Here's my lead sound example contains the direct signal without distortion process.
I hope this video may find useful for lead sound sculpting.
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edit:2019-11
1. pick 2 or more oscillator or waveforms
mine was based on 3 different saw-like square PWM and triangle (sort of) waveform and piano hammer strike noise for the attack transient. (barely hearable)
sawtooth was a horrible choice, because of the filter type and values that I used.
3 selected waveforms had different filter values such as base freq, resonance and keyfollow values.


2. filters, BPF all the way

select broad band pass filter 2~4 pole filter kind.
make sure the base frequency follows your playing with keyfollow values, (roland/keyfollow, korg/keytrack) so the filter frequency tracks your note/pitch.
keyfollow value makes a huge difference.

adjust the values so your lead doesn't sounds screaching highs and muddy lows.

step 2 is really important because you'll need a lot of resonance to achieve this tone, and it gives you resonating harmonics are based on your pitch.
after step 2, compare to my dry tone and tweak more as you like.


3. minor tweaks

make your lead velocity sensitive (volume wise) and also modulates higher resonance values.
also, make waveforms detune a little bit to fatten up. I set mine about -7, 0, +7. (fine value)

and I set my last waveform (piano hammer noise) pitch keyfollow to 0, same pitch all across keyboard


4. octave down-shift and aftertouch note screeching fun stuff!

recall your 2 same dry preset into multi-timbral mode and layer them, set 1 preset to -1 octave.
use your mod wheel to do a volume fade to each other, it will make a smooth transition between octave changes with distortion added after, and can get very interesting sound in the middle.
aftertouch triggers detune between 2 presets minus values and plus values to do a note screeching.

and now the effects


5. phaser! missable ingredient.
with very subtle amount of phaser will make your lead sounds more natural like a distorted guitar or stringed instrument. without phaser it will sound tiny, thin and static. add phaser to first insert block of your synth's effect section. no parallel values, insert.


6. add distortion!
you have to experiment a lot with distortions. I had no time to experiment with guitar amp sims or high gain guitar preamps which I have, but I used guitar cab sim to mellow things out and it sounded great.

that's about it. experiment a lot and take a time with your synth, VSTis. use my video for a reference.

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