KVR Audio

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 10:59 pm

I prefer this Hall an Oates:

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:04 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:

I'd bet $10 there's a DX in there somewhere. And don't forget compression, reverb, delay, flanger, chorus, micing cabinets, aural (ahem) exciters, etc...

Isn't it. Here we are trying to out demo a multi-million studio, where this song was surely produced. Our 'poor' software synths against the might of the well oiled pop machine from the 1980s.

Anyway, tempted by the gauntlet thrown by PAK, here is my attempt. However, what you will hear first is a short snippet of the original in stereo, since it makes all the difference. Hopefully I'm not 'Out Of Touch' by including a bit of the original in the file

Out Of Touch Brass

I think I have too much detune going on there. Need another pint to retune.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:08 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:I just did.

Yep. But the audio example you provided sounds absolutely nothing like the sound.

yes, PWM can replace 2 detuned saws near transparently (filter artifacts could potentially reveal some of the differences, or not, depending on filter input level and resonance settings

Theory is fine. When the goal is actually copying a specific sound (at least copying to a high standard) small differences matter. Like I said - I'd be curious to hear a VST, using PWM as the main basis, where I thought it sounded closer than my own example.

And again, I'd say the original sound is more than one synth, and more than one synthesis method. So this is only meant to get close to a part of it.

But your sound doesn't get close to any part of it IMO. In contrast I think the Jupiter 8V2 example posted captures it relatively well. I'd tweak the attack a bit tighter based on the higher quality version linked, but that might just be because of the fact that they've pitched the remix slightly higher too

On listening again, a higher pitched pad seems to cut in at 26 seconds (on the original video) and it's the tail of what I heard at 39 seconds, so there's that and the piano to consider. The synth sound itself is likely to be two things layered. Could be two different synths layered, or just the same one recorded twice or a Jupiter 8 using its 2 layers.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:10 pm

himalaya wrote:Anyway, tempted by the gauntlet thrown by PAK, who himslef did not produce any audio goods, despite teasing for some

Pfft! Did too

(unless this mediafire link isn't showing up? ) http://www.mediafire.com/?b2l144bauh03q0m

Tried to link to an mp3 host first, so it'd play on the page, but had to link to that download instead.

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:15 pm

Haha, I wasn't quick enough in editing my post, you still grabbed it.

Yeah, I just noticed that you did post a clip after I read your post above.

Your example (now that I heard it) is very good (albeit of the mono track) A great example of phat sawtooth brass, me likes.

(edit: how many oscillators for the main sound, not the bass?)

Could be two different synths layered, or just the same one recorded twice

Yup. See my post above. There are two separate recordings of the brass sound, panned L-R.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:38 pm

himalaya wrote:Yeah, I just noticed that you did post a clip after I read your post above. Your example (now that I heard it) is very good. A great example of phat sawtooth brass, me likes. (edit: how many oscillators for the main sound, not the bass?)

There is no bass. That's one patch and 5 fingers (two for octave bass, 3 for the chords

)

There's two saws on the first layer and 1 saw and some square PWM on the second. So 3 saws osc's total, with a light sprinkling of PWM

matt1314 · Post by **matt1314** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:46 pm

PAK wrote:There is no bass. That's one patch and 5 fingers (two for octave bass, 3 for the chords )

There's two saws on the first layer and 1 saw and some square PWM on the second. So 3 saws osc's total, with a light sprinkling of PWM

Could you share the patch with us if possible? I would like to try it out on my JP-8 V. Also, what chords are you playing in your example?

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:11 am

hahaa, i loved (still do) that song... can't see the video here, but from dusty memory, here's my quick-attempt of it:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2633218/out_of_ ... ttempt.mp3

could be that i'm way off though...

edit:
himalaya beat me to it and of course nailled it... good one!

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:19 am

and now, that i hear the original snippet by himalaya, it's indeed 2 synths layered...

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:29 am

brok landers wrote:
edit:
himalaya beat me to it and of course nailled it... good one!

Thanks Brok.

Your clip is very lush, and you did it from memory. Don't you just love synth brass sounds, I love'em.

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:39 am

himalaya wrote:
brok landers wrote:
edit:
himalaya beat me to it and of course nailled it... good one!
Thanks Brok.

Your clip is very lush, and you did it from memory. Don't you just love synth brass sounds, I love'em.

yeah, sadly i couldn't see the video here and recognised your post too late...
hehe, well, to me it's a love/hate relationship with synth brasses... there was a time when i couldn't listen to them without getting verruca's immediately.... but now it comes back as a nostalgic backflash to a very important part of my life... so i start to slowly love these naive sounds again...

remember that paula abdul song "straight up"? that's when this kinda patch really did shine...

aaahhh, these times...

Nystul · Post by **Nystul** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 1:58 am

brok landers wrote: but now it comes back as a nostalgic backflash to a very important part of my life... so i start to slowly love these naive sounds again...
remember that paula abdul song "straight up"? that's when this kinda patch really did shine... aaahhh, these times...

I miss those days when pop songs had a funky groove and not just thump, thump, thump, stuttttttter.

Mutant · Post by **Mutant** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:25 am

My turn:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fifj4v
http://www.easy-share.com/1917196012/outoftouchho.mp3

I used Xhip for the brass sound.

The underlying piano is an important ingredient of the sound, so i decided to do it in the mix and probably mixed the piano a tiny bit too loud.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:54 am

it sounds as if it's only two ramps with quite a lot of drive into the filter. the biggest difficulty should be to get the same filter timbre in software. you could achieve the end of the sound's timbre with a post compression or shaper but this would be difficult to avoid modifying the beginning of the sound.

i've only heard such distortion in a filter when it's intentionally driven way beyond it's intended inputs.

given than a soft shaper should have very little effect on the harmonic balance of a ramp wave, i'd say this should be easiest to achieve using a shaper.

an awful lot of trouble for a sound i don't find particularly pleasing though. so sorry, i'm out with nothing but my babbling

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:08 am

himalaya wrote:
brok landers wrote: Your clip is very lush, and you did it from memory. Don't you just love synth brass sounds, I love'em.

Me too. They are in any soundbank i made sso far...

I'll have a closer look at the original sound. So far i only tried to explore that PWM method.

I agree that it could be difficult to reproduce as they had a multi million dollar studio like already said with almost unlimited opportunities.

I remember that ABBA used their mixer to produce their special Chorus like sounds (also for voices).

UPDATE:
I could not use any of the videos posted here. Looks like those are forbidden here in Germany. Anyway i'm sure i have the song somewhere in my huge iTunes library.

Ingo

80's Saw Sound