Best synth for dub chords (dub techno)

The Lounge Other Gear
#22

If you are looking for the quintessential wavetable synth for chords, that is the Waldorf Wave. I’m lucky enough to have a copy of Mike Huckaby’s sample pack My Life with the Wave, which is mostly a bunch of sustained minor 9th chords that simply ooze character.

I spent a good while replicating some “wavy” sounds with ableton operator, and got great results. You can pretty much A/B anything until they sound the same, as long as you have the same synthesis options available. But the reason you get any given synth is for the sweet spots and workflow.

That said, you could get a blofeld, or any Waldorf wavetable synth in your budget. The wave is impossible to find, and if you do, will be out of your budget

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#23

I don’t know about the best for dub chords, but the Fred’s Lab Töörö checks a lot of you boxes in a small midi controllable wavetable synthesizer.

https://fredslab.net/en/tooro-module.php

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#24

Man, if you ever post that sample pack please let me know. I have been looking for it forever.

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#25

You will have lots of fun with the analog keys or four. And plenty of videos on YouTube to show you just how to dial it in.

#26

I think any synth can do basic dub chords, the most important thing in my opinion are the effects. You need to have a good tape delay (Boss RE-20) and a lush sounding mod reverb (TC Electronic Hall Of Fame - these are the effects I use for mine dubz). Also a phaser is recommended for some movement (Basic Channel used some phaser fx for their beautiful and dark chords).

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#27

As all the fellow mates said, you can achieve the classical dub techno chord with any synth, it’s more important how do you post-process this chord.
I had very good chords with Monomachine and Analog Four, and still loving the chords with Volca bass, for example

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#28

Can’t resist to share some fragments I’m personally quite happy with as Digitone dub techno. More the gritty sounding type :

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#29

Waldorf M is a great choice.

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#30

the second track is soooo lovely
i really miss my digitone now :((

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#31

And another confirmation. Digitone is amazing for dub

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#32

agree, I have your sound pack :grinning:

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#33

:slightly_smiling_face::+1:t2: nice! Yeah lots of dubbiness in there

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#34

Just get a volca bass, it has 3 oscs, process it :slight_smile:

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#35

Sounds great, digitone only?

#36

Sounds marvy. I like Waldorf Microwave 1 for this type of sound. Like someone else said ^^ 9th chords on a Waldorf Microwave 1 or Wave were once the secret for Basic channel sound

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#37

whatever you can run through 32 busses of reverb and delay

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#38

DN indeed. Pattern 2 some Digitone chords sampled loops thru Lyra-8 distortion circuit into digitakt as extra off beat layer. DT Delay times and base width filter sequenced with dn miditrack. DT does the kick

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#39

I’m definitely going to try to get some dub techno going with my AR MK1. Based on my first few days with it I think the synth engines are capable of a lot more than just drum and percussive sounds.

I also had the thought to use some sampled chords (from software) with lots of harmonics and noise and no filtering and then use the analogue filters and LFO to get that dub techno sound.

#40

+1 for the Volca Bass another +1 for the A4. Used both alot.

So to my ears Kork Volca Bass + Roland Dimension D chorus sound like instant basic channel vibe due the nice sound character of the Volca Bass sawthooth and the filter. Add some delay and reverb.

To my ears some basic channel tracks sound like a juno 60/106 with the chorus. But in tracks like “Domina” the synths sound more similar to a prophet 5 (or 6).

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#41

I’m not overly familiar with Basic Channel (I’ve heard some). I have a 106 and I am focusing on an early Detroit techno type sound at the moment, so I’ve been making a lot of chords. The 106 is “only” one oscilator per voice, but the square, saw, sub and noise play in parallel, rather than you having to pick one or two of them. You can push a lot of interacting frequencies into the filter with this. It gives the filter a lot to work with. The envelope is quite nice too. My current favorite thing for “good chords” (and bass, actually) is to set the amp to “gate” (so it’s just on/off) and use the envelop only for the filter. I find the 106 easier to get “techno chords” than my Rev2, for example.

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