I have been to the top of the synthesis mountain...

[Omega Monkey]

...and I return to bring you...







[dramatic pause]







MULTIMODE FILTERS!!!

These things are seriously the shit and open up so many avenues of sounds that are not available any other way. Im becoming addicted to having dual band pass filters for instance. This is an especially useful technique for awesome brass sounds. It makes the sound squishy without being raspy or buzzy like lowpass filters can do sometimes. I wish I had a way to put up some samples but I dont. If you use an LFO on the cutoff with a slow rate you can get some nice animated effects too, a bit like a phaser.

Ive also been loving some PWM action. The EX5 is cool because you can actually apply PWM to any sound, which is the only synth I know of where you can do that. Actually in certain modes I think I could have normal PWM on the individual oscillators and then have another overall PWM, although I havent tried that yet.

Anyway, if you guys want to explore some interesting sounds, I recommend checking out what the multimode filters on your synth can do if you have them, especially the bandpass filters.

[Luca_Capozzi]

you discovered the REAL world eheheheeh
Welcome aboard :) Dude.. i think you should get a modular. You'll have a lot of fun with it.

Cheers,
Luca

[ChipCurtis]

MULTIMODE FILTERS!!!

These things are seriously the shit and open up so many avenues of sounds that are not available any other way. Im becoming addicted to having dual band pass filters for instance. This is an especially useful technique for awesome brass sounds. It makes the sound squishy without being raspy or buzzy like lowpass filters can do sometimes. I wish I had a way to put up some samples but I dont. If you use an LFO on the cutoff with a slow rate you can get some nice animated effects too, a bit like a phaser.

Yup. Hi-pass, band-pass and notch-pass filtering can create some kewl sounds for sure. There are some good examples of this 'squishy' type sound that you describe, in some of the presets of the Arppe2600va softsynth that I helped create (http://glenstegner.com/softsynths.html). We decided to put a low-to-hi pass variable slider in there (instead of fixed settings that Arturia have), so you can move from regular lowpass to band/notch to hipass in one variable sweep.

The problem is I often find these kind of sounds get easily buried in a mix. I have a preference for the big fat buzzy lowpass type synthbrass, but I'm sure there's a place for these kinds of squishy sounds if you insert them into breaks into a techno piece, for example.