Mark Sherry - Imbecile | Lead Synth Patch Remake

Remaking the lead synth from the 2018 song "Imbecile" by Mark Sherry can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "Imbecile" lead patch and play this iconic sound on most hardware or software subtractive synthesizers (Serum, Vital, Pigments, Prophet, Korg, Moog, etc). We've included the preset download directly for your convenience, but we strongly recommend you use our programming tutorial to recreate it yourself.

Original Audio

The lead in Mark Sherry’s “Imbecile” is a bubbly supersaw voice: wide, dense and heavily detuned to form a thick 16‑voice unison saw. It sits front-and-center and carries the main melody through the track’s drops and primary sections. The timbre shows uneven filter cutoff modulation driven by an irregular LFO shape, producing a pulsing, slightly unstable character. Hear the synth prominently during the main drop and recurring lead passages in the Extended Mix.

Our Remake of The Lead Synth sound

This audio clip is how close we've matched the original tone of the lead synth from the song "Imbecile" by Mark Sherry, giving you a reference point as you design your own synthesizer preset. Play it as often as you need to familiarize yourself with the nuances of the sound.

Synth Patch Programming Recipe

Getting Started

• Start by initializing your synthesizer to a plain saw with no filter, modulation or effects. For soft synths use the "init"/"default" preset or the the button to reset allx parameters to their default factory values.
• No two synths are exactly alike, so treat the values below as approximate, and use your ear.
• Percentage values (e.g. 50%) represent the relative position of a knob or slider within its full range. The full range of each parameter may differ from synth to synth, so use your ear.

Voices

• Voice Mode: Mono

Oscillator Setup

Oscillator 1

• Mix: 71%
• Wavetable: Default Saw
• Routing: Filter 1
• Random Phase: 50%
• Unison Voices: 16
• Unison Detune: 43%
• Unison Blend: 0.54
• Unison Stereo Spread: 100%
• Detune Power: 0.58

Filter Settings

Filter 1

• Model: Analog
• Style: 12dB Slope
• Blend: Low Pass (0)
• Cutoff: 47% (261.626 Hz)
• Resonance: 10%
• Drive: 12%
• Modulations:
• Lfo 1 → Cutoff

Envelope Settings

Envelope 1 (Amp)

• Attack: 12 ms
• Decay: 305 ms
• Sustain: 93%
• Release: 90 ms

LFO Settings

LFO 1

• Mode: Sync
• Sync: Tempo
• Tempo: 1/2
• Shape: Triangle (custom)
• Destinations:
• Filter 1 Cutoff (amount 72%)

Effects Processing (Ordered)

Compressor

• Mode: Single Band
• Mix: Default (100%)
• Attack: 52%
• Release: 78%
• Band Values
• Band Gain: 12 dB
• Band Upper Ratio: 86%

Eq

• Band Cutoff: 937.694 Hz
• Band Resonance: 34%
• Band Gain: -3 dB
• High Cutoff: 3437.012 Hz
• High Resonance: Default (32%)
• High Gain: 3 dB

Reverb

• Mix: 37%
• Size: 67%
• Chorus Amount: 5%
• Chorus Frequency: Default (0.250 Hz)
• Time: 0.830 s

Modulation Matrix

• LFO 1 → Filter 1 Cutoff 72%

Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.

Explore More

• Mark Sherry Interview – Freshly Squeezed Samples
• Interview: Mark Sherry – Black Hole Recordings
• Patch Request: Mark Sherry – Imbecile (Lead Synth) – AudibleGenius community
• Mark Sherry Interview – Sonic Academy (course/interview)
• Mark Sherry Interview / 498 – Sonic Academy Forums

Preset Downloads

Don't want to learn synth programming now? Use our synth preset as your starting point and tweak it from there. Register an account with Audible Genius and download the presets for free for the following synths:

• Vital

Comments

This recipe is the result of a Syntorial community preset remake request. Need support remaking this sound? Have comments?