synth wave is a sub-genre of electronic
music which focuses on 80s nostalgia
it's heavily influenced by the
soundtracks of 1980s video games and
movies synth wave essentially takes all
the characteristic visual and musical
elements of the 80s and filters out the
best parts of it to be recontextualized
and repurposed the sounds used in the
making of this type of music typically
come from emulated $0.80 although if you
have the money and you don't mind making
the investment you could grab one or two
actual 80 cents but it would set you
back at least a couple racks the genre
originated in the early to mid 2000s
with GTA vice sity being credited as the
primary prototype for synth waves neon
drenched atmosphere the genre gained
more popularity during the 2010s with
movie releases like drive or Tron Legacy
and video game releases like far cry 3's
Blood Dragon expansion in 2019 The
Weeknd released a synth wave inspired
track entitled blinding lights which
peaked at number one on the charts in
multiple countries let's get into the
cook up I opened up this pad preset and
I'm going to make a chord progression in
D minor a quick thing to note is that 80
cents typically only had six voices so
I'm limiting myself to play no more than
six notes at a time I'm also going to
keep the notes that I would have played
with my left hand spaced far apart and
I'll scrunch together the higher octave
notes here's the chord progression I
came up with it's basically just a one
six four five progression
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then I cut the lows and highs with an EQ
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I opened up this preset and fabfilter
twin and I layered the chords but before
we get into that a quick word from
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into the cook up
I opened up this art preset in dx7
and I just played the chords as regular
seventh chords I laid down a snare and I
layered that snare with this lightly
reverb snare I pulled up this bass
preset and I laid down this bass melody
I made this kick pattern
I added a shaker I laid down some Tom's
I put reverb on the snare and I
automated the wet level to give it a
more 80s vibe here's what the drum sound
like altogether next i sidechained the
kick to the melody and the bass I felt
like the beat was still missing
something so I added this lead in Nexus
and yes I did see prac C's video on
synth wave and this is slightly inspired
by the lead that he used in that video
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well that's pretty much everything let's
see what we've come up with
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you