Sound designer / trance tutorial here

[MBTC]

Every now and then a question is posted asking for info on where to learn more on synth programming. I ran across some videos here that may be of interest, especially to those interested in trance (there is some general synthesis and sound design theory though). What's interesting is they are based on sound design examples from Adam Szabo, who is a fantastic artist / producer.

http://sdc1.trancemusicmastery.com/

One thing that's kind of interesting is that Zebra2 is used as the tutorial synth, and also in the interviews on www.adamszabo.com, he mentions Zebra2 several times as his preferred goto synth. Yes, Adam owns a Virus, it is visible in some of his studio photos, but I understand why Zebra2 is still his goto synth; it is my overall favorite softsynth as well. It's also the synth that Howard Scarr now works on (the gentleman who gained a lot of fame for his Virus programming). There are some synths that are easier to learn, initially, and I've still never understood why they continue to release it without presets that truly do it justice, but I've been using it for over 3 years and its one of those gems that turns out to be like a prized piece of old analog gear -- except this one never wears out

[korman709]

yes i checked out but it didnt help me. but thanks for your post.

[MBTC]

To reference the discussion in http://www.infekted.org/virus/showth...178#post300178 which seems to be continuing here:

Without knowing what aspect of it you found missing, it's hard to help further. But basically creating hypersaw/supersaw is very simple, take a saw wave, add more (either literally or via unison features), detune them or modify their phase to achieve detuning to achieve desired thickness.

The characteristic that most people refer to when they refer to hardstyle is a rapid pitch fluctuation, usually upon note change (but could be via envelope as well), that part is not covered in those videos but just play around with legato/porta on whatever synth you're using and I think it will become apparent.

Now, if what you want is a synth lead that really exceeds the quality of the out of box Virus presets, and starts to get into the territory of sound-design geniuses like Howard Scarr or Adam Szabo, you would do well to understand about how things look under an oscilloscope, because it's that attention to specific harmonics that give a special level of wetness or grittiness and combine them with movement of same. This is what will really catch people's attention and make them want to imitate your sound.

To that end, the videos I provided might warrant a bit more of a time committment but will give you a better fundamental understanding than most of the brief youtube videos, and also cover the technique I mentioned above in detail.

Best of luck and have fun crafting sounds.