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2. Creating a classic cinematic synth lead

1 Synthesisers really began taking a lead role in film scores during the 70s and 80s. Artists such as John Carpenter and Vangelis brought now-classic leads and textures to the fore of popular culture. Let’s create one of these classic lead sounds from scratch – start by creating a new stereo instrument channel and load in an instance of Zebra CM. 2 Zebra CM is a powerful synth, but we’re going to keep it basic for this tutorial. Change the mode of Oscillator 1 to Single and turn the Oscillator 2’s Volume all the way down. We only need one envelope to control both the amplitude and filter, so head to the centre panel and change the VCA box to Env2. 3 These classic synth leads tend to have a gentle attack and a long release time, so change Envelope 2’s Attack to 40, Sustain to max and Release to 85. Now let’s set the filter: pull the filter Cutoff back to 40 to roll off high-end. Turn the Env2 parameter to 90 – now Envelope 2 is modulating the filter cutoff. 4 Time for effects. For instant repeats, double click Zebra CM’s Delay 1 icon, then pull the delay Mix up to 30. A fantastic free chorus effect is TAL-Chorus-LX (available from tal-software.com) – drop an instance after Zebra CM and leave it at its default setting for swimming width. Finally, drop in your DAW’s stock reverb and crank the decay time up to about 7 seconds – majestic!