[musicale]

> How do you get good bells and brass or as punchy bass sounds from subtractive-only synthesis?

Quick answer: modulation (primarily oscillator modulation but also filter and amplitude modulation.)

Analog brass is great already, but for metallic (or sometimes woody) sounds oscillator sync, cross modulation and/or analog FM, and ring modulation are your friends.

You can also get some pretty jarring sounds out of pulse width modulation, some tinkly bells out of sine and triangle waves, and "punchy" basses out of square and sawtooth waves. I hear a lot of pretty raw sawtooth-derived basslines and leads. Stacked waves of different shapes can also be interesting.

It also depends on your oscillators. Many subtractive synths will feature analog filters attached to flexible oscillators that can generate waves other than classic waveforms.