Recipes: Sub Bass, Reese, Pluck, Supersaw Pad and Lead

These recipes put the previous four lessons together. Each is a starting point with real values; the exact numbers will vary between synths, so treat them as positions to start from and adjust by ear.

1. Sub bass

The job: pure low-end weight under the track, usually below 100 Hz.

Section	Setting
Oscillator	One sine (or triangle for slightly more audibility), mono, no unison
Pitch	Play in octave 1 (roughly 30–60 Hz)
Filter	Off, or low-pass well above the fundamental
Amp envelope	Attack 2–5 ms, decay 0, sustain 100%, release 30–80 ms
Voice mode	Mono, legato, glide 0–40 ms if wanted

Tweak: add a touch of saturation so the sub's harmonics make it audible on phones and laptop speakers. Mistake to avoid: detune, unison or stereo widening. They make the sub weaker in mono, which is how most clubs and many phones play it.

2. Reese bass

The job: a dark, moving, growling bass from drum and bass, built from detuned saws beating against each other.

Section	Setting
Oscillators	Two saws, one detuned 10–25 cents from the other
Filter	Low-pass 24 dB/oct, cutoff 300–800 Hz, resonance 10–20%
Movement	Slow LFO (0.1–0.5 Hz) on cutoff or detune amount
Amp envelope	Attack 0–5 ms, sustain 100%, release 50–150 ms
Low end	High-pass the reese around 100 Hz and add a separate sine sub

Tweak: distortion before the filter adds grit; a chorus or phaser after it adds more motion. Mistake to avoid: leaving the reese full-range. The detuned saws phase-cancel in the sub, which is why the separate sine layer matters.

3. Pluck

The job: a short, bright note for arpeggios, chords and melodic hooks in house, trance and pop.

Section	Setting
Oscillators	One or two saws, 5–10 cents detune, optional square an octave up
Filter	Low-pass 24 dB/oct, cutoff 300–600 Hz, resonance 10–25%
Filter envelope	Attack 0, decay 150–300 ms, sustain 0%, amount high
Amp envelope	Attack 0–2 ms, decay 300–500 ms, sustain 0%, release 150–300 ms
Effects	Short reverb or 1/8-dotted delay, mixed low

Tweak: shorter filter decay is tighter and more percussive; adding velocity to filter amount lets accents pop out of an arpeggio. Mistake to avoid: a long amp release, which turns fast arpeggios into a smear.

4. Supersaw pad

The job: a wide, lush bed of chords for trance, EDM, synthwave and cinematic music.

Section	Setting
Oscillators	Saw with 7–9 unison voices, detune 20–35%, stereo spread wide
Second layer	Optional saw an octave up at lower level
Filter	Low-pass 12 dB/oct, cutoff 2–6 kHz, low resonance
Amp envelope	Attack 200–800 ms, sustain 80–100%, release 1–2.5 s
Movement	Very slow LFO on cutoff, 0.05–0.2 Hz
Effects	Chorus, long reverb; high-pass at 150–250 Hz

Tweak: shorten the attack to 5 ms and release to 300 ms and it becomes a supersaw stab or lead. Mistake to avoid: leaving the low end in. A wide unison pad full of low mids masks the bass and sounds cloudy; the high-pass keeps it clear.

5. Lead

The job: carry a melody clearly above everything else.

Section	Setting
Oscillators	Saw plus square, or two saws 5–8 cents apart
Voice mode	Mono, legato, glide 30–80 ms
Filter	Low-pass 12 dB/oct, cutoff 2–4 kHz, key tracking 50–100%
Amp envelope	Attack 5–15 ms, sustain 80–100%, release 100–250 ms
Modulation	Vibrato on mod wheel: sine, 5–6 Hz, 15–30 cents, 300 ms delay
Effects	Light distortion, 1/8 or 1/4 synced delay, medium reverb

Tweak: a square lead with less filter is a retro chiptune sound; a saw lead with heavy distortion and a high cutoff is a modern festival lead. Mistake to avoid: too much reverb, which pushes the lead behind the mix it is meant to sit on top of.

Working from here

Every one of these sounds is built from the same handful of parts: an oscillator choice, a filter, two envelopes and maybe one LFO. When you hear a synth sound you like, ask those same questions in order. What waveform, how filtered, how does each note move, and what repeats? You will rebuild most sounds faster than you can find a preset for them.

If you have a recording of a part you want to recreate, the audio to MIDI converter will give you its notes, so you can focus on the sound itself.