Hum to synth lead

What a lead does to a hum

A lead plays one note at a time, the way you hum. The classic lead synth, the Minimoog of 1970, is monophonic for the same reason: one voice, played like a guitar or a saxophone, with a glide on its controller that slides from note to note. So nothing is lost between your hum and the lead: every note you hummed is a note it plays.

The page moves your line up so its middle note sits between C5 and B5, an octave above where Hum to MIDI puts a melody and above most voices in a mix, where a lead has room. A lead holds a note as long as the key is down, so the length you hummed is the length you hear; Quantized is where it starts.

Saw, square, or the sample

Saw lead is two sawtooth waves a few cents apart through a gentle low-pass: bright and wide, the trance and big-room shape. Square lead is the same with square waves: hollower, nearer a chiptune or a clarinet. Table synth is a sample from the app, short, so it suits a hook of short notes; a long note stops where the sample ends.

Glide

Glide, or portamento, slides the pitch from one note into the next instead of jumping. The page glides only where two of your notes touch with no gap, in about 50 milliseconds, without starting the note again: how a mono synth plays legato. Hum a phrase smoothly and it glides; leave little gaps and every note starts fresh. Turn Glide off to hear the difference.

What's in the pack

Five MIDI files, one per timing, on channel 1, in your key and tempo, and five WAVs of the lines on the sound you chose with the glides as on screen, exactly two bars long, plus a README. In a DAW, glide is the synth's job, not the file's: switch the synth to mono or legato and set its glide time.

The WAVs are rendered twice round and the second pass kept, so a note held over the bar line loops without a gap.

Into your DAW

Load the MIDI on any synth with a saw or square and a mono mode: Serum, Vital, Ableton's Wavetable or Analog, Logic's Retro Synth, FL Studio's 3x Osc. Double it an octave down for weight, or keep the WAV as a guide track while you build your own sound.

Sources: the Minimoog's year, its single voice and its use for leads from Wikipedia, Minimoog and the Swiss Museum for Electronic Music Instruments, which also names the glide on its controller.

Or hear it in a track

Hear it in a track opens Brumm with the hook on the grid on the app's table synth, under a beat. Want a line under it? Voice to bassline takes the same hum two octaves down.

Your voice stays on your phone: the tool reads it in the browser and keeps nothing. How the site counts visits.