beware of my inability to proofread, there are probably going to be a lot of mistakes.
As far as atmospheric synths go:
Pads: You'll want a lot of pitch variation, inconsistency in this is golden, rhythmic is silver. No real guide on how to start your sound, you can use just about any kind of wave shape or samples to get something spacey. Filters will play a huge role here; you'll either want bright and glittery pads or lush dark ones. Layering is really useful for achieving stuff like this, mess around. Design your pads with context of both time and timbre. When should this come in? What should it sound like? start planning now
Leads: Here you're not going to be able to use any sound as freely as you are with pads, but there is tons of room for playing around. Saws are a great start, honestly. Again leads are about context, but the parameters are generally a little different. Focus on the purity of the sound: A mild detune? something very huge and stacky? or very sine-like? context context context context context. Reverb and Delay are absolutely welcome here too
SFX: lots of the beauty here comes from.... wait... YOU GUESSED IT
CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT
Filters really come to shine here, mess around with resonance, play around with shapes you are unfamilar with. Modulation in general actually is great. Get wacky, its spacey. For distinct tones, maybe try to avoid using pure sources. Start getting comfortable with processing noise, and vice versa: for noisy tones, try to achieve them with simple sources. processing is a lot of the time your best friend.
