What is this synth called?

[mattmatrice]

Hi, I've been looking for a synth sound that was utilized mostly in early 2000's vgm music.

I hear this synth In games such as maple story, Ragnarok, fly-ff, etc. I've also heard it in various remixes. It sounds kind of like a sine wave?

I'll link some examples and time stamps below:

:19-:27

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hkvYlVAwjk

:07-:12 and 1:41

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20AfmqS74xg

:17-:46

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=604V_HICY-A

 

any help would be appreciated :D

[zircon]

The Flyff synth is a simple waveform with a little bit of a layered.. bell sample, maybe? Lots of portamento (glide), reverb, and vibrato. 

The Maple Story synth is similar but with no bell layer. 

The third synth is pretty different. Hard to say what but it's not a simple waveform.

I think you'll get closest by starting with a sine wave in something like an additive synth, and then add a little bit of extra harmonics there. The thing that really gives these songs a similar feel though is the combination of glide + reverb + vibrato.

[Meteo Xavier]

Yeah, it's just a sine wave and a bunch of glide, and then you can tailor the other effects to taste.

Most synth plugins will have some version of it under a lot of different names - but it's usually called "Hip-Hop lead" or something to do with rap music as it used to be used in a lot of hip hop songs from the 90s and early 2000s as a high pitch riff of sorts, and it's more generally what people might use it for now.

[mattmatrice]

@zircon @Meteo Xavier

 

Thanks, guys. My hunches were correct. I've looked at presets in various plugins, but couldn't find the exact sound I wanted.

Building one from a basic sine wave seems like the best way to go about this (I mean, this is pretty much common sense for everything tone/sound related, but I have a tendency to be a bit lazy).

I'll have to tinker with it.