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Making a Psytrance Lead

Making a Psytrance Lead

May 29th 2012

Nuborn guide us through making a PsyTrance lead synth sound using Novation’s V-Station and Antares FilterVST

Section 1: Programming the V-Station (sawtooth) – Skip to the end of the tutorial to hear an example of the finished sound!

1.) Open V-Station on the first preset setting “bass1”
2.) Turn Off the Effects
3.) Turn OSC1 mixer gain to full and the rest completely down.
4.) In the filter section Put Freq to full, and res down
5.) In the Amp Env section move dec & sustain to full and release down

6.) Click the “extra” tab at the top right
7.) In the envolope section put prog level to the maximum
8.) In the Oscillators section put pre-glide to full
9.) in the Portamento section put the time up to about two thirds

Section 2: Applying FilterVST (band pass filter)

1.) Open Filter Vst as an insert on the v-station synth
2.) In the master section find tempo source and select the midi button
3.) In section 1 change the lowpass filter to a band pass filter
4.) Move the frequence up to about 1.0kHz and the Q to about 5%
5.) In the source section click on the 1 button
6.) Move the amount up to about two thirds
7.) In the FG 1 section click the sync to master button amd select a dotted crotchet in the beats section
8.) Go back to the source section and click on the 2 button
9.) In the dest section which currently states FI frequency, change this to F1 Pan and move the amount upto about two thirds
10.) Go to FG 2 and select the sync to master button and leave it on the crotchet
11.) Click on the on button for section 2
12.) In section 2 change the lowpass filter to a High pass filter
13.) Turn the Q down and the freq to 333hz
14.) in the filter routing section select button 6

Section 3: applying CamelCrusher (distortion)

1.) Place Camel Crusher as an insert on the V-Station after the FilterVST and leave on its factory setting. You can download Camel Crusher free from Camel Audio.

Section 4: Applying Delay

1.) Place a delay such as Bionic Delay as an insert on the V-Station after the FilterVST. You can download Bionic Delay free here. A good substitiue would be Expert Sleepers Ping Pong.
2.) Choose “ping pong 1/4”

Section 5: Suggestions for writing the riff…

1.) As the lead is more of a tonal effect than a melodic tool find a key which sounds good with the track this may not nesacerily be the key of the bass (as the portamento is up on the V-Station tone of the notes played has changed)

2.) I find that choppy parts sound great with this lead (reference riff example picture) however this is just one example, all parameters on the filter vst such as the freq position or lfo speeds (FG1/FG2) can be changed to suit the style your after!

3.) Different types of distortion will also change the character for example the harder the distortion the more ‘acidy’ it sounds and the less you apply the ‘squelchier’ it’ll sound!