Adding Interest by Using LFOs

To make my synths and drums more interesting, I sometimes use a simple trick – adding a LFO.

I learned this whilst studying Boards of Canada’s music. It often has a wobbly frequency or envelope to it, and I can often replicate this without hardware, but within a DAW using LFOs.

Here’s a simple method that takes less than a minute to apply and gets great results.

Psychic Modulation’s Phonec Synth (vst) Presets: “Boards” – Free Presets

Psychic Modulation has made a synthesizer that combines that “lo-fi” sound with vintage tape and synth type of processing, for a synth that sounds remarkably similar to artists such as Boards of Canada and others of that type.

It comes as a low-cost vst file type of plugin that works in your DAW (digital audio workstation). I use it in FL Studio.

Simple to use and fun to adjust, Phonec2 shatters the learning curve usually associated with many soft synths out there today. I like it in my music because it gives me the sounds I need that fit my genre.

I have made my sound bank of presets for Phonec version 2 available to everyone that owns Phonec2.

The U-he Diva Synthesizer

Diva by U-he is a fantastic analog-emulating synthesizer. It is a vst or soft-synth plugin for DAWs. While incredibly versatile, it is also intimidatingly complex.

Here are what I have learned about this synthesizer. I will be updating it as I learn more, so check back.

Last updated: 18-April-2020

Diva emulates several popular analog synthesizers. Here is a rough guide to the ones that Diva emulates:

Brian Eno’s Sound

Brian Eno is, to me, the undisputed king of ambient music. He coined the term, “ambient music” in his groundbreaking album “Music for Airports.”

Here I will revel in his sound-creating process and offer some captured bits of what I know of it – not as an attempt to deconstruct, per se, but more as an aspiration to his greatness.

As I learn more, I will post more, and update this one.

Last updated: 1-March-2019