# How to make synths, pulses, pads sound more human



## ein fisch (Jul 22, 2018)

Hello

When i do cinematic sounddesign, mainly in form of pulses and pads, the steadyness of the synths always makes it sound very synthetic and boring. To make them sound more natural to my ears i sometimes add random flangers (not in tempo sync) or delays. But i dont always like those effect.

*So* do you know of plugins that offer non-tempo synced automation for filtering, distortion or anything for atmospheric / textural sounddesign? Or what is your approach to do this type of sounds.

Have a nice sunday
Fisch


----------



## mouse (Jul 22, 2018)

Soundtoys plugins. Buy the bundle!


----------



## ein fisch (Jul 22, 2018)

mouse said:


> Soundtoys plugins. Buy the bundle!



Thanks mouse. Are those plugins specialized on that form of ambient / atmospheric sounddesign?


----------



## mouse (Jul 22, 2018)

Watch the videos and you'll see what they do. They basically can add loads of unusual movement and modulation to any sound


----------



## gsilbers (Jul 22, 2018)

There are a bunch of options in this field.
Trancegatter or Fox seq with delay and or reverb can work great. 
I love camel audio space for that but it got discontinued and only available in Logic Pro as a plugin call step fx.

Sinevibes plugins are great as well.

For synth stuff is also good to look at the edm world. This is where junkie xl and hand zimmer get their production chops and use them in the film world.
One example is having a boring pulse synth part repeat but every 4 bars have different effect and some sort of turn around on the 8th or 16rh bar. You can create different tracks In your daw, each w it’s own fx chain and that synth pulse alternate track every 4 bars.


----------



## YaniDee (Jul 22, 2018)

The obvious choice...DS Audio Tantra..Currently on sale for 29$.. .


----------



## midi-et-quart (Jul 22, 2018)

I think you could take a look at some granular synths which, in most cases, allow you to use your own samples.

I particularly enjoy this one: http://fracturesounds.com/product/granulate/

This one is free: https://www.samplefuel.com/drop

Here a must-see video about how to make a drone in real-time:


----------



## Nao Gam (Jul 22, 2018)

Do you use fm & sample based synthesis? If not, these would probably help you more than a bunch of effect plugins


----------



## Saxer (Jul 22, 2018)

In most cases it should be possible to modulate the sound source directly before adding fx. In synth patches filter movements are most effective beside changing of attack and release times. In sample world (pads) it's stacking of sounds while dividing a pad into the basic tonal pad, additional sample world textures like string patches, choirs, guitars... a noise part like water waves, rain, jets, forest athmos etc... and accidental tonal movement like bell trees, wind chimes... whatever. Fading those elements in and out is a simple way to get motion. Every element of this pads can have an own fx chain, reverbs, distortion, delays, time stretching... sounds complicated but actually it's quite easy to do. Takes some time though and you can get lost in sound making rather easily...


----------



## Wally Garten (Jul 22, 2018)

Saxer said:


> In most cases it should be possible to modulate the sound source directly before adding fx.



Yeah -- this is the best place to start. Most softsynths have LFOs, envelopes, and noise sources that can be used to vary the various parameters -- or, for more randomness, you can do MIDI drawing for each parameter in your DAW. (Well, "MIDI Draw" is what Logic calls it -- not sure about other DAWs.)

But there are also some great aftermarket effects that can be made to do non-tempo-synced filtering/modulation. One I use a lot is the Arturia Mini Filter, based on the classic Moog filter. It has an LFO, an envelope follower, and a step sequencer. I usually use these in sync mode, because I'm trying to get rhythmic effects, but if you turned the "Sync" switches off and ran the LFO and the step sequencer at different speeds, I imagine you could get a reasonably good aleatoric effect.

I also agree with the Soundtoys recommendation above. They have delay, echo, phaser, and filter effects that can be uncoupled from the track tempo and that will give you lots of additional texture and variation over the length of a pad.


----------



## Greg (Jul 22, 2018)

Echoboy is fantastic for making synths come alive. Specifically the Ambient Echoes preset. It also does subtle pitch shifting, which is what most synth junkies love about analog gear. Decapitator for adding nice harmonics and subtle distortion. Filter Freak is kinda like an automated eq where you can add movement to different frequencies. 

EQ modulation is one of my favorite techniques in general for all sorts of synth sounds. It's especially nice to modulate eq to drive certain frequencies into a nice tube emulating distortion. Creates a nice ebb and flow to the sound.

Another cool way to make pads more organic and interesting is time stretching. Paul stretch is my go to plugin for that. Go crazy with synth arpeggios, then stretch them to oblivion in paul stretch. It creates such interesting harmonic soundscapes. I'm always amazed at the results!


----------



## Tiggerdyret (Jul 22, 2018)

Wally Garten said:


> Yeah -- this is the best place to start. Most softsynths have LFOs, envelopes, and noise sources that can be used to vary the various parameters -- or, for more randomness, you can do MIDI drawing for each parameter in your DAW. (Well, "MIDI Draw" is what Logic calls it -- not sure about other DAWs.)
> 
> But there are also some great aftermarket effects that can be made to do non-tempo-synced filtering/modulation. One I use a lot is the Arturia Mini Filter, based on the classic Moog filter. It has an LFO, an envelope follower, and a step sequencer. I usually use these in sync mode, because I'm trying to get rhythmic effects, but if you turned the "Sync" switches off and ran the LFO and the step sequencer at different speeds, I imagine you could get a reasonably good aleatoric effect.
> 
> I also agree with the Soundtoys recommendation above. They have delay, echo, phaser, and filter effects that can be uncoupled from the track tempo and that will give you lots of additional texture and variation over the length of a pad.


+1 to this. And don't forget the mod wheel or automating with midi controllers. I love modulating a handful of parameters with the wheel and play it myself. 
And velocity modulation can also really humanize the sound if done correctly. I think what you are looking for is a very subtle approach where you feel the change more than you hear it, so keep the modulation depth small.


----------



## ein fisch (Jul 22, 2018)

Thank you all for all the replies. I will go trough each one of them tomorrow and try to find my way. I already had a look at soundtoys now and im impressed by their plugins.

@Nao Gam yes, right now im experimenting alot with FM synthesis. I know that there are lots of modulation options, but there are those creative delays / reverbs and phasers that im missing.


----------



## Cinebient (Jul 29, 2018)

I almost always layer pads and no pad sound normally is coming from one synth. I also prefer combining synths and sample libraries for this plus some extra FX on each of them and play it as one "texture". 
F.e. this is (at least at the first 2 minutes and the last minute just one live played pad. In this case mostly Alchemy.


----------



## dgburns (Jul 29, 2018)

One thing not mentioned is to use convolution, like as in Space designer or even Altiverb. Throw up a source that messes with your original signal, endless possibilities. Or a vocoder type approach where you have a carrier and a modulator. So you can use an audio file of something to modulate the carrier signal which is your synth. It imposes the movement in the audio file to your synth sound.


----------



## ein fisch (Jul 29, 2018)

dgburns said:


> One thing not mentioned is to use convolution, like as in Space designer or even Altiverb. Throw up a source that messes with your original signal, endless possibilities. Or a vocoder type approach where you have a carrier and a modulator. So you can use an audio file of something to modulate the carrier signal which is your synth. It imposes the movement in the audio file to your synth sound.


is there a reason for using convolution here instead of just algorithmic verbs like valhalla? i was messing around with vocodex today in the morning and actually had the same idea. sadly didnt fot any useful sounds yet but ill keep trying things out.


----------



## dgburns (Jul 29, 2018)

ein fisch said:


> is there a reason for using convolution here instead of just algorithmic verbs like valhalla? i was messing around with vocodex today in the morning and actually had the same idea. sadly didnt fot any useful sounds yet but ill keep trying things out.



Forgive me for being unclear. I'm talking about using a convo plugin, but using non reverb impulses. In Logic's Space Designer, there are other categories, so convo is not just for reverb. Actually I think it's the best argument for convo; non-reverb impulses to modulate and alter sounds and otherwise just get whacky.

So for example, take an impulse sound that has movement in it and apply that to your vanilla synth. Endless possibilities, but to be sure, the right impulse is what matters here, so you need to find stuff that's cool for your specific sound source.


----------



## FabMrT (Aug 29, 2018)

Hi,
This might be just semantic thing, but when people talk about synths having organic/human feels vs. digital/stifff/steady, in my mind that has to do more with programming the patch, rather than fx you put on top of the synth. So I would spend my time on creating all kinds of micro modulations (sample&hold or random waveform) for pitch and frequency. You could modulate the modulation sources as well. Also if your soft synth allow, let the oscilators run free. It's good idea to make the synth react to velocity in many levels, not just filter. I tend to let the velocity affect pitch of one or multiple oscilators, perhaps filter resonance and filter as well, phase etc. Layering effects on top of static sound is not likely going to yield interesting results. But when the basic sound source interesting (there is movement happening), then the affects that you put on top can really make things shine.


----------



## joyneski (Aug 29, 2018)

YaniDee said:


> The obvious choice...DS Audio Tantra


I could probably do most of what Tantra does with software I already had, but man, it makes it so much easier to modulate so many effects. 
One of my favourite tricks is adjusting one of the preset rhythms so it loops every (say) 31 steps instead of 32, et voila; instant polyrhythms. Really well-designed piece of software.


----------



## shawnsingh (Sep 5, 2018)

Back to the OP's original question, I think there's also a choice of how you frame the task and how you position your mindset to do it, which can actually help get the richness you're looking for. 

Instead of "designing a synth pulse" to be triggered by one MIDI note, it could be "designing a synth loop" that could span multiple tracks. Instead of "designing a pad" to be played with just a chord, it could be "designing an evolving soundscape" that would bring attention to the idea of having multiple layers that evolve together and can be tweaked separately to make a whole.

Another similar idea, it's kind of like top-down versus bottom-up. Bottom-up would be like starting with raw oscillators, and incrementally moving down the processing chain of the synth to configure oscillators, filters, envelopes, etc. For me, that's more like sound exploration. top-down can be more goal-oriented, where you may have a vague idea of what you hear in your head, and you can identify properties of the vision in your head which translate to how you configure the synth. It might end up looking the same - i.e. setting up oscillators and filters first, but still I think there's enough difference in the mental creativity process of bottom-up vs top-down, it's worth considering which way feels more productive and creative for you =)


----------

