Authoring a lead

A lead carries the melody. It sits on top of a track, so it needs presence to cut through and expression to feel played rather than programmed. Where a bass is steady, a lead is alive.

Voice

Set Voice to Mono and turn Glide up for the classic lead feel, a single line that slides from note to note. Mono with Glide is what makes a lead sound like one continuous performance. Choose Poly instead if you want to play the occasional two-note harmony.

Oscillator

SuperSaw gives a thick, wide lead with no extra work. For a sharper, more distinct tone, use a Wavetable with WT Pos turned up to a brighter waveform. Either way, add Unison with a moderate Detune to spread the sound across the stereo image, and use the Curve control to set how the copies are distributed, from clustered in the centre to pushed out to the sides.

Warp adds harmonic bite. Sync or Bend give a lead extra edge that helps it stand out against a full arrangement.

Filter

Use LP24 and keep Cutoff fairly open so the lead stays bright and cuts through the mix. Turn Reso up for a singing peak that adds character without dulling the sound. A moderate Env gives the note a little movement as it starts, without the strong filter sweep a bass wants.

Amp envelope

Use a fast Attack so the note speaks right away, a high Sustain so held notes keep their full volume, and a medium Release so one note connects smoothly into the next. A lead that is held should keep sounding at strength, not fade while your finger is still down.

Movement

Expression is what separates a lead from a tone. The most important addition is vibrato.

Breath gives correlated, human vibrato together with gentle pitch drift and volume swell, all driven by one effort signal per note. Turn Vibrato Depth up and let it fade in over the first moments of a note, so a sustained note comes alive while a short stab stays steady. This is closer to how a singer or a wind player adds vibrato than a plain LFO is.

Route the mod wheel to vibrato depth or to the filter cutoff so you can open the sound up as you play, the standard way a performer shapes a lead in real time. Route velocity to the cutoff so harder notes are brighter.

Effects

Add a Delay set to Sync for rhythmic, ping-pong echoes that give the line space. Add Reverb for depth so the lead sits in a room rather than flat against the speakers. Chorus widens the sound, and a Distortion adds edge when the lead needs to sound harder.