i understand GM soft synths but a friend wants me to put a synth track on one of his songs. by that i know he means a sound not from a conventional instrument. i see i can download tablewarp2 for free so thought i would give it a go. is there a shortcut or a guide that will save me hours of playing around? a simple guide as to what does what would help.

There is an old but good VSTi called Crystal that has hundreds of patches available, as well as an additional 20 MB SF2.
Hard to believe it is still active and supported after all these years, but it was updated a couple months ago.

Might be worth looking at simply for all the user patches and user guides available.

https://www.greenoak.com/crystal/dnld2.html

It's hard to say what kind of sound he is after, since a synth can make so many different sounds.

thanks rharv - he's a bit vague too but he is an accomplished magician and wants a motif floating over the vocal 'like a leaf on a stream'. and yes he was sober when he told me but we are both children of the 60s.............

my first instinct is a flute like tone - anyone else got any ideas?

A motif you say? ..

thanks rharv - next job is to start with crystal

i have found i have tablewarp2 as a freebie with sforzando so that seems a sensible place to start

run what ya brung ..

(hope the US slang is understood)
Use whatever you want to and are comfortable with.

well i can always start there rharv and then try crystal as you sugggest - thanks for your interest and advice