What sound design/performance techniques or tricks have been bringing you joy lately? No fancy answers required. Although if you must give a fancy answer, go for it.
I’ve been enjoying going deep with aftertouch and making basically separate patches weave into each other.
Ring Mod.
Aah was just about to say this!
Slightly detuned ringmod for me
Big on init patch to something creamy/dreamy 80s on the Digitone and Analog Heat as an additional filter/saturator. Filters are awesome
Panning the Oscillators, the Ring and the Noise. Of course, the Synth has to have these features (are you listening Peak).
Short, granular-esque looping
that’s why i love my venerable Novation Nova Laptop — two ring mods per voice.
Deriving modulation from the main theme/groove (via pitch tracking, envelope followers) and using that to modulate stuff on other tracks and several different stages of intertwining modulation in general (basically stacking lfos and other mod sources).
One of the reasons I find OTs midi capabilities (three lfos, lfo designer, lfos modulating lfos, arps locked to scale on eight tracks) so amazing. You keep adding lfos and sometimes the waveforms simply lock to a magical pattern.
Also great on the Analog Keys with its neighbour tracks, dual lfos per track and multiple other mod sources.
Funny thing is, this has been my thing for years, but only now that I started doing techno, I can really explore it. Simple structures just like all sorts of intertwining modulatuon.
Edit, that’s not really synthesis, rather sound design…sry.
Favourite synthesis technique currently is Analog Keys feedback osc…
Distorting the shit out of everything
…i love pitchdrifts…slight detuned osc’s…combfiltering…phasing ring modulations…
warm crunch distortions…filterfrequency jumping…
never too much resonance…framedrumsounds…glitchoverstretch…
dark spaces in hard contrast to super narrow rooms…short delay feedbackflirring…endless flange curving…mouthsnippet collages…voicestacking…choirs…radioreamped powerchords…nightambience fieldrecordings…all kinds of bird sounds…
DN velocity mod, 4 bipolar destinations!
TR8-S step loop and Tape delay self oscillation.
Making guitar sounds on the digitone.
Sub37’s feedback and drive circuits.
Making patches on the Quadraverb.
Using the ring mod signal from two detuned oscillators to feed back into oscillator one with Oscillator two synced to oscillator one and both being sent independent CV signals into their 1v/Oct inputs, then saturating the shit out of everything with vacuum tubes, fet stages and an overdriven analogue EQ.
Interesting…Got anything I could listen to?
Big fan of audio rate modulations on analog synths. Especially AM and filter FM.
Currently don’t own one that is good at it though. Loved it on the moog semimodulars.
Also ringmod.
Also sounds with high resonance. I think most of the magic of the A4 lies in it‘s peak filter with high resonance + keytracking. So many sounds to be found
The dual analog BBD delay on my Matriarch turns everything into a nicely bitcrushed version of the original. Loving it!
that was a lot of fun when I owned one. Every drummachine should have this feature
Damn straight. If you’re making breaks (which is what I’m doing) then its the best fill creator ever and really makes the machine come alive, you can literally add fills and variations as a drummer would do.
I almost forgot : playing my MFC42 Filter as a Standalone unit using its Noise from the Distortion and then pass it through an FX Chain.
