In this tutorial, I will be showing you one of the easiest ways you can create a lead sound in Fl Studio.
If you have already read my article on the insight about sound designing, then you should know how it works.
How A Lead Will Look In Waveform
A lead sound mostly have a saw in its waveform, to build a lead sound then you should try using a saw oscillator, thou, we have a different kind of saw shapes, i.e., Tri saw, double saw and more.
I will be using Fl Studio Native for this tutorial which is "Harmless."
Firstly, open Fl Studio and load an instance of ''Harmless'', if done correctly, you should be up and running with that.
harmless loaded
Initializing Harmless
The next step is to initialize the preset to the default, click on the drop-down menu for plugin options, scroll across to Presets, and then go up to Default as shown in the image below.
initialize harmless to default
change it to default
Now we need to start replacing some of the oscillator, knobs and more.
The first thing I do with any subtractive synthesizer is to change the oscillator. I am creating a lead sound, and I will be using a saw waveform.
The Upper Section In Harmless
Let's start with the upper section to make the workflow easier.
the upper section is highlighted red
Change the Timbre to Double Saw, goto to the pluck and change it to about 1 o'clock, click on the mask beside the pluck, depending on what you want, you can use Release also.
I changed it to double saw
goto to the pluck and change it to about 1 o'clock, click on the mask beside the pluck, depending on what you want, you can use
It should sound like these:
We still need to change some other knobs in the upper section to give an excellent sound.
Change the release knob to 10 o'clock, change the decay to 5 o'clock and finally bring the attack knob up a little bit.
I changed release, attack, and delay
Note: Attack, Decay, Release is abbreviated att, dec and rel.
The last thing we need to do in the upper section is changing the mix knob for even brighter lead and the sub for giving life to the lead.
Bring up the sub as I have done below
change the mix and sub
and then bring the mix up to 5 o'clock as done above.
The lead sounds like this when done with the upper section
The Next Section
Let's change knobs in our filter section, changing filter will subtract some frequencies and it will make the lead even cooler.
Bring the decay up to 12 o'clock and then change the amount to 3 o'clock
The next step is to change the freq knob to just one 0'clock
And The Other Section
Move down to the other section and bring the Phaser amt a little bit.
Finally, let's add some effect to the lead sound.
The effect section
Change the reverb to classic, and you would notice a full lead, change the reverb vol to 9 o'clock.
change the reverb
change the reverb vol
Change the delay to ping-pong, shift the vol to 7 o'clock.
click on that classic and change the delay to ping-pong
The last thing is to improve the chorus to classic, change the chorus mix to 9 o'clock and you should be up with a fantastic lead sound.
change the chorus to classic and bring up the mix
Final Result
The overall sound:
Happy lead designing!