How to recreate the synth lead inJump by Van Halen
The key parts of this synth sound are the:
- Big, fat, detuned saw wave. This can be accomplished with 2 saw oscillators with one detuned or with a unison. You could do both too.
- Some filter envelope. It should be pretty fast. Just enough to hear the filter cutoff snap open.
- Spacious reverb and optionally some delay.
- If your synth has it, a vintage or slop knob. Jump is an older song and older synths' tuning naturally drifted. This will help it sounder closer to the original.
- Add chorus to make it sound thicker, if needed.
Another note: this song covers a broad range of notes. If your synth doesn't have that many keys, you may want to add a sub synth on the bottom end to get the lower growly synth sound.
Oscillators
Osc 1
saw
Osc 2
saw
+2
Filter
60%
0%
Filter Envelope
10%
0%
100%
0%
100%
Amp Envelope
0%
0%
100%
0%
Effects
medium
low