In this lesson you will witness a short rawstyle mix and learn how to make the epic rawstyle lead from the snippet in the video with just FL Studio. You will get to see all the instruments and all the mixer effects that make up this rawstyle mix. You can find out for yourself how easy it is to make.
Rawstyle instruments
The snippet starts with a piano (FL Keys) that plays a different melody than the main lead. The main lead is made with only 1 instance of the 3x Osc plugin. Feel free to watch all the settings in the video.
The kick is self-made, also solely with the 3x Osc and FL Studio plugins. It’s used as a sample in this project.
The last elements are a snare from my free Hardstyle Sample Pack, and a “tick” to give the kick a high snappy attack.
Let’s take a closer look to this rawstyle lead now…
Rawstyle lead with 3x Osc
In the video you can simply watch all the settings regarding the sound design of the rawstyle lead with the 3x Osc. There are 2 main important settings to get a typical rawstyle lead:
- Use the pitch LFO to give the lead that vibrating effect.
- Use the fat mode on the 3x Osc to make a lead sound… well… FAT. Check out the supersaw lead lesson to understand how this works.
Rawstyle lead mixer effects
Of course, a good lead needs some effects to shape and boost the sound. In this example, there are 3 mixer effects added.
- A reverb to create a good sense of space and fullness.
- An equalizer to get a sharper and more balanced sound.
- A waveshaper to limit the signal and cut off peaks.
That’s really all there is to it. I can’t make it any harder for you…
Rawstyle mix
In the video you can listen to the lead running solo with the faster melody. The bass underneath the lead is removed, giving room for the kick. This is often a crucial mixing strategy you simply have to know.
If you want to learn in more detail how to get your songs sound exactly like mine, just grab a copy of my EDM Mixing Guide (self-affiliated). I’ll go over all these mixing strategies in more detail and give you the dead-simple principles that always work, whether it’s rawstyle, hardstyle or even trance.
Plugins
In this lesson, the following FL Studio plugins were used:
- 3x Osc
- FL Keys
- Fruity Parametric EQ 2
- Fruity Reeverb 2
- Fruity Waveshaper
- Fruity Fast Dist