Transcription
Ever wonder why your favorite band's synths sound so heavy and evil? Today, I'm showing you ways to make any synth sound darker and meaner.
First thing that makes a scent sound evil isn't even distortion. It's instability. If two oscillators are perfectly in tune, it sounds safe. The moment you d-tune one by just a few% they start fighting. You can push this further with slight random automation on the pitch. or uneven unison voices. The key is not going crazy. This kind of sound design shows up a lot in Ojob's music. For example, the lead scent in Dead Market. Love that track.
Noise might seem obvious, but it can destroy a sound fast if you're not careful. There's so many types of noise. White, pink. But I feel like the magic happens when you combine noise with distortion. This is a technique that was used a lot on Mick Gordon's Doom soundtrack. For example, white noise contains every frequency. So when you distort it, the harmonics just explode. You can filter it or even use it to FM your oscillator slightly. The trick is not to hear the noise clearly, but to feel it corrupting the tone underneath. You can hear oscillators being modulated by noise through FM in heartshaped glasses by Marilyn Manson.
Micro instability is really where a sound starts to turn evil. I'm not talking about obvious modulation. I mean tiny almost imperceptible movement. Just a few% of pitch modulation. A bit of inconsistency in the unison voices or a touch of FM that's barely moving. on their own, you almost can't hear it, but when you stack them together, they add up. The more flexible your modulation matrix is, the better it works. That's why since like the Waldorf Idium or Serum 2 are perfect for this kind of work.
By the way, big thanks to Analog Cases for sending over these synth stands. This one's the XTS Duallex desktop stand. I only work with brands I genuinely like, and these are honestly perfect, super solid, easy to set up, and they just make the studio feel cleaner. I'll leave the link in the description. Go show them some love.
Using multiple filter automations is another way to create that unstable evolving movement. Instead of just modulating one cutff, try moving two filters at different speeds. They're never perfectly in sync. So, the tone is constantly shifting in unpredictable ways. It feels like it's constantly shifting in real time. And that subtle instability is what gives it that dark vibe. Recent Frontline Assembly or Ree Fulber solo work has a lot of filter movement going on. The sounds are constantly evolving.
I know that I talk about FM all the time on this channel, but honestly, it's probably the best way to make a patch sound evil. FM with unstable ratios is a killer way to make a sound feel more evil. Front 242 were absolute masters of those heavy FM tones. Instead of using clean harmonic ratios, try those in between values, the slightly wrong ones.
So, at the end of the day, making a synth sound evil isn't about just cranking distortion or picking some dark preset. It's about instability, imperfections, and creativity. If you're a music producer, check out my Patreon page and my website for syn presets and samples. Thanks for watching. Ciao.