Acid Synths in Sylenth1

Clear the preset and start with a saw wave. The first thing I do is create a pluck. Get the cutoff A and B on the envelope, open the decay, take down the sustain and open up the amount. Then put the filter type on bandpass. Not on low pass, bandpass. It's very important. Take down the cutoff, open up the resonance and open up the drive a little bit.

If you have a clicky sound, open up the release a little bit. Not so it becomes long, just so it has a little more breathing room. Then take it down an octave and add distortion on overdrive, an EQ with the bass removed and the treble up a little around 2000 hertz to boost the mids, some delay and a compressor. Don't make the delay too wet.

Now open up the decay all the way. Then open up another envelope, take down the sustain again and make sure the cutoff gets down so you find the sweet spot again. There you have it, that classic TB-303 sound. That acid sound.

You can do this with one envelope, but two is a little easier because you can control it more. I call the first one the long cutoff band, and then you have this peak on top of it. One is the attack and the other is the decay. You split it up.

Take an arpeggiator. The gate controls the space between each note and the swing is the groove between each note. I put the time at 16th, because that's the classic acid level, and take the gate down a little bit. Change the mode to chord. The wrap is how many blocks it plays. Put it at eight and it plays eight and starts again.

What generally really works is taking a note down a full octave and putting another one up a full octave. But a straightforward rhythm needs to be groovy, so move a note to another spot and you create these nice offbeat things. Then add mono legato, make sure it's on N and not S, and use the hold buttons to accentuate a few of the notes. It makes it so much better.