Remaking the lead synth from the 2015 song "Go" by The Chemical Brothers can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "Go" 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 synth in The Chemical Brothers’ “Go” is a bright, slightly saturated unison hook that sits above the chorus and bends between notes. It appears in the chorus (first chorus begins at 1:04) and plays the recurring, rising motif that anchors the eight-bar chorus. The patch is a square wave layered with a medium pulse wave, stacked one octave apart in unison with glide on, run through a key-tracked resonant low-pass filter, plus saturation and very short reverb. The result is an edged, vocal-like lead that cuts through percussion and bass.
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 "Go" by The Chemical Brothers, 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
- Portamento: 40 ms
Amp Envelope
- Attack: 0 ms
- Sustain: 100%
- Release: 20 ms
Oscillators
- Oscillator 1
- Waveform: Pulse
- Pulse Width: 100%
- Volume: 70%
- Oscillator 2
- Waveform: Pulse
- Pulse Width: 50%
- Pitch: +1 Octave
- Volume: 30%
- Unison
- Oscillators: All
- Voice Count: 4
- Detune Range: 12 Cents
- Stereo Spread: 20%
Filter
- Type: Low Pass
- Cutoff: 70%
- Key Tracking: 50%
Filter Envelope
- Modulation Amount: 15%
- Attack: 0 ms
- Decay: 300 ms
- Sustain: 0%
Modulation Envelope
- Destination: Pitch
- Modulation Amount: 5 Semitones
- Attack: 0 ms
- Decay: 10 ms
- Sustain: 0%
Distortion
- Drive: 5%
Reverb
- Mix: 20% Wet
- Size: Small
Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.
Explore More
- Go (The Chemical Brothers song) (Wikipedia)
- Anatomy of a hit: Chemical Brothers – Go (MusicRadar/Computer Music)
- CHEMICAL BROTHERS “GO” Synth Sound | Yamaha Montage (YouTube)
- How to make the keys and synth sound for The Chemical Brothers (YouTube tutorial)
- Matt Cox: MIDI Tech For The Chemical Brothers (Sound On Sound)
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
EN 
JA 
FR 
ES 
DE