Remaking the lead synth from the 2008 song "Gay Dentists" by Mr Oizo can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "Gay Dentists" 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
That big, simple supersaw lead opening Mr Oizo’s “Gay Dentists” is a layered sawtooth lead with heavy unison, subtle low-pass filtering and a touch of resonance. It appears immediately in the track’s intro and carries the main melody through the first section. The tone is thickened by 8 voices of detuned saws to get that smeared and pulsating supersaw character. If your synth only has 4 voices, add on a chorus with a fast rate to add that missing smear and pulsation.
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 "Gay Dentists" by Mr Oizo, 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 all 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
Amp Envelope
- Attack: 0 ms
- Sustain: 100%
- Release: 20 ms
Oscillators
- Oscillator 1
- Waveform: Saw
- Volume: 40%
- Oscillator 2
- Waveform: Saw
- Pitch: +1 Octave
- Volume: 60%
- Unison
- Oscillators: All
- Voice Count: 4
- Detune Range: 29 Cents
- Reset All Oscillators Phase On Note Start: No
Filter
- Type: Low Pass
- Cutoff: 80%
- Resonance: 30%
Chorus
- Mix: 50% Wet
- Rate: Fast
Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.
Explore More
- Lambs Anger (Wikipedia)
- Mr. Oizo: Master of Puppets (XLR8R)
- Mr. Oizo | Equipboard
- Plan B Magazine Issue 41 (Internet Archive / PDF)
- Mr. Oizo – Radiator Hymn
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:
- Primer, our free synthesizer VST
- Vital
Comments
This recipe is the result of a Syntorial community preset remake request. Need support remaking this sound? Have comments?
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