Synthwave is 80s-inspired electronic music built from a small, familiar palette: bright analog-style lead synths, a driving pulsing bass, lush detuned pads, big gated-reverb drums, and a glossy coat of chorus and reverb over everything. Get those parts right and arrange them the usual way, and the neon, nostalgic feel takes care of itself.
Applies to any synth and any DAW, or a browser instrument. The classic gear gets named as examples, but the ideas are the technique, not the hardware.
Synthwave is a set of sounds arranged a particular way to conjure the 1980s: analog-style synthesizers, an insistent pulsing bass, huge reverberant drums, and a wistful major-key melody sitting over a darker minor mood. It leans on a handful of classic timbres, the warm detuned saw, the hollow pulse, the FM bell, so the palette itself carries most of the era before you have written a single note.
The feel is nostalgic and cinematic rather than aggressive. Tempos sit in a mid-paced band, roughly 80 to 118 BPM, fast enough to drive but never frantic. Almost everything is wet and wide, drenched in chorus and reverb, and the whole track usually pumps in time with the kick. Strip the effects away and you are left with simple, singable parts, which is the point: the parts are plain, and the production is what dates it to the decade.
The ingredients are consistent from track to track:
| Part | Typical | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tempo | 80 to 118 BPM | Mid-paced and driving, never rushed |
| Lead | Sawtooth or PWM synth | The bright, detuned melody line out front |
| Bass | Pulsing eighth notes | A driving bass, often one note per beat or arpeggiated |
| Pads | Detuned, chorused | Lush sustained chords filling the background |
| Drums | Big 80s kit | Gated-reverb snare, punchy kick, electronic toms |
| Colour | FM bells and electric piano | DX-style sparkle and warmth for accents |
| Space | Chorus and plate reverb | The wide, wet, glossy sheen over the whole mix |
The lead is a bright analog-style synth, a sawtooth or a pulse with its width moving. The pads are the same kind of tone, detuned and softened into a bed. The bass is a driving pulse, usually straight eighth notes on the root or a repeating arpeggio. Three parts, all cut from the same synthesized cloth.
Start with a sawtooth, the brightest and fullest of the basic waves, or a pulse with pulse-width modulation slowly moving the width so the tone breathes and hollows out. Stack two or three voices and detune them a few cents apart for the thick, slightly out-of-tune shimmer that reads instantly as this style. A Juno or a similar analog-style synth is the classic voice. Play the melody in octaves or add a fifth underneath to make it sound bigger.
Take that same detuned saw, soften the attack so it fades in, lengthen the release so chords overlap, and roll the top off a touch so it sits back. Then pour chorus over it. The rich, watery width of a stereo chorus is a large part of the sound, and the pads are where it does the most work. Voice the chords open rather than crammed low, and let them hold under everything as a bed.
The engine of a synthwave track is usually the bass. The common move is a relentless eighth-note pulse, often a single root note repeating steadily under each chord, which gives the forward, night-drive momentum the genre is known for. The other common move is an arpeggio, the notes of the chord played in a fast repeating pattern by a synth arpeggiator. A round analog bass tone suits both. Keep it simple and let its repetition carry the groove.
Most synthwave lives in a minor key, which is where the moody, dramatic backdrop comes from. The trick is to write the lead melody so it feels bright and hopeful anyway, leaning on the major-sounding notes of that scale. A cheerful, singable topline over darker minor chords is what makes the style feel nostalgic and bittersweet at once rather than simply sad.
Big and electronic, with a snare that explodes into a burst of reverb and cuts off short. The kit is programmed, not sampled off a real room, and every hit sounds larger than life. The snare is the signature, but the punchy kick and the way the whole track pumps around it matter just as much.
Gated reverb is the defining 80s drum sound. You feed the snare into a large, bright reverb for size, then put a noise gate after it that slams shut quickly, so you hear a huge burst of ambience that stops abruptly instead of ringing out. The result is a snare that sounds enormous but stays tight and rhythmic. Many drum machines and reverbs have a gated setting that does this in one control.
Reach for classic electronic drum-machine sounds rather than an acoustic kit. A punchy, tuned kick, a fat clap layered with or instead of the snare, and electronic toms for fills are the backbone, the kind of sounds a LinnDrum or similar machine made famous. Tune the toms low for those descending fills, and keep the pattern fairly simple: a steady kick and a big backbeat snare on two and four do most of the work.
Sidechain the pads and the bass to the kick so their level dips every time the kick hits and swells back in the gaps. That rhythmic breathing, the pump, glues the track together and pushes it forward, and it is a core part of the modern synthwave feel. Keep the kick itself out of the ducking so it stays as the solid anchor everything else pumps against.
Lean on the sounds and the space that carry memories of the decade: FM electric pianos and bells for warmth and sparkle, a bright melody riding a darker chord progression, and a wet, glossy coat of chorus and reverb over the whole mix. The nostalgia is mostly in the timbres and the production, so choosing period-correct sounds does more than any clever chord.
The FM synthesis of a DX-style synth gave the 80s its glassy electric pianos and its glassy bells, and a few of those notes placed high over a chorus can date a track to the decade on their own. Use a soft FM electric piano for chord stabs or a bell-like tone for a countermelody. They add the shimmer and the warmth that pure analog saws do not.
Write the topline to feel wistful and hopeful while the chords underneath stay in a minor mood. That gap between a hopeful melody and a melancholy backing is the emotional heart of the style. Keep the melody simple and singable so it lodges in memory, which is what a nostalgic hook is meant to do.
Almost nothing in synthwave is dry. Put chorus on the synths for that wide, watery movement, then place the whole mix in a big plate or hall reverb so it sounds like a lit stage at night. A slap or eighth-note delay on the lead adds to the space without washing it out. The wet, wide, slightly soft-focus finish is what turns a set of correct parts into something that feels like a memory of the 80s rather than a modern recording.
ARGISH is a self-playing drone synth. Set a key and it lays down the evolving pad-and-drone backdrop that the leads and arps sit on top of, drifting and shifting in key without ever quite repeating. The wide, moving atmosphere is handled for you, so you can spend your time writing the hooks, the bass and the drums instead of programming pads by hand. It runs as an Audio Unit, a VST3, an AAX and a standalone app.
It also runs free in your browser, no install and no account, which is the fastest way to hear the kind of lush, drifting bed a synthwave track sits on.
Everything on this page also works by hand in any DAW, which is rather the point of writing it down.
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