each track as well, or on a bus/group of instrument instead, and if going for the 2nd option, what should be the emphasis/point of focus for each group?
As for mastering, let’s just assume you know your first tracks don’t deserve the services of a mastering engineer for the time being.
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