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Tutorial: Our approach to recording and arranging synths (Patreon)

Published:
2021-01-27 11:01:00
Edited:
2025-09-25 21:11:41
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

In this video we take a look at the various ways we approach working with synths, using Virtual Light as an example. 

In the second half of the video (27.49 onwards) we put these concepts into practice in a short demonstration.

Comments

Martin

Thank you! Makes me wanna play around with my virtual Model 84 synth ha

Auto Focus

Do you record everything in the same key or do you just play random notes and then transpose as needed? Is all the top end stuff from the long recording in one key or just seen more as textual elements?

koansound

It varies. Sometimes everything is recorded in the same key, which makes it easy to drop in anywhere, but sometimes not. Either way we'll generally transpose chords and melodies up/down to try creating different progressions.

Zohn Politis

Thank you for the demonstration, really inspiring. Appreciate everything you guys have been showing us!

Jack.Lion

Much needed reminder to play all the gear I have around. One thing I struggle with a lot when I do this is latency. Do you both prefer recording early on in a project as to avoid latency? If not, is there a workaround you like using when projects get hefty so that you can record your ideas while reacting to the track? Thanks

nowfeel

Love this one very informative :)

koansound

Yeah we usually record early in the process. But when projects get hefty and we want to record more, we'll render the audio and create a new project to record in :)

Tijs Krijnen

1 tip: if you don’t have any hardware synths, but you wanna create those “little happy accidents”. Take a recorder (the mrecorder from melda is free) and play with the knobs until you got some cool results.

LØ

YES!

Zsombor Deményi

This is amazing guys! Thank you ! Love you both so much!

Zsombor Deményi

The SCI SYNTH sound is very Hydroplane-y so good!

Griffin Hall

what do yall use to record foley? anything special? or just like a phone mic? thanks for this amazing video. really really helpful.

LØ

They use a ZOOM Field recorder iirc. It was featured in their Foley Tutorial.

Hendrick

Hey Guys,i can't find even one video about distortion (Trash2 would be great ) !!

koansound

Hi Griffin, we've done an entire tutorial on foley where we cover this in more depth :)

Mike

Apologies if this has been answered before, but how do you go about getting all the referenced samples in your "Current Project" folder on the left there to be .wav files? Ableton always wants to create aif files if you drag things over to the user library. Feel like i'm missing something obvious here haha.

Mike

Great tip! Also would like to add that you can set up some quick macros for any soft synth parameters in ableton and automate with any midi controller that has knobs or sliders. Definitely makes working "in the box" more fun.

Ryan Dekker

I suggest going into your ableton preferences and look in the file or audio tab and see what your settings are.

Griffin Hall

oh shoot must've missed that one, I'll be sure check it out! Thanks y'all!

Alex Cullen

That was so good! Never thought of using the same synth layered on top of itself

Aeon Drone

Thank you this is a gift!

Peter Vogl

Love learning about creating textures and ambient sounds like this. So much time is spent teaching people how to create dramatic bass and drum sounds that this seems to get bypassed. Thanks so much!!

Trunk Space

this one was so cool had so much fun going through it

A Real Tal'darim

This has made me learn a lot about the arrangement and mixing of synth parts! One thing I could really notice is that each synthesizer has its own unique sound characteristics so having the exact same preset on 4-5 different synths will actually yield 4-5 different results. This tutorial has inspired me to try new filter combinations on different synths and to try and integrate more different synthesizers into my music to try and get different tonalities out of all of them. Thanks Koan sound :)

TJ Phillips

I use Maschine for this a lot, all the macros are mapped, nks etc and easy library browsing with all those great synths but with the Jam and touchstrips it takes it to another level for jamming and improvising. I've never worked like these guys though and super excited to explore this approach and workflow to some old ideas! :D