Composing tips and tricks

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So who has composition tips? Anything will do really just post 1 neat trick per post and come back later if you feel an overwhelming desire to contribute anything else haha. Here's my one:

Mix snares with a little noise to give them "crack". Combining hi hat and snares can produce a similar effect but for areally 3 dimensional snare attack noise seems to work really well

1) For vocals - compression and some form of reverb is a must, other effects are optional

2) In cubase always check the red bar so your audio doesn't clip. If the track is too quiet after you've done the changes, master it for maximum volume.

3) Synth basses shouldn't be used with too much cutoff and resonance in most cases.

4) first record the MIDI instruments which you can quanitize, then guitars and "real" instruments through the audio interface then after the playback is done do the vocals.

5) This is just an advice, but try to program your own sounds so no matter which genre you compose it will be original.

Best of the lot imo though I dont agree that DIY synth patches automatically lead to originality. I think that avoiding reliance on a library of such patches is also key. Also if you are fond of say dubstep wobble bass patches and create one which you like, try to tweak it and add at least one unique element. Perhaps the fm strength is pushed up in synchrony with the cutoff to give the bass "savagery"

Second that. You're going to be limited by design of 'ware/gear you use. A polysynth is a polysynth is a polysynth, and there are only so many patches that, despite the differences among them, will sound genuinely unique to the average listener. A trick I use when I find a given "type" of patch is getting stale is I'll layer it with a TX7 or TX802 patch for a little inharmonic "flavor," or I'll layer something that varies pitch over something static?makes the ear give a little double-take, like, "Ooh, what's THAT?" Along those same lines, take a familiar patch and repurpose it. Basses and leads are pretty much interchangeable, but take a bass and transform it to a pad, or maybe a breathy, airy, flute-ish sound and transform it into something more like tuned percussion. Take samples, like a snare drum that's got a good ring to it (or a bad ring to it), and reverse the envelope to make a woodwind chiff or bowed string attack, and layer that with a chorused triangle wave.

I dunno if reliance on DIY patch banks is a bad thing, though. I spend more time on sound design than actually composing because I know that if the sounds are inspiring, the composing part is going to go by fast. Something I need to do more is spend more time adding performance controls to patches. Having thousands of homegrown patches across a variety of sound sources if the ONE patch that's close to what you want just isn't quite there, and a quick knob tweak puts it right where you want it as well as gives you some real-time options as well.

I've been a big fan of Absynth for a long time. What I've started doing is loading up Absynth as an FX processor in a Logic channel strip with other instruments, set filter and amp envelopes to loop. I love my TX7, and in terms of interesting 80s vintage sounds I rank it a close second to my Synclav in terms of sonic variety. Trouble is, it doesn't "do" anything, whereas a Synclav can at least give you something approaching wavetable. Take the same TX7 and add filters with envelopes, and suddenly a dead synth comes to life--and, I mean, Yamaha FM synths really do need a lot of filter and EQ to really work--helps prevent ear fatigue from excessive sinusoids. You couldn't do this kind of thing back in the 80s without going to a tremendous expense, even with cheap gear like the DX7/TX7, and you can go from meh to amazing pretty quick using hardware synths pretty much the same way you use soft synths.

And if you're a fan of FM synthesis and use a classic Yamaha with modern plugs, have your controller route both to LPF cutoff and Yamaha mod index. Add a waveshaper and you can knock out a wall with your DX.