Gunship "Tech Noir" Breakdown: Synths in Serum

Gunship's "Tech Noir" is considered by many to be one of the most emblematic songs of the synthwave scene. The song comes from their self-titled album, released in 2015, and since then Gunship have been one of the biggest names in synthwave. After wanting to make this tutorial for quite a while, the time has finally come to show you all the sound design behind this amazing song.

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The Verse Bass

If you've read any of our other breakdowns, you know we always start with the bass, and this one is no exception. To make this preset, we need a Basic Mg in oscillator "A", two octaves down, with a little frequency modulation coming from oscillator "B". Oscillator "B" has an ICanHasKick wavetable, one octave down, with some sync. Envelope 1 modulates the levels of all the oscillators and the filter cutoff. The final touch is some sidechain from LFO 1: to apply it, go to your Matrix tab and route it to the amp.

The Airy Pad

There's just something about this patch that brings the track to life: the way it subtly complements the bassline is just mesmerizing. To make this sound, use an ICanHasKick in oscillator "A" and a Basic Shape in its second position in oscillator "B", with a little frequency modulation coming from oscillator "A". To make the patch feel ethereal and airy, you first need to open your filter slowly. We used envelope 2 for this, with an attack time of 1.6 s. After that, drench it in reverb and delay and you should be good to go.

The Resonant Synth Melody

This synth melody comes in as a prelude to the chorus. We used a Sweep20 in oscillator "A", the waveform that gives this patch its shimmer, and another ICanHasKick in oscillator "B". The main feature of this sound is the frequency sweep with high resonance. To get it, give envelope 2 a decay of around 1.2 s, routed to the filter cutoff. For the final touch, your resonance should be between 60 and 65 percent.

The Chorus Bass

Now we come to the chorus, and the first element we'll recreate is the dark-sounding bass. You need a Sine wavetable in oscillator "A", one octave down, but the most important part is the frequency modulation coming from oscillator "B" at around 50%. In oscillator "B", use another ICanHasKick wavetable to add a little brightness to the sound. Envelope 2 has a decay of around 3 s and is routed to the filter cutoff. Add multiband compression and distortion in the FX tab, and that's it.

The Detuned Chorus Chords

The chords synth in the chorus is a relatively simple patch, and its main sound design element is how it is slightly detuned. First, you need a PWM64 in oscillator "A" and a PWM DS in oscillator "B". There's no need for a filter on this sound: apart from the vocals, the chorus has only 3 melodic elements and two of them are basses, so this one needs to be bright to create a contrast. Now for the detuning: assign LFO 1 to the fine-tuning of both oscillators, then do the same with a second LFO. Just make sure the two LFOs have different rates, as this gives the detuning a feeling of randomness.

Make your own Tech Noir-style track.

You've heard how the basses, the airy pad and the resonant melody are built. The Darksynth Pack has sounds like these ready to load in Serum, along with the rest of its 130+ presets.

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