Came up with the riffage a while ago and realised it would probably work better with some kind of electronic drum n bass element. When this adds in it sounds very Pendulum, almost a lesser-produced rip off Anyway I don't like the lead synth which is a tweaked patch on NI Massive. It sounds too weak. What should I do with it to make it sound bigger and less annoying?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15027660/drum%2 ... 20face.mp3

I don't know NI Massive at all. But i generally find that tweaking the modulation and pad parameters so that they are more subtle tends to help bring things forward.

I also have fairly simple synth tastes though. I like huge square waves mixed with sines, lots of cleanish sub-bass octave, with an angry lower mid octave, and maybe just a bit of high end teeth in the form of a triangle. I consider them a sort of bass/guitar hybrid element, and if i use synths, i don't tend to use a bass at all, with a guitar generally being used just for accents.

The best thing that synths have going for them IMO, is that they are capable of ridiculous frequency ranges. I tend to use them mostly in the sub-bass/bass/mids realm almost exclusively.

Another thing that can help bring them forward is to apply a subtle envelope follower or pwm to one or more of the oscillators that will pimp the sub bass either on the attack or with a quick swell and release. The movement through the frequency range tends to make the attack pop out of a mix. And a subtle modulation parameter on the release can help it pop out has you hold notes down. Sustained guitars basically retain their EQ, combined with a steady synth, the synth will just get lost in a heavy guitar distortion. Modulate an uppermids element of it with a slow LFO and it will pop out more.

The last thing is simple. Fucking crank them. Mix it so it sounds ridiculous with just synth and drums, then just bring enough guitar in to make the guitar's presence known. IMO, if you are going to have synths and guitars, lean on the synths, bring the guitars in for "spice". You might find that it doesn't take much guitar in a mix for you to discern that there is a chuggy heavy guitar there. You might also find that you can do some really bizarre EQ things to the guitars without 'breaking' them.

For that matter, experiment with ridiculous EQs on the synths too. There is generally a lot of frequency range represented, so synths often respond really well to strange EQ settings. Fuck with them and see what pops out.

That really is, in my opinion, the fun part of synths: Fuck with them and see what pops out. There is some good stuff in there.

I'll err toward the side of Chris and say EQ the synth and tweak the filters until it pops out more against the guitars.

Thanks for your most snaxcellent write up Chris Massive has SO much shit to play around with and I don't know what half of it does

Re-worked it with a much simpler synth. It sounds better. As I said, Massive has way too much shit to play with and it gets overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing. I'm not really pleased with the mix as a whole (seems too congested) and the structure of the song doesn't flow as well as I'd like, but fuck it

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15027660/Counterbalance.mp3
(yeah I stole th'album name from here )

edit - I've decided I don't actually like this much, and that I should probably stick to the minimalist 8 bit stuff as it seems to work a lot better for me