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Your go-to instruments for lead & melodies?
What are your favorite instruments & patches for playing lead & melodies? I play a lot of lead, melody lines, and improvisation, so I'm always looking for new sounds and would love to hear what you're reaching for these days, regardless of what style you play.
I quite enjoy Moog D for a G-funk style lead. I often will blend it with another synth, and also really like using Aftertouch for that extra layer of expression, and Twin 3 is one of the best I've found so far. Logic's Alchemy is also very good in this regard.
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I’m an arpeggio and bass guy, I’m mostly into melodic techno of sorts. I love Model D for basses but don’t usually use it for lead sounds unless I’m going for Reese style leads. I use MiRack for everything else and use a stupid amount of modulation on almost all parameters. I love arps that jump around the stereo field with envelopes that have constantly changing attacks and decays in a semi-random manner, MiRack is perfect for that job.
Twin 3 & lofi tape find their way into (almost) everything here.
Lately I’ve been using vb3 and GeoShred a lot and haven’t been using too many synths for leads recently. I think model d is my favorite synth for leads though, it’s so funky
Melody?? Wut? 😃
This whole music caper is generally beyond me, but I've lately been taking a stab at actual melody instead of starting again with moody 4-bar loop #747,863, and it makes me realise just how hard this stuff is. Sounding sweet and conventional without being ridiculously clichéd is a subtle art. And then the way people like Burt Bacharach or Fleetwood Mac are able to create undercurrents of unnerving subtext beneath a glossy surface is even harder. Melody is hard!
I think mono Mooginess for synth leads is obvious but simply can't be disputed. "While You See a Chance"-era Steve Winwood here I come! (Does anyone know if it's true that the song's synth lead came about because he accidentally erased the original intro? And you know, while it isn't always palatable, the arc of his career [heh] really astounds me, going from the skinny white teenager from Birmingham who somehow sang like Ray Charles, to playing organ for Hendrix, to proggy rusticism in the '70s, to poppy "blue-eyed" soul in the '80s — the mind boggles.)
The way he studiously glances down at the keyboard every so often while lip-syncing to camera is unironically adorable.
Sorry. Anyway, I generally start with presets, and flicking through the ones that come with Tera Pro the other day impressed me. It ships with so many melody-friendly sounds.
Also, I'm terrible at lead (or any other sort of) guitar, but for better or worse, aimless guitar noodling is my actual go-to playground for melody. The other day, whilst immersed in my melodic cheese experiments, I accidentally discovered a nice DI'd guitar sound when I forgot to turn on my amp modeller. I really dug the first take, so went check the knobs on my amp pedal, and realised it was the pedal that wasn't on! Unfortunately, I got distracted and have since lost how I did it. Attempts to recreate it sound like wet cardboard.
PSA: guitars and FX pedals have yet to be upgraded to AUv3, so I couldn't restore their state upon coming back to the project, and now those settings are gone forever. Shakes fist at lazy Fender and pedal developers — get with the program, guys. Jesus, you'd think this would be a solved problem by now. Are we gonna have to wait forever for this? Unbelievable. 🤣
Guitar, and other non-keys, non-digital instruments.
But in the spirit of the OP, I think, probably Thumbjam first up.
Lately I've been adding different amp sims to my Moog to add character and help cut through the mix. The amps in Logic are actually quite good for this imo, and of course Saturn.
Love me some Animoog leads
Piano, guitar, mandolin, alto sax. If I’m going to play very distinct melodies id rather play them live with an instrument that I can use to improvise around them.
Apps that really cut through a mix: Animoog and Shockwave.
Expressive and fun to play: Animoog and GeoShred.
On desktop, definitely Cherry Audio’s Pro Soloist. It’s great.
Model D is excellent of course but I also really love Trooper for leads. They really seem to cut through a mix in a way I like. VAMono/Poly, Mela 3/4, DRC, Poison 202, and any of the combo organ apps are great as well. Especially the GSI plugins.
Lately DRC and Megalit are really doing it for me for leads. Stringlab and GeoSwam get a lot of love too.
iPad: Pure Acid, Poison-202, OB-Xd.
desktop: Repro-1, Poison-202, OB-Xd.
hardware: TB-3, S-1, MC-101.
all 3 use cases: Circuit Tracks as MIDI input device.
I mix it up a lot based on what I’m trying to achieve. in no particular order I like to use use Geoshred (including Swam) Steel Guitar Pro, Piano (various apps, Electric) Nambu, Lagrange, Tal U no lx, Synthmaster One, Any Moog app, any Mela version, Dagger, OB-Xd, mood, copperhead, moodunits, Pure Synth Platinum, etc…
Chords: good ole SoundPrism Pro!
While so much depends upon the genre, I often have a hard time finding “just the right” lead voice, but I usually start off with a simple sound and stack other presets as I go to get something close to what I want. Then I tweak some presets or create patches from scratch, often both. In the end, I often feel like I get close but I don’t necessarily love the result. Sound design is an art in which I am not as skilled as I wish, but with limited time available I have to just make do and not get too caught up it the minutiae and focus on enjoying the process.
I think my favorites are Lo-fi Tape, FRMS, Swam Trumpet.
Lo-fi tape, twin 3 and tomofon. In that order.
For a while it was Mood; these days it’s Tera Pro or -BA-1.