KVR Audio

Kinh · Post by **Kinh** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 4:58 am

Omnisphere has a bigger range of distortion sounds.
I find additive synths tend to have a little more grit. Razor is good for that though there's not a lot in the factory presets, you have to make your own or rely on 3rd party. There's a preset library called 'Hell Razor' that mostly has those distorted sounds. I think I got them at Synthmob.

I produced a track using them but in the drop which is about 2:11.
The other distortion in the verse is Omnisphere, the new presets in version 2 I think..'Eight bit game lead' layered with 'biting the vowels lead'.
https://soundcloud.com/matthewcrowe/camouflage

dune_rave · Post by **dune_rave** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:00 am

Rob Papen RAW
FM8 / Plugin Guru Toxic soundbank

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:41 am

The original Waldorf Pulse is the grindiest synth I've ever used. There's no distortion effect, the grind comes from overdriving the filter with the oscillators (any 1 oscillator leveled above 100 distorts and all 3 oscillators can get up to 128).

Softsynth-wise, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the heartwobble of Dubstep: Massive.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:26 am

Synthsquad Cypher 2 is pretty dark and dirty.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:15 am

Woah!!! When did this creep up?

Firebird · Post by **Firebird** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:16 am

Any synth can be made dirty with the right effects. (distortion)

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:20 am

Uncle E wrote:Woah!!! When did this creep up?

It's not actually available.

As Seymour Cray so nearly said "All paper synths are grindier than a Cray".

Fred_Abstract · Post by **Fred_Abstract** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:30 am

just put a distortion after any synth , done

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:02 pm

It's a different sound when the distortion happens before/at the filter (TB303, Minimoog, Sub Phatty, Pulse) than after.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:03 pm

Well, some synths mentioned are very good at adding some distortion to things, but IMO, where rubber hits the road is in analog modeled audio rate modulation of the filter cut off, some filter drive and feedback. The king of this is Monark (though you can get this with Reaktor 6 using it's Blocks system). Another trick I use is Amplitube. Between its excellent tube amp emulation and fuzz/distortion boxes there's plenty of ways to get even the most crystalline synth sounding dirty.

HardSinc · Post by **HardSinc** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:26 am

ACE/Bazille/Reaktor/Absynth, though Alchemy is great at dirty sounds tbh, that distortion is on countless DnB tunes..

Are you aware you can filter out a specific portion of the frequencies, distort them and then mix the clean freqs' back in in Alchemy? Then modulate that?

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:31 am

Microbrute

Jbravo · Post by **Jbravo** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:37 am

this is pretty good:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/7033/

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 4:35 pm

zerocrossing wrote:Well, some synths mentioned are very good at adding some distortion to things, but IMO, where rubber hits the road is in analog modeled audio rate modulation of the filter cut off, some filter drive and feedback. The king of this is Monark (though you can get this with Reaktor 6 using it's Blocks system). Another trick I use is Amplitube. Between its excellent tube amp emulation and fuzz/distortion boxes there's plenty of ways to get even the most crystalline synth sounding dirty.

I agree. The trick is in not using the amp gear to a point where it becomes a 'modified guitar' sound though. It definitely can be done, but this is where Izotope's Trash2 really distorts without becoming overly 'guitar' grunge. I also mentioned Vinyl, although I really haven't used it yet except it the first opening of it after install. I generally hate how overused the 'vinyl' effect is used these days and often program them out of any patch that uses it, but I like the warp you can get out of this Izotope freebie and may be using it soon. It's kind of reminiscent of the old Herbie Hancock "run your Rhodes through an echoplex and don't be afraid to reach down and pull the tape to bend it" sound.

I'm also thinking that some of the synth mangler's like the u-he Filterscape might be a route to ring it out and dirty it up a bit?

In any event, I do think added effects is a better way to give more variables to reach the sound the OP is looking for.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 7:07 pm

BBFG# wrote:
zerocrossing wrote:Well, some synths mentioned are very good at adding some distortion to things, but IMO, where rubber hits the road is in analog modeled audio rate modulation of the filter cut off, some filter drive and feedback. The king of this is Monark (though you can get this with Reaktor 6 using it's Blocks system). Another trick I use is Amplitube. Between its excellent tube amp emulation and fuzz/distortion boxes there's plenty of ways to get even the most crystalline synth sounding dirty.
I agree. The trick is in not using the amp gear to a point where it becomes a 'modified guitar' sound though. It definitely can be done, but this is where Izotope's Trash2 really distorts without becoming overly 'guitar' grunge. I also mentioned Vinyl, although I really haven't used it yet except it the first opening of it after install. I generally hate how overused the 'vinyl' effect is used these days and often program them out of any patch that uses it, but I like the warp you can get out of this Izotope freebie and may be using it soon. It's kind of reminiscent of the old Herbie Hancock "run your Rhodes through an echoplex and don't be afraid to reach down and pull the tape to bend it" sound.

I'm also thinking that some of the synth mangler's like the u-he Filterscape might be a route to ring it out and dirty it up a bit?

In any event, I do think added effects is a better way to give more variables to reach the sound the OP is looking for.

I really love to use B2 for distortion FX. It really can create a fantastic distorted character without sounding "too" destroyed

Edit: After playing a bit around Falcon can create some really great distorted patches too but B2 is the absolute king for me to transform any synth into a dirty bastard with a very disturbing and dark character. It´s not just destroyed and loud it just sounds so different to me.....
Of course that might be just my flavour.

What's the dirtiest, darkest, grindiest synth out there?