So far in the Dexed Owner’s Manual series, we’ve seen that there are many tools available for creating your own sounds within Dexed. But what are the tips and tricks needed to get professional-sounding, compelling sounds out of the VST? Let’s take a few posts to dig deep into professional sound design in Dexed and build some commercial-grade sounds. This is the first in a short series using professional Sound Design techniques and tips to look “under the hood” at a commercially available Dexed voice. 

Let’s Define our Target

We’ll start with one of SoundEngine’s Dexed sounds, “NoiZBrass,” from our Crankshaft library. This sound is, at its core, a synthetic brass sound, but we add some FM goodness and detuning to really make it sound good “out of the box” without any effects processing.

The steps needed to build this sound are:

1. Start with a basic 2-operator FM “brass” sound
   
2. Add Frequency Modulation from other Operators to create the dynamic, edgy character
   
3. Add some detuning to the sound to fatten it up
   
4. Add some pitch modulation to add a bit of movement
   

What we end up with is a dynamic, slightly evolving sound that really sounds good when you dial it up. It also sounds fantastic when dropped into a track with a little chorus, reverb, and delay. Let’s start by walking through the programming steps for this sound.

Initial steps

Start with an INIT sound, then select Algorithm 18. This Algorithm is interesting to us because it adds three paths of FM modulation that affect Operator 1 at the final output.

Turn off Operators 2, 4, 5, and 6 for now. For Operators 1 and three, we want the attack of Operator 3 to be slightly faster than that of Operator 1, so we get that short snap of waveform distortion that simulates a Brass instrument. I’ve added a bit of fine-tuning difference here in Operator 3 to create a slight chorusing effect. 

Adding the Brash in Brass

Turn on Operator 2 and add the somewhat quick-decaying envelope, as shown. The attack here is a little slower than Operator 1’s, and in combination with the slight detune, we hear something that goes from a single Brass instrument to an ensemble but fades quickly.

Lips mate, lips

Enable Operators 4, 5, and 6 to get the “Lips”—the sharp attack of a brass section—into the sound. Note that Operators 5 and 6, with their harmonic pitches, really provide the tube edge of the brass without dominating the final output.

And now, movement

We add Pitch Modulation via the P Mod Sens parameter, using a triangle wave LFO waveform that is as close as possible to a Sine wave. We select a reasonable LFO rate and program the delay to make it more realistic—orchestral brass-like. I’ve also set the LFO and OSC Key Sync parameters to ON here. This enables the synthesizer engine to have a known start state upon key down.

Saving and Wrapping up

There are a few experiments to make here with the breakpoints of the various operators. Programming these has more impact as you play up and down the keyboard, which can make the synthetic patch even more realistic. Additionally, as mentioned before, adding Chorus, Delay, and Reverb can make this Dexed voice sound spectacular. Once you’ve saved the sound into a custom bank for yourself in Dexed, fire up Dexed in your DAW and explore creative options there.

NoizBrass benefitted heavily from slight detuning, using a stack of operators to add high-frequency components to the sound and using the LFO to add movement via subtle Pitch Modulation. We’ll dive into another program or two over the next few weeks to understand some more tricks to make your Dexed sounds more professional. In the meantime, thank you for reading!

Resources:

• The Dexed plug-in:
  
  • https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/
    
• FM Synthesis:
  
  • FM Theory and Applications by Dr. John Chowning and David Bristow
    
• Our custom programmed Crankshaft: Dexed bank:
  
  • https://soundengine.com/product/crankshaft-dexed/
    
• SoundEngine’s Complete Dexed Owner’s Manual Series:
  
  • dexed: An Owner’s Manual