"Laser cannon" type sfx

[CC Ricers]

What I always wanted to pull off were those sexy (although cheesy at times) sfx that sound like lasers, or a series of big sci-fi guns. When I hear them I know that it's gotta be a few notes played quickly in succession, like a flourish, to get that sound. Like a chord or arpeggio of synth sfx.

I can't give any concrete examples now, but Eiffel 65 used them a lot, as well as other 90's euro groups. But they're still used in some electronic genres today. How would you set up to produce these sounds? Are there any VSTs or other tools that are good in pulling it off?

[Rozovian]

Can't you accomplish the same by just using pitch bend on some random synth? Better yet, use a synth envelope set to control the pitch.

[Yoozer]

Are there any VSTs or other tools that are good in pulling it off?

Any VST that can have its LFO speed adjusted by its envelope. Sure, you can do it manually too, but automatically is nicer. Then you route the LFO to the pitch. Choose a sawtooth wave (downwards); even better is exponential down. Add reverb, filter lower frequencies, result:

SHOOP DA WOOP

[statas]

use short 16th notes in rapid succession. high filter cutoff with high resonance on pretty much any synth will do it. add delay to flavor it...works good with delay quantized to any non 4-divisible beat increment. (3,5,6) work best for me...

[Yoozer]

Low filter cutoff, high envelope > filter you mean .

[statas]

yes that too.

filter adsr= low attack, high delay, no sustain, no release.

[Hy Bound]

You can use an LFO sent to a pitchbend and filter freq. with a sawtooth waveform. I've done it a few times before for the sound Hybrid uses in stuff like Kill City and TFWA (VIP edit) or (Rolling Thunder edit).

[CC Ricers]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think after messing around with LFO settings, I notice that most of the texture comes from filtering out the right frequencies.

[Yoozer]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Is the demo mp3 I posted what you're looking for or does it miss the mark?

[CC Ricers]

Is the demo mp3 I posted what you're looking for or does it miss the mark?

It's halfway there. The sounds I was thinking of are less beefy and more airy, such as this

http://download.yousendit.com/6A1E698F1C021EFA

Don't mind the light percussion.

[dannthr]

I just layer raw waves with severe pitch bends--I do it in sound forge.

I've created tons of lasers for sfx for games and stuff. Most of that air is EQ and verb