Can't comprehend how this sound was made

[glitchboy]

The lead melody (0:11) has such an awkward, warped tone while sounding so warm and full. I'm confident it's either a pad or pluck, with some distortion and erosion. There's a crispness there that doesn't quite sound like the result of bitrate reduction

https://soundcloud.com/monkeyrascal/elephantman

Any ideas on how this sound might have been achieved?

[Benedict]

Everything is so very LOUD that it is hard to hear/track anything "in its lane" as constant pumping is warping the balance and therefore what we feel/hear. Phew, I'm glad that stopped - one of the few times I am happy they couldn't be bothered to make an ending.

To answer the Q: it will be lots of overprocessing and pushing things into drive/saturation one after another with filter/EQs to make it feel more, um, well, unreal like that. It probably started with a simple close-to-sine elec piano/pluck that you would pass over for being too uncool/weak/lame...

[imrae]

I think the key thing is a relatively fast vibrato effect, probably from an LFO modulating pitch but it could be an audio effect.

[johnnyenglish]

The sound is from Monte Booker’s sounds pack vol 1, titled “freaky synth” in the Maple folder.

Layered two octaves of the sound and processed with ableton’s stock distortion, flanger and guitar amp.

Nothing too crazy.

[_al_]

I think the key thing is a relatively fast vibrato effect, probably from an LFO modulating pitch

First thing I noticed too.
The noise itself sounds kinda basic to me, other than the vibrato.
I think there might just be a lot of stuff layered and merged into it, which I guess would be done by putting various fx on the synth, bouncing down little sections, and mixing that back in with the original at various points.

[CHOOS]

Long time no see folks

I have 2 presets attached for Vital with the midi so if you load them you'll be very close

[glitchboy]

The sound is from Monte Booker’s sounds pack vol 1, titled “freaky synth” in the Maple folder.

Layered two octaves of the sound and processed with ableton’s stock distortion, flanger and guitar amp.

Nothing too crazy.

Interesting, thanks. Was at the very least able to reproduce the lead from MANGO using this method and tossing in some vinyl distortion