Synthesists! How do you ear candy?

[Karl Masks]

I was listening to this:

Which is a really great track using a bunch of presets someone made for the Repro 5 vst (emulation of the Prophet 5 synth). I think it's a great piece of music and the reverb is just lush.

What I'm interested in is how people write the kind of ear candy you hear throughout the track. Whether its modulating a filtre on an existing arp, or some synth noises washing in and out. I would love to learn the workflow because it seems to me, with the exception of modulation, you would have to create new tracks within the project just to add some noises or sounds like this, which seems a bit tedious (worth it I'm sure as the results speak for themselves). Now maybe for pro musiocians it's a bit easier, but when you're running so many different tracks I have to end up bouncing suff down and that makes the whole process a bit harder since, if I want to edit something, i have to revert back to the original midi and delete the audio I've created. So anything that can make this prcoess easier would help, but tracks like this are really what I would love to be creating. Repro 5 is lovely. Thanks

 

[danski]

Dunno.
I know people, myself included, jam and record crazy shit and chop it up after, to use for this kind of thing. Mostly rhythmic stuff which is more for fills but I'm sure you could fuck about with whatever chords etc. are in your song, jam and tweak and see what the results are. Chop into individual hits and put in a drum rack or whatever your DAW uses.
Main thing is to experiment.

I know that's not strictly what they're doing in the track you posted but that's all far too musical and skilled for what I do

 

[danski]

Anyway, that's a shit recording, their buffer was too low

think mine was actually

Hmm, that was interesting, seems it was my browser. Never had that before. I was playing it through a firewire interface when it crackled, like 'buffering shit' but it was fine just though internal speaker

 

[danski]

I suppose to simplify what I said, use samples, your own or otherwise, and put them in a drum rack so they use only one track up. Fire them off as one shots.

 

[Karl Masks]

Dunno.
I know people, myself included, jam and record crazy shit and chop it up after, to use for this kind of thing. Mostly rhythmic stuff which is more for fills but I'm sure you could fuck about with whatever chords etc. are in your song, jam and tweak and see what the results are. Chop into individual hits and put in a drum rack or whatever your DAW uses.
Main thing is to experiment.

I know that's not strictly what they're doing in the track you posted but that's all far too musical and skilled for what I do

I think that's a completely different workflow (hate that word but hey) to me. I enjoy samples in music, but I'm not sure the added work is for me. Having to chop up stuff and process it in that way. Lot's of people do. However in the piece i linked, I'm not sure that's waht is happening. My feeling is that these people are adding extra layers of synth to add some fx, wooshes, bits and bobs, as well as modulation of existing parts. That's pretty cpu tastic!

 

[danski]

I think that's a completely different workflow (hate that word but hey) to me. I enjoy samples in music, but I'm not sure the added work is for me. Having to chop up stuff and process it in that way. Lot's of people do. However in the piece i linked, I'm not sure that's waht is happening. My feeling is that these people are adding extra layers of synth to add some fx, wooshes, bits and bobs, as well as modulation of existing parts. That's pretty cpu tastic!

Looks like you got your answer

 

[Karl Masks]

Yeah, I was just wondering if there was a better way because running loads of extra instances of vst's can be taxing and rendering stuff over and over is a bit tedious, and it means you have to un render them to edit them further. Woe is me

 

[danski]

Yeah, I was just wondering if there was a better way because running loads of extra instances of vst's can be taxing and rendering stuff over and over is a bit tedious, and it means you have to un render them to edit them further. Woe is me

Oh, you mean you want art and creativity to be easy? Sorry, I can’t help you there

 

[hash tag]

Want some synth action this weekend

Brecon Jazz Festival: Snooker legend Steve Davis to play synth gig at cathedral

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www.bbc.co.uk