Deep Chords

[Lunatik]

hello,

does someone have some tips for creating those deep chord sounds which are very popular in dub techno music?

or any other nice tunings for chords which sounds just, ehm, deep

i have one chord tuning which sounds nice:

osc1: 0
osc2: +3
osc3: +7
osc4: +10
osc5: +14

nothing new, i know...

please share some tricks, tips and techniques. thank you!

[disturb]

checkout tonespace (only goes up to tetrachords though).
Can help picking up some good soundings intervals and dial that in your synth if you like the osc transpose thing.
Detuning each osc a bit can really help to get the sound you're after imo...

[Lunatik]

tonespace looks interesting. i will try this one out. thanks!

a good thing can be to use different sounds for every note. layer and tune them can bring good results i found out...

any other tips?

[JumpingJackFlash]

i have one chord tuning which sounds nice:

osc1: 0
osc2: +3
osc3: +7
osc4: +10
osc5: +14

If these are semitones (half-steps), then this is a Minor 9th chord.

You could also experiment with the Diminished Seventh:
0
+3
+6
+9
(+12)

Or the Half-Diminished Seventh:
0
+3
+6
+10
(+12)

Or the Augmented Seventh:
0
+4
+8
+10
(+12)

For explanations and examples of these chords, consult my post on Scales, Modes and Chords.

[Lunatik]

thanks,
is it possible that the Half-Diminished Seventh was used in "inner city - good life" ?

would be great if you could post some more examples with tunings. ..

also it would be nice when anyone can tell a bit about the sound design part of making chords... for example what waveforms are good, what kind of modulation, what kind of fx...

sometimes i like to use very bright sounding waves with short snappy filter decay...

[Lagrange]

checkout tonespace (only goes up to tetrachords though).
Can help picking up some good soundings intervals and dial that in your synth if you like the osc transpose thing.
Detuning each osc a bit can really help to get the sound you're after imo...

tonespace..

[JumpingJackFlash]

would be great if you could post some more examples with tunings. ..

You could also experiment with Augmented Sixth chords, but these are somewhat complicated; they will only work if you treat them correctly, otherwise they will just sound like a random group of notes. Details can be found in my Introduction to Chromatic Harmony.

There are three forms of the Augmented Sixth; Italian, French and German. They all occurring on the flattened sixth or flattened second of the scale in either major or minor key. On the sixth is more common, for example:

Italian Sixth:
+8
+12
+18

French Sixth:
+8
+12
+14
+18

German Sixth:
+8
+12
+15
+18


They should all move to the dominant chord:
+7
+11
+14
+19

Also, the chord before the Augmented Sixth is important. The lowest note should be either tonic or submediant (0 or +9), and the last note should be either first, third, fourth or fifth degrees of the major scale (0, +4, +5, or +7), or if in the minor, the first, fourth, fifth or (natural) sixth (0, +5, +7, or +8 ).

As I said though, these are complex, and are best left until after you have familiarised yourself with the more simpler chords.