creating more modern synths sounds

[Derrick Foreal]

how do i create more modern hiphop/ r&b/ pop synth sounds thats dont sound so harsh and techno. i would like to incorporate more smooth, not so techno/house sounding synths. Like alot of the moving/ pulsating synths thats are so popular today. I have komplete as well as other plugs but the synths just seem so harsh, hard and piercing, maybe theres away i can take away some of that harshness an peak.
i notice alot of southern producers and even ryan leslie use alot of synths but they just never sound very harsh they are all sort of smooth and pleasing

[vycerecords]

I would say make them less harsh by playing with the attack time, adding reverb, and with some eq cuts

[JoryS]

Mess around with the oscillators you're using too, obviously sine waves will sound less harsh than squares and saws, etc. And yea EQ cuts will help take away the harsh sounding frequencies and reverbs/choruses will help smoothen out the sounds

[BeatGenerals]

Mess around with the oscillators you're using too, obviously sine waves will sound less harsh than squares and saws, etc. And yea EQ cuts will help take away the harsh sounding frequencies and reverbs/choruses will help smoothen out the sounds

Yeah exactly, learn more about controlling what you have rather than searching for something new, at the end of the day you can do most of the same things in pretty much all VST's.

[krushing]

Yeah exactly, learn more about controlling what you have rather than searching for something new, at the end of the day you can do most of the same things in pretty much all VST's.

This. You already have basically infinite sound capabilities in your hands - learn to use them.

[Nemou]

I would say make them less harsh by playing with the attack time, adding reverb, and with some eq cuts

Do you have general EQ areas that often sound bad? I often have to cut around 5k and the more known 300-400Hz rumble area.. would be great to hear what you guys have found.

[JoryS]

Ditto for 300-400Hz, seems to always be the problem area for bassy synths.

[Type_1a]

EQing is key... set up a parametric eq and set one of the bands as a deep notch filter.. then get the synth playing in a loop and start to sweep across the frequencies.. you will find specific nodal points that cause alot of the harshness... the other thing you can do is to experiement with multiband compression which will allow you to automatically cap the signal within specific bands...