Dutch Style Sound Design with Absynth

Dutch style sound design techniques can be incredibly helpful and useful in a wide range of musical genres and styles, and Absynth is a wonderful synth to use for this type of approach to sound design sessions. You can use Dutch house style sounds in almost any modern music and easily make them your own with very little effort. There is no need for advanced sound design knowledge or experience to make it all come together. And this Absynth tutorial is presented in a way that just about anyone can follow along with. So let’s welcome back Evan Sutton and jump right into this lessons and see what kind of pro tips he kicks down this time!

The first thing covered in this tutorial is the polyphony and voicing settings, and how Glide affects sounds. It is important to know about Glide, and what Legato mode is for instance, when approaching Dutch style sound design no matter what synth you happen to be working in because it is one of the signature characteristics of this type of lead sound. Since the sound being made today is a lead sound, this is quite important. Next, envelope shape and curves are discussed and Evan expresses the need for a long release for the pumping effect (produced through a sidechain triggered ducking technique that is incredible popular in dance and electronic music nowadays) to be up to Dutch style standards.

Now that we have the basic shape of the sound dialed in, a filter needs to be introduced to provide more definition to help define the notes being played. An envelope is also used to modulate the cutoff parameter of this filter to provide us with the proper delivery of each note. This is just one more key element that Dutch style sound design focuses on. At this point the sound has all of the classic traits of a Dutch house sound and you are ready to begin experimenting with different waveforms and effects to make it your own and match it to your project’s needs. It’s incredibly easy and fun to make these types of sounds, and again, they are absolutely usable and relevant in many, many more music genres other than just Dutch House!

Cheers,
OhmLab