How do you synthesize a snare using Ableton's Wavetable synth?

[JeanSelway]

Hey everyone,

I've been experimenting with Ableton's Wavetable synth recently, and I'm trying to synthesize a snare drum sound with it. However, I haven't seen many tutorials or resources on this topic using Ableton's Wavetable, and I'm not sure how to add white noise to the sound.

Does anyone have any tips or techniques for synthesizing a snare sound with Wavetable? Specifically, I'm wondering how to incorporate white noise into the sound. How do I control the pitch envelope to create that snare tone?

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance!

[HOTF]

You can basically think of any percussion sound in three components : Tone/body, Noise/texture and click/transient.
For the tone/body I would recommend starting with a sine wavetable (the default one) and than add a tight pitch env on that oscillator. Experiment until you find a sweet spot. For the Noise/texture use a noise wavetable i don't remeber the name of the collection but their is a collection with noisy wavetables. adjust volume to taste and make sure to send that noise into a hi pass filter. Now adjust the amp enveloppe to shape the overall contour of the sound.

If you want a more in depth explanation go read this article : https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... -synthesis

I also like the way Felix Fleer explained drum synthesis in this video :

Hope that helps

[NonlinearSystem]

I've found it easier to get noise from operator when making snares in Ableton, but if you want to have it coming from Wavetable you would have to make the oscillator move and in order to do this:

1. instead of "basic" choose "noise" for either oscillator
2. in matrix tab assign the noise to either one of the envelopes or lfo (drag it up till it says 100)
3. make sure the envelope or lfo you assigned the noise to has a curve that fits the snare sound you're looking for so play around with the envelope till it's right. You can also experiment with different noise sounds or a custom one since wavetable also lets you drag in samples.

to control the pitch you use matrix tab as well but assign another envelope to the sine waves semi (sine wave being oscillator that isn't the noise but fundamental)

to have "semi" appear in matrix tab just click it once.


Have fun making snares!