Make a Screaming Acid Sequence

A form of House music called Acid House became widely popular in the mid-80s. The style was defined primarily by the "squelching" sounds and deep basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. From then on, the famous acid sound never left the electronic music scene. Many variations of the well-known sound emerged, but the essence stayed the same. So, for the sake of this tutorial, we have decided to show you how to make a modern acid-style sequence in the form most popular in the Psy-Trance music genre. However, since building this sound from scratch requires quite some effort, we will divide this tutorial into a few parts.  

Let's Start

Let's start as usual by opening a new project within our SoundBridge: DAW. We have chosen to make the acid sequence in a VST synth called Spire by Reveal Sound, but you can get the same results by using a variety of other VST synths available on the market. After adding a new instance of Spire on the MIDI channel in the SoundBridge: DAW, let's write a short sequence in the MIDI editor and hear how it sounds with the initial preset.  

~Sequence Init  

Oscillator 1

We will first set up oscillator 1 within Spire to generate our sequence. From the offered choices of oscillator types, let's select the HardFM and move the ctrl-a and ctrl-b parameters a bit to get a rougher sound.

Ultimately, we can choose a pre-recorded waveform called Piano A from the box below to make the sound even noisier. Let's hear how all that sounds now.

~Sequence Spire - Osc 1  

Oscillator 2

Since our sequence still sounds thin, we can fix that by adding width and punch. This will be done in the section next to the oscillator by increasing the unison voices from one to two and increasing the wide parameter by half. We will top all this with a bit of growing the X-comp, an excellent built-in compressor in Spire that adds punch and body to just about any sound. It's time to hear about the progress again.

~Sequence Spire - Osc 1 + width and X-comp  

Add Some Resonance

A proper acid sound is nothing without a filter with much resonance. Therefore, we will move to the filter section to set it right for our sequence. From the selected filter types, we have a convenient "Acid" one, put on Low-Pass, which we will use, coupled with the second filter set to High-Pass, mixed with the first one. Let's hear it.

~Sequence Spire - Osc 1 + width and X-comp + Filter  

Add Some Distortion

A friend of any decent acid sound is distortion. Therefore, we will add some. On top of that, we will add a bit of Reverb and Delay for full effect. Here is how it sounds so far.

~Sequence Spire - Osc 1 + width and X-comp + Filter + Effects

To conclude, we will hear how our acid sequence sounds in context with the Psy-Trance beat.  

~Full Mix