Hello everyone,

As of right now I am using Sytrus as my primary instrument and trying to master it. If you don't use Sytrus, your examples of other instruments would help too. To get it out of they way here, I have done some tutorials, like Blackhole, but if you know of others that I haven't checked out yet then please tell.

I do have an understanding or a basic understanding on Synth creation, but when I look at the presets that Sytrus has, I wonder, what were they thinking when they did that?, Why they added that filter there?, or Why they added that envelope there?

What is your thought process when you are making sounds for your scores or when you are just playing with a instrument to come up with a sound? How do you decide on the parts of the synth to create that sound?

As for study sake and feel free to use another preset or other example if U like. Here is one in Sytrus, it is digi 2 located in the Synth string category.....This goes back to my questions above. Why did this person decide on using all those Operators, how do you know when you should? I will leave it at that for now.

Thank you all for your time and assistance.

First of all, I don't use Sytrus. I use things such as NI Komplete bundle, Omnisphere, etc, but regardless most synths have more or less the same editing features, some more sophisticated, but the basics remain the same.

I usually will not create sounds completely from scratch. Some tracks that I do have upward in 60-70 tracks, and designing everything from scratch would take insane amounts of time that I just don't have as a professional songwriter and engineer. Many times I will take a preset and use that as a starting palette. The first thing I do is decide what purpose this sound will play in the track. Is it a pulsing synth? Is it a morphing pad? Where will it be placed in the mix (roughly), is it melodic, is it rhythmic, how long is it present in the track? Determining what role the sound plays will help you decide what filters and envelopes and effects you will add. Figuring out it's purpose will also help you decide eq curves, whether you will make it a hybrid sound, evolving, etc.

Really, you need to decide what kind of sound you want to develop, how this will fit in the song, and lastly, and most importantly, you have to know what to do to get the sound you want. It isn't a science and there is no right and wrong in sound development, there's only what you think sounds good and what you think sounds like shit. You can only learn how to get the sounds you want and like by experimenting and remembering what you did to get them. 

Don't know if I really answered your question, but I hope that helps.

Hey, thank you for your response. Much appreciated. Yes, you did answer a part of my question on how start off with sound design, but inside my synth there are still some of the paramaters that I need to understand so I can make the sound I am looking for.

That is what I have been learning. I need to sit down with myself and think about what I want then I will have a better understanding on the approach to take. Like I mentioned before, once I know what I want the next step is getting better at the synths paramaters, so I can make the sound I am after.

I probably will have more questions later. Thank you again.

ok rocknjie i am a sytrus user and i think i can help you out with ur problem. unlike the 3xosc or any other subtractive synth remember sytrus is a FM synthesizer and will seem confusing at first but it is really simple once you understand how the operators work with each other. to start off:
1. each of the six(6) operators in Sytrus work together. meaning u use one to modulate the other/ tweak the sound of the other. doing this is just by choosing a shape in 2 operators and then u use one to modulate the other. the filters and fx are there for u to tweak the final sound.
2. the matrix grid in sytrus is where u modulate the sound.
3. on the main window at the top right hand coner u will see some controlls u can choose how many voices u want playing at the same time and choose how much detuning u want.
but u can read the help files on the controlls of sytrus and u can unlock the secrets within
hope this helps............