Synth lead sound that isn't cheesy?

[Dr. Caligari]

Is it possible? How would you go about it?

Most synth leads/solos I hear in guitar based music sound pretty cheesy and not really aggressive. I think it's often just a distorted saw wave or something similar but not really sure... I'd like something more aggressive but I'm not sure exactly how.

Anybody got tips?

 

[MUTANTOID]

Do you have examples of what you're looking for?

 

[jvms]

What kinds of synth leads are you talking about? Jens Johansson, Wirman, Rudess and Sherinian do fit the distorted synth category, but they do sound agressive in their own way. I don't think it sounds cheesy at all.

Maybe listen to Joost Van Den Broek's solo on this Ayreon Track: Maybe it's what you are looking for.

Take a listen to the Doom 16 and Doom Eternal Soundtracks. They have some high, screechy trance like sounds. Super distorted and ballsey.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

For some people synths are cheesy because their sound comes from cheesy 70/80s music. I’ll always remember my friend saying he liked Bodom but hated the synths cause they were cheesy sounding.

Mick Gordon uses very aggressive synth in the Doom soundtrack:


You’d need to dive into synthwave, techno, some dubstep to find other examples outside of metal.

 

[spudmunkey]

I've always loved the synthy sounds in this song:




As well as a bunch of stuff from the various Skinny Puppy spinoffs (cEvin Key, Ohgr, etc)

 

[jvms]

For some people synths are cheesy because their sound comes from cheesy 70/80s music. I’ll always remember my friend saying he liked Bodom but hated the synths cause they were cheesy sounding.

Mick Gordon uses very aggressive synth in the Doom soundtrack:


You’d need to dive into synthwave, techno, some dubstep to find other examples outside of metal.

Yeah, Bodom saddly stepped into the cheese with the Orchestral Hit samples. I fucking hate that sound so much. But if we are being anal about it, it's not a synthsizer sound, it's a sampled sound. Apparently OP has a problem with synthsizer leads.

Oh, and that was the Doom track I was thinking about. Sick tone.

 

[Dr. Caligari]

Bodom/Strato are the cheesy kinds I'm talking about. It just sounds too "synth" and too weak.

Listening to the recs. Also I keep my ears peaked when I listen to synthwave but it needs to cut through massive quad+ tracked guitars and I think a lot of stuff isn't up to that task, even if it sounds good by itself.

I might try stacking some random stuff and hitting it hard with distortion. Maybe add a fifth to make a power chordy thing. And maybe avoid too synthy stuff like simple saw waves. If I could take stuff that sounds more like a guitar di and stack it a bunch of times, maybe detune each part a bit, I feel like that could do it. But I'm not even sure how to do that practically. I have a rompler type hardware synth but it's mostly got acoustic guitars and those won't be dry sounding enough I don't think.

I want it huge, angry and wild. And cutting. Like a guitar but better, ideally.

 

[budda]

So run it through a fuzz

 

[Emperoff]

Mick Gordon uses very aggressive synth in the Doom soundtrack:


You’d need to dive into synthwave, techno, some dubstep to find other examples outside of metal.

That was awesome.

 

[MFB]

That was awesome.

Watch Mick Gordon's GDC talk about the behind the scenes on how he did the music for it; it's so unlike anything else I've seen for a game/music design, but it makes perfect sense for DOOM's application.

 

[bostjan]

I want it huge, angry and wild. And cutting. Like a guitar but better, ideally.

Have you considered recording the leads you want on guitar and then doubling with a synth? Sometimes DAW software can even convert the audio track into MIDI for you, so it's fairly easy to do. Then simply play with your plugins until something sounds decent, hit the EQ until it sounds complimentary to the guitar track, and then mix accordingly.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

So run it through a fuzz

This is the answer. Or a RAT. Also synths sound better coming out of an amp IMO.

I think Cult of Luna does some really great aggressive synth sounds, though perhaps a bit more on the "atmospheric" side of things. They are, however, undeniably heavy and the synth features prominently in most if not all of their compositions. Neurosis also does some really cool stuff with synths in the context of very heavy sounds, though I don't have any good examples offhand.



EDIT: Neurosis synth sounds
best listened in context of the whole song, but the real juicy bits are at 4:20 and then 7:00ish
you can hear the synth building to it weaving throughout the whole song
I saw them live once and this track in particular was absolutely breathtaking

EDIT2: this live version is even better than the studio version

 

[bostjan]

You can also run synth plugins through an amp sim with an IR, which beefs it up.

 

[Dr. Caligari]

Cult of Luna

Why is this band so good and why have I barely listened to them before........

 

[Dr. Caligari]

I think there's some really solid ideas in here.

Some reflections:

IR/speaker is probably a really good idea. My rompler has that but annoyingly not as a "master effect" so I can't use it on blended sounds. I prefer using hardware because it's easier to pull off live at a later time.

Doubling with guitar is also good and I do it sometimes but sometimes I give a part to the keys because it's too damn difficult to play on guitar.

Pedals are good, I want to experiment with that but I'm not a pedal junkie so don't have so many.

I'm mainly looking for that sharp cutting "like a guitar" sound. I love the more atmospheric stuff as well but I have that stuff more dialed already.

I saw someone on youtube pile distortion on a square wave and it sounded quite good. Like where a guitar would have sounded more mushy with more distortion the square wave instead got more and more gnarly. So I want to mess around with that. Maybe put that through an amp/speaker sim.

And I also want to try treating things more like guitar, so getting a good dry-ish clean sound and then doing the distortion/amp thing.

Have to do some experimenting for sure...

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Why is this band so good and why have I barely listened to them before........

Happy to spread the good word! They have a lot of material and none of it is bad.

 

[Spazilator]

Mick Gordon really knows how to make some hard hitting and aggressive music, hands down. He sampled a chainsaw and a lawnmower and various other sounds and ran them through an “apparatus” to get some of the guitar-like sounds for Doom 2016. Watch some stuff on YouTube about it, it’s not only interesting and informative but inspirational as well.

I find the synth sounds Born of Osiris use are pretty aggressive without using too much distortion- it seems the application depends on shaping your wave or using a sample that compliments the guitar.

Examples from “Angel or Alien”:

The synth lead in “Poster Child” is used throughout the song and provides the main structure while the guitar is mostly rhythm, while the synth in “Crossface” is more subtle and emerges later, supporting the guitar but it adds an integral part of the song.

There are other examples off that album, take a listen! I have read some think that it might not be BoO’s very best work to date, but I believe it’s some of their best synth work.

Sorry to fanboy lol

 

[Dr. Caligari]

Happy to spread the good word! They have a lot of material and none of it is bad.

I think I always thought they were Lacuna Coil because of the name and was like no thx.

 

[Dr. Caligari]

He sampled a chainsaw and a lawnmower and various other sounds and ran them through an “apparatus”

Wow that's pretty wild, I must check that out...

 

[ShredmasterD]

listen to jan hammer on some jeff beck CD's back in the day. star cycle comes to mind.