complex synthesizing

so you know all those crazy big atmospheric synth sounds you hear in the movies and in your keyboard presets?

well what is going on there? i read synth reviews and stuff about synths with "32 voices" or whatever. does this mean 32 oscillators? and is this how people make those crazy ambient complex sounding synth noises? and how can i do it?

are there any softsynths that have many oscillators or an unlimited amount that you can add? that would be sweet

32 voices means the synth can play 32 notes at the same time I think, doesn't have anything to do with the amount of oscillators. Not quite sure what complex sounds you are going for though.

lots of long envelopes and layering.

"workstation" keyboard will let you stack four separate patches or some shit on top of each other, so you make a four layers of atmosphere patch you know.

ok ill try to decribe it

so you play a chord, and there's like a 3 second attack on some soft sine wavy pad sound that slows erodes into a square wavy pulsating twinkle sound, then it will fade out with a long release and some pitch shifting majic going on with some massive reverb....or whatever. i just made that up, because Ive heard lots of these kinds of sounds i just want to know how people make them

like this music from final fantasy 7 ??

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wWuR6r1Uvxs&...feature=related

  ET said:

ok ill try to decribe it

 

so you play a chord, and there's like a 3 second attack on some soft sine wavy pad sound that slows erodes into a square wavy pulsating twinkle sound, then it will fade out with a long release and some pitch shifting majic going on with some massive reverb....or whatever. i just made that up, because Ive heard lots of these kinds of sounds i just want to know how people make them

Yeah, envelopes. That's only two oscillators that you described there. Most of those patches aren't so complicated at all. Just slow enveloping with filters and delay. Absynth is just made for that I guess :P

http://www.myspace.com/captainfman

or bedbound bobby on this myspace??

  ET said:

ok ill try to decribe it

 

so you play a chord, and there's like a 3 second attack on some soft sine wavy pad sound that slows erodes into a square wavy pulsating twinkle sound, then it will fade out with a long release and some pitch shifting majic going on with some massive reverb....or whatever. i just made that up, because Ive heard lots of these kinds of sounds i just want to know how people make them

hax majick

A really simple soft synth to use that has multiple envelopes is Operator (in Ableton Live).

There are 4 oscillators, which you can each set to different envelopes, and then the LFO and filter also has envelopes.

number of voices is not number of oscillators. say you have one person singing one note, that's one voice. add another person singing the exact same note and that is two voices.

if you dont stamp your envelope the postman wont oscillate it.

Its not a question of 'long' envelopes, but multi-point ones that go beyond the standard ADSR. And decent modulation options. Absynth 4 is the synth you need for this and your user sample as oscillator request, although there are plenty of other options.

  kakapo said:

Its not a question of 'long' envelopes

semantics -- he wants a long sound, i just meant use envelopes to get the longness (maybe a bunch of short envelopes interacting complexly). i guess i should have phrased it more clearly.

  hahathhat said:

  kakapo said:

Its not a question of 'long' envelopes

 

semantics -- he wants a long sound, i just meant use envelopes to get the longness (maybe a bunch of short envelopes interacting complexly). i guess i should have phrased it more clearly.

Apology accepted, but bear in mind I will use this lapse as a stick to beat you with at every opportunity.

yes it seems that envelopes include my interests in this matter

twiddle lots of knobs randomly and hold down at least 8 keys until you get the effect you're after.

FM

  ET said:

so you know all those crazy big atmospheric synth sounds you hear in the movies and in your keyboard presets?

 

well what is going on there? i read synth reviews and stuff about synths with "32 voices" or whatever. does this mean 32 oscillators? and is this how people make those crazy ambient complex sounding synth noises? and how can i do it?

 

are there any softsynths that have many oscillators or an unlimited amount that you can add? that would be sweet

try to think of the sound more than the synth

bounce to wav, pitch down/up, layer, timestretch and layer, add a completely different synth and layer, bounce, layer result, reverb, reverse and layer, etc.. this gets me fun results

  kakapo said:

  hahathhat said:

  kakapo said:

Its not a question of 'long' envelopes

 

semantics -- he wants a long sound, i just meant use envelopes to get the longness (maybe a bunch of short envelopes interacting complexly). i guess i should have phrased it more clearly.

 

Apology accepted, but bear in mind I will use this lapse as a stick to beat you with at every opportunity.

i vow to recover the 0.2cm of internets penis you have captured from me thricefold!!!

  chimera slot mom said:

  ET said:

so you know all those crazy big atmospheric synth sounds you hear in the movies and in your keyboard presets?

 

well what is going on there? i read synth reviews and stuff about synths with "32 voices" or whatever. does this mean 32 oscillators? and is this how people make those crazy ambient complex sounding synth noises? and how can i do it?

 

are there any softsynths that have many oscillators or an unlimited amount that you can add? that would be sweet

 

try to think of the sound more than the synth

 

bounce to wav, pitch down/up, layer, timestretch and layer, add a completely different synth and layer, bounce, layer result, reverb, reverse and layer, etc.. this gets me fun results

i see you read my post in another thread

(internets penis +0.1cm)

  chunky said:

http://www.myspace.com/captainfman

 

or bedbound bobby on this myspace??

:kiss:

ET, you should post some examples of the sounds you're trying to make, and then maybe somebody could help you in your quest to make them.

Sounds which you may think are made via "complex synthesizing" could be just people being creative with traditional forms of sound synthesis such as subtractive or FM synthesis (I'm no expert but I'd say these are the two most common form of synthesis being used right now). Coincidentally though, on the subject of less popular forms of synthesis, a producer friend of mine was telling me about wave terrain synthesis recently which uses 3D terrains and a point rotating around said terrain to produce sound (it's an extension of wavetable synthesis): http://www.csounds.com/jmc/Articles/Wts/WTS.html

Looks suitably nerdy! I have yet to try messing with it though. I'm sure it