We asked the experts: What’s your best tip or technique for synthesis/sound design?

1. Start by making a sound with the basic fundamentals, i.e. pad, acid, bass, lead etc… Then
from there keep working on the sound and experiment until something cool comes out. —
Bjorn Akesson, BjornAkesson.com
2. I find that it is so easy to waste time when it comes to creating synth sounds. Nowadays I’ll
tend to start with a preset of a sound that’s almost what I’m looking and manipulate the
sound from there. If I’m using a software synth I’ll always save my own preset to recall
later. Likewise, If I’m using hardware I’ll always take a picture of the settings if there’s no
option to save. — Kurt Martinez, KurtMartinez.co.uk
3. Take a simple drum sample and use pitch shifting, distortion and filtering and try to create
different sounds with it. Can you make a kick drum sample into a snare drum or hihat using
just those tools? — Cristofer Odqvist, Magnetic Sound
4. Convolution reverb in iZotope Trash2. it’s the single easiest way to make a sound more
‘professional’, interesting, and unique. importantly, use the dry/wet slider as you definitely
don’t always want it 100% wet. — Adam Pollard, Multiplier
5. Bounce to audio, especially in Ableton. It’s insane how much you can change a sound with
warp modes alone. Also, running virtually anything through granulator 2 always results in
some interesting stuff. — Nolan Petruska, Frequent
6. Tweak and…tweak! Try new combos, new effects, new oscillators, the only way to get new
sounds. — Mauro “Kenji” Serra, Music Producer
7. Don’t worry too much about creating a library of sounds outside the context of a specific
composition. Every sound lends itself to various compositional ideas and when there is
synergy there might be magic. — Alex White, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
8. I love just taking ordinary sounds and then processing them heavily with effects. Sometimes
I’ll cut the sounds up weird and even resample them so the new sound can be played on the
keyboard again. — Ashton Price, Morph Productions
9. Movement. It’s all about movement. Variances in velocity, pitch, or even just a subtle LFO
on a filter will go a long way. It’ll take a simple sound and make it more interesting and
natural. — Brett Edwards, DJBrettEdwards.com
10.Do separate sessions that are devoted solely to sound design. This helps you to focus solely
on the music when you are producing and keeps you from getting bogged down in technical
tweaking land. — Matthew Tryba, MatthewTryba.com
11.Start with a preset, and tweak until you get what you want. It’s way faster (and way easier)
to start with a decent preset, and tweak it until you get what you’re looking for. If you need
to learn how to tweak synth patches, try Syntorial. — John Lavido, JohnLavido.com
12.Use simple parts, but layer — Jimmy Deer, JimmyDeer.com
13.You have to believe there’s something new out there waiting for you to find it. — Ark
Patrol, ArkPatrol.net
14.I absolutely love resampling my OWN track ideas and sounds. Are you bored with a song
you’ve worked so hard on? Speed it up or slow it down and render ‘odd’ sounding elements
to an audio file. Chop those samples up and start a new track with these resampled elements
of the track that grew stale. — Lee TNB, The New Beatmaker
15.Layering is the key to achieving the professional sound. It can be used to make sounds
richer and fatter but using the attack of one layer and release of another can add sonic
variation to catch your listeners ears. Employ different ADSR parameters on each layer so
that the sound continually morphs between the different layers. — Rick Snoman, Dance
Music Production
16.I tend to focus on a background ambient bed before going crazy with front-facing content.
Tons of discernible sounds will still sound out of place if there isn’t the basic “air’y” sounds
of life behind them. — Marc Plotkin, MarcPlotkin.com
17.Get yourself an analog synth that doesn’t use any presets (something like a Korg ms20
mini). This will force you to start from scratch every time you use it and will ensure you
have a better understanding of synthesis after some time. — Idan Altman, IdanAltman.com
18.When you are sound designing this is a great time to be as extreme and creative as possible
with your processing. This also makes it a great time to explore and learn the parameters of
your hardware or plug-ins. Kill two birds with one stone. — SoundOracle,
SoundOracle.com
19.After you are done with a mix, listen to it. It’s that simple. No really, listen to it. Listen to it
in the car. In earbuds. On the home theater system. Really take moments to listen to your
mix any and everywhere! I’ve found listening to your mix in the studio over and over really
limits the ability to pinpoint flaws, because your studio’s system is top notch! You can hear a
fly sneeze, that’s how clear they are. Take the mix and listen on different systems, critique it
and from there you will get the best mix possible. — Chris Adams, Von Joie Music Group
20.YouTube is a godsend for sound design. There are so many different tutorials on all the
major synthesizers. Watch as many as you can stomach for whichever synthesizers you are
using. You’ll be an expert in no time. — Phil Ber, PhilBer.com
21.Make sure to utilize your EQ, a little bit of EQing can turn the most awful sound into
something beautiful. Also, use plugins that aren’t meant for your instrument, for example
use a plugin meant for guitar on a piano sample. Something cool could come out of it. —
James TenNapel, Syndrome
22.Start with simple sounds, as sound design can be incredibly overwhelming when you’re new
to it. Most of the best, most usable sounds in electronic music are simple, and they have
stood the test of time. Learn the basics of subtractive synthesis, and try to restrict yourself to
just one synthesizer/plugin to start with. — Paul Laski, P-LASK
23.Experiment. Learn, read books on subtractive, additive, frequency modulation, phase
modulation, granular synthesis. Some types of synthesis work better for specific genres! I
prefer FM and Additive for EDM! Subtractive is great for hip-hop but, as I said,
EXPERIMENT! — Florin Mitru, Kugelbleatz
24.Learn about the 7 basic elements of a synthesizer and what they do; Oscillator, Pitch
Envelope, Filter, Filter Envelope, Amplifier, Volume Envelope and LFO. Once you know
how to use those elements really well designing any sound you want becomes easy. —
Thomas Glendinning, ELPHNT
25.Layers are your friend when you’re sound designing. A sound by itself may not work but
once you’ve added other sounds it can really transform into something cool. — James
Nagel, JamesNagel.com
26.Learn Scales Octive Roots and Triads — Cairo Dyvine, CDyvine Muzik Group