Day four's challenge, the astute among you will notice, is Synths. And I spent a surprisingly long time on trying to get a sound that I was ok with. It didn't have to be perfect, but I wanted it to at least fit in with what I have so far. I'm a bit late in starting this challenge according to Liina's schedule: Step 4 was supposed to happen on the 6th of December, but here it is on the 7th (and, as I write this, about 8pm local time) and I'm just now finishing up. Going to have to be a bit more proactive and carve out time (instead of sitting in front of my iPad playing poker!). On her YouTube channel, Liina (LNA) wraps up this challenge's video with some thoughts about time. We're all given the exact same amount of time; do you want to spend it creating? Or yelling at the screen about why someone would call with only a pair of sixes and then winning when the last card is another six? (I may or may not be guilty of the yelling part). So, tomorrow, when Day 5 takes place, I'm going to challenge myself to complete that day's challenge. On time!!

This is my progress so far. Purple is my synth color, and Will from EDM Tips would say "it's the natural color of Synths in the wild" Not sure about that, but it's my color today. As stated, I spent a lot of the time trying to get a Polymer synth to sound right, and I just wasn't getting it to dial in like I wanted. I was loosely following along with the video tutorial LNA did, but after grouping two Polymers together, fixing each with their own EQ, Reverb, Delay, even some compression (which, honestly, is still a mystery to me), I gave up. Copied the notes to a new track and decided on a different synth. Pigments by Arturia is an all-around beast of a synth, and does wavetables as well. And after about 5 minutes, I was getting a sound much closer to what I had in my head. Sometimes you just have to pick the right tools.

Then it was a matter of picking notes that fit better, adding a few effects - I have a short reverb and a tiny bit of delay - and then messing around with the notes again. It's definitely not anywhere close to good, but you know what? I don't care at this point. It's at least not a complete train wreck and I'm building towards something. As a bonus, I'm getting some ideas of what would be a neat bit here and there when it comes to arranging.

Tomorrow's challenge is leads. I'm thinking an epic saw might do the trick. We'll have to see how it goes!