I couldn't find this discussed elsewhere despite being a rather familiar sound.

The sound I'm looking to replicate is the first thing you hear on the original single ( and album? ) version of the song. It's a wobbly reso filtered sound ( I think ) after a few seconds the LFO speed and the filter cutoff are swept down ( I think ). The sound has gone before the band fade in.

It's a classic 70's spacey/Sci-fi wobble, but for some reason I can't seem to get anywhere near to it. I've tried most basic waveforms and filter settings but I'm not even close.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks.

Thats the unique sounding EMS VCS 3. There is a reasonable vsti copy called cynthia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMS_VCS_3

http://ninecows.dk/cynthia/

Incidently, the song is about a pedal bike and is sung by Lemmy from Motorhead

Nonsense. The keyboardist from the James Last orchestra demonstrates how you can do it on an organ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF2ODWluPlY

Part of the problem with trying to emulate the sound from the Hawkwind version might be that, judging by the amount of distortion you can hear as the LFO winds down, it's not just the VCS3 that you can hear - it's possibly being run through a guitar amp and cab or an effects pedal or both.

Synth1 Brastring

Delay off, chorus off, OSC1 set to sine, LFO1 set to osc1,2

Play with LFO1 speed?

"Del Dettmar used a VCS3 synthesiser which produced the whooshing sound on Silver Machine"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLrF2aFBWc

Always helps to start with the original sound. James lasts' version is just white noise. Close but no cigar lol
Last edited by UltraJv on Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:57 am; edited 3 times in total

I like the way it whooshed over your head.

Oh - humour?

Firstly, I haven't heard that James Last version in many years - Thanks for that. cheesetastic

I don't have synth1 or cynthia at the moment as I've moved to Win 64 bit, thus cutting my free VST choices. ( which is probably a good thing ).

Just concentrating on the sound towards the beginning ( before the LFO freq sweep ), if I set up a simple sine oscillator and use an LFO to vary the amplitude it sounds nothing like the Hawkwind track to me. The orginal has almost a wah like sound to me.

Obviously each synth has it's own tone but can anyone suggest general oscillator and LFO settings that might get close. I'm not looking to copy the sound, just get close enough.

You need to get LFO to OSC frequency, not amplitude

Brilliant!

The synth I was using didn't allow routing LFO to oscillator pitch and I just couldn't hear it as vibrato rather than tremolo. No wonder nothing worked.

Thanks to all who responded.

I always preferred the B side to that track - sadly most people seem to know Hawkwind just for Silver Machine but they did much better electronic stuff on their first album and later ones like Quark, Strangeness and Charm

Weeelll...not quite.

I remember being in Hammersmith Odeon when they played there and it did sound like a blinking aircraft flying overhead a few times there...

I think it was on side 2 the last track on that side of Space Ritual Live that had a piece called Electric #1 if I'm not mistaken...some of that was quite good!