Construction of the VST

• The primary sections of a VST

I'm certain that you've seen many tutorials on the internet. But just a few actually explained how to use the VST. You can't learn all the information instantly, you need some time and patience.

Did it ever happen to you to work with a plug-in which felt like it was impossible to use? Did you feel overwhelmed, like you weren't editing the right options?

I want to help you solve some of these problems in this article. It's simply wonderful to be able to create your own sounds.

I don't want to go into much unnecessary detail, so I'm going to present just the essential, the primary sections of a VST, because as soon as you know them you can basically work with any virtual instrument. All of them work on the same principles.

• The primary sections of a virtual instrument

First of all, I have to tell you that any synth, even if it is additive or subtractive, or any other type of synth , it has a set of oscillators. In some cases, I've noticed that they are called generators.

The oscillators are the substance of an virtual instrument. They are the source of the sound. In the case of subtractive synths, these have some standard templates like sine,saw,triangle,gate and noise. By combining these, you get more complex sounds.

A lot of synths have 3 or even 4 oscillators. In some cases they can be customized with custom templates or harmonics, and in others you can only use the templates the program has.

I don't know what your preferences are, but I can not work with oscillators that don't allow a custom template. I feel like my creativity is limited. But this is just my opinion, I suggest you should use those that fill your needs.

Ok, so probably right about now you are asking yourself what is next. Let's move further.

• Master envelope

The options in the Master envelope are priceless in any virtual instrument. Almost every virtual instrument has an ADSR system.

Ok, but what is ADSR? They are 4 parameters that dictate the sound's duration.

Attack - the time needed for the sound to reach a certain value

Decay - the time needed for the sound to get from max volume to 0

Sustain - it is the value at which the sound maintains itself as long as the key is pressed

Release - it's the duration that begins when the key is no longer pressed

I hope you understand what ADSR is now. Don't worry, it is pretty easy to learn.

• Filters

Another section in a virtual instrument is the filter. These are just some options that remove certain sections of the sound's resonance. There are many filter types, but the most important ones are :

low-pass - removes the high frequencies

band-pass - removes the high and the low frequencies

high-pass - removes the low frequencies

Filters are very important to create a high quality sound. A sound that has a low-pass will sound sunk and will lack brightness. The high frequencies give that presence and that brightness in general.

I believe you did understand how the filters work aswell now. There are a lot of details, but as I was saying at the beginning I want to be as clear as possible in this article.

• The modulation effects

If you've worked with some VSTs till now, most likely you've noticed that they have effects for reverb,delay,chorus ,phaser and flanger.

The reverb and the delay are the most used. There are hundreds of plug-ins of this type. Some producers use effects of reverb and delay from other VSTs if those that they are using is a bit more limited.

I usually recommend using a separate plug-in for delay/reverb. In most cases the VSTs for synthesis don't have these options.

Some synths have evolved so much, that they have the option to modify the sound as much as you want from within the program.

• LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator)

These are just some oscillators that modify the signal of the others. They don't create anything, they just modify. Depending on the settings that you make, they can make new variations of the source signal.

In some VSTs they can be customised by taste. I like to use these oscillators to give more variety to the sound. The high frequencies need a lot of variation. If you want to learn more about the high frequency, you can find it HERE.

All of these are elements which must be combined very carefully to create lovely sound textures. I believe that when you know what you are doing you might get incredible results.

You may be asking yourself: what options and settings do the virtual instruments contain other than the ones that I've listed. There are many things to add like : the pitch of the oscillators can be modified, some even have glide time. It can't really be called an effect, but I really do use it a lot, because I like how it modifies the sound.

I've noticed that there are a lot of producers that try a new VST every day, and they don't like it because they are unable to understand it. The conclusion is that it is pointless to have a lot of instruments if you can't get the best out of them.

I hope that you like today's article. If you have an opinion about VSTs don't hesitate to share it. What other settings do the VSTs that you use have?

I'm looking forward for your response.

Thank You!

writer: Martino Dean

About Author Unknown

I'm Fahd El Haraka, i'm interested in all about Fl Studio and in general about sound editor programs, giving some tutorials about each one to improve your skills in producing music.