Deadmau5 Leads

[KillerAmp]

ive been attempting to recreate some Deadmau5 Lead Synths in Massive recently (mainly the lead from strobe) , and i feel im pretty close.
i know when i listen i hear square and saw waves, octaved differently and i can get the raw sound about right, but its where the filtering and envelops come in that im lost. His sounds are smooth and sound filtered, but im not quite sure what to do in order to get that deadmau5 style synth.
(yes i know his synths are mostly hardware)
any ideas/tips?

[bartekko]

I think it's a about smooth modulation of his synths. I haven't really recreated many deadmau5 synths, but I am pretty certain that slight modulation (and lots of reverb) is the key.

[KillerAmp]

http://soundcloud.com/officialkilleramp/hey-look-im-deadmau5
Heres my attempt at emulating his sound. yet still seems like something missing and im stumped at what to try :S

[Friv]

http://soundcloud.com/officialkilleramp/hey-look-im-deadmau5
Heres my attempt at emulating his sound. yet still seems like something missing and im stumped at what to try :S

Try different waveforms. Not every synth in strobe is a saw wave....

[KillerAmp]

http://soundcloud.com/officialkilleramp/hey-look-im-deadmau5
Heres my attempt at emulating his sound. yet still seems like something missing and im stumped at what to try :S

Try different waveforms. Not every synth in strobe is a saw wave....

yea i know. i really just used 1 patch when i uploaded this and applied it to all the tracks, im working out the correct waveforms now

[colortwelve]

http://soundcloud.com/officialkilleramp/hey-look-im-deadmau5
Heres my attempt at emulating his sound. yet still seems like something missing and im stumped at what to try :S

Try different waveforms. Not every synth in strobe is a saw wave....

Well, there's that, and there's the fact that the mau5 uses a lot of cutoff automation on that lead synth. It's still a saw wave, it just sounds less... toothy

[GumsOfGabby]

Not sure what VST you're using, but in general, plucks get their 'pluckiness' from the main volume envelope set with a short attack, medium-short decay and a low sustain. If you're using NI Massive, you could set up your patch so that your oscillators run through a low pass filter (with a small amount of resonance) and modulate the cutoff with an envelope similar to the master volume envelope (switch it up to your taste).

You could obviously do that in any VST which has multiple envelopes, but I only have Massive You could also try playing with 'noise' (white and bright work well). Add some reverb and chorus and you've made a deadmau5 styled synth.

edit: your preview is sounding really good already

[Stars In Autumn]

Deadmau5 uses hardware for his synths mostly I think. So sticking with analog sounds, basic waveforms would get you closest. I spent some time trying to recreate Strobe as well. The first part uses sin waves for the fast attack synth and, I THINK square waves for the longer attacking synth layered under it. I didn't get that part quite right. He brings up an LP filter on the saw bass a little later on. When it speeds up, I layered sin and soft square waves to get that chord synth. That FX noise he has is a portamento sin wave. That's about as far as I got before I built a new machine and lost all my drum samples and the project file got all messed up.

[colortwelve]

I'll also add that I like to use a tweaked form of the Z3ta+ preset (which everyone uses) called 'Chords of Life,' with some effects VSTs, and then layer a from-scratch Massive pluck on top of it (just three instances of the default waveform with a plucky envelope on both the master volume and a lowpass-4 filter, with some small reverb and extremely subtle bright noise). Some cutoff automation, a tiny bit of delay, and what have you, and you can make some sexy deadmau5-style buildups.