KVR Audio

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:30 pm

So much "original" stuff starts out as bad copies it's not funny. Consider Blue Monday, one of the most famous basslines in all of electronic music. Started life as? Apparently an attempt at copying a Donna Summer bassline (I forget which one

)

Music is built on what came before. Copying sounds, and emulating them to a high standard, is extremely valuable in improving your own sound design and especially the production values in your own music. One of the best ways to learn is to mimic.

It's entirely natural and healthy to seek to emulate what you like and enjoy. Even if someone gave you the entire existing instrumentation for a complete track, even one that's fairly well known, most people would be likely to build something totally different sounding unless there's some super-recognizable element! (Sorry, Peter Gabriel got dibs on the shakuhachi.. )

ianweb123 · Post by **ianweb123** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:22 pm

This one was using all Krakli plugins. I was trying for a live, concert sound..
http://soundcloud.com/krakli-software/krakli-vous

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 1:03 am

4damind wrote:It's true, there will not be a new JMJ (and to be honest, in my opinion a lot of artists making today much better electronic music than Jarre...)

But there are always things we can learn also from the old artists. Jarre was never a big sound designer and IMO he was never a outstanding composer like his father Maurice Jarre but he was some of the first artist, trying to make electronic music for the mainstream (and we know he had big success).

Some ideas we can learn from Jarre: simple effects like a phaser can make from a simple white noise a great and interesting effect (see Oxygene 4). Lot of small layers also non-tonal sounds are the glue to make a big sound.
I think today nobody will really sound like from 1974 It makes no sense to use exactly the same sounds (or emulations of this sounds) for todays songs.

- 100

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 1:04 am

Hi Ian!
That's supremely enjoyable. In fact the bass reminds me of Wendy Carlos' Moog Modular workouts. A cool mix of sounds there!

I've cought the bug and have just done a cover of Oxygene 4 using Synth 1.

Vectorman · Post by **Vectorman** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 4:12 am

do_androids_dream wrote:well i'm guessing you are not going to shell out for a virus but i thought this would be relevant and somewhat jaw dropping - check out the jarre covers at the bottom of this page (completely done with a virus KB)

http://www.perkristian.net/studio_viruskb.shtml

I came across those at some point in the past and thought they were nicely done indeed for using nothing but one older hardware VA. (Better reproductions than what many others who have a lot of sought-after analog gear seem to be able to manage, tbh).

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:32 pm

Vectorman wrote:I came across those at some point in the past and thought they were nicely done indeed for using nothing but one older hardware VA. (Better reproductions than what many others who have a lot of sought-after analog gear seem to be able to manage, tbh).

True and not true. It's just that they are rare. Quality is rare.

A lot of people don't seem to be able to get the right timbres out of their instruments, and for the lack of a better word their sounds suck. Synth music takes a particular type of talent to craft in order for it not to sound "cheap". Many people even though they surround themselves with gear from floor to ceiling aren't able to do anything noteworthy at all. Which is a shame as they then hold on to their gear, thinking the gear will one day make their music great, never turning inward to look at themselves. You get that a lot with people who start out emulating Jarre and his tunes, thinking one day they will play to millions. Be they hardware hoarders or software illiterates.

But you will find a few other people who are extraordinary players and very detailed in their covers.
The Jarre community websites have them both.

fartybreath · Post by **fartybreath** » Mon May 26, 2014 3:50 pm

Superwave "Equinoxe" VST has ALL things "Jarre-esque". It's worth the £40 to buy!

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Mon May 26, 2014 4:15 pm

fartybreath wrote:Superwave "Equinoxe" VST has ALL things "Jarre-esque". It's worth the £40 to buy!

This synth is a joke!

We talked about it just a few days ago.

There are many threads about the emulation of Jean-Michel Jarre sounds in KVR:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=292774 (all the thread)
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9#p5748249 (and following)

and many others...

PatchAdamz · Post by **PatchAdamz** » Tue May 27, 2014 12:50 am

Jean Michelle Jarre used many synths but amongst his favorite were:

E.M.S VCS 3 (1969)
ARP 2600 (1971)
ARP 2500 (1969)
FAIRLIGHT CMI (1979)
Roland JD-800 (1991)
MEMORY MOOG (1982)
RMI Keyboard Computer (1974)
EMINENT 310 (1970)
Teenage Engineering OP-1 (2011)
MELLOTRON (1963)

So any emulations of his sound would include emulations of these classics.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Tue May 27, 2014 1:42 am

PatchAdamz wrote:Jean Michelle Jarre used many synths but amongst his favorite were:

E.M.S VCS 3 (1969)
ARP 2600 (1971)
ARP 2500 (1969)
FAIRLIGHT CMI (1979)
Roland JD-800 (1991)
MEMORY MOOG (1982)
RMI Keyboard Computer (1974)
EMINENT 310 (1970)
Teenage Engineering OP-1 (2011)
MELLOTRON (1963)

So any emulations of his sound would include emulations of these classics.

Hmmm... But gathering all these "emulations" (I'd say rather "imitation") doesn't mean that it is a good quality. This synth is of very poor quality concerning the "imitations" of Jean-Michel Jarre sounds. And yet I don't spit at all on Superwave since their P8 is one of my favorite synths ever!

We can like (and even love) a synth, that is obvious and that can't be discussed, because it is a question of personal attirance and that must be respected. And I respect of course your attirance for this synth.

But it doesn't mean that it is really an accurate emulation of the synths it pretends to emulate. In fact, accurate emulations of multiple synths are very rarely possible to reach in only one synth because of their too much different conception, at the exception of very few synths (DIVA for example is an incredible emulation of three famous legendary synths, but the developer has wanted to limitate this accurate emulation to only three to avoid the inevitable loss of quality at wanting to run too many hares). As say the english people it's never good to have too much irons in the fire. Such synths as Equinox have good imitations, yes, that, I agree. But not accurate emulations. Generally accurate emulations of a lot of synths are findable in not only one VST synth (it's a total illusion to believe that) but by a subtle choice of several VST synths (some of them being free, some of them being quite expensive, and some being occasionally very cheap).

It's curious, in your list you have probably forgotten the extraordinary sound of his laserharp... which was in fact a laser controller (for the visual special effects) plugged simply to... an Elka Synthex.

eXode · Post by **eXode** » Tue May 27, 2014 6:54 am

classic wrote:I am not looking for ALL his sounds:)
I am just looking for his special trills and riling sparkling spacey sounds that he uses in his tracks.

Is there a vst somewhere that has this sounds as part of his presets.
Just asking:)

classic.

For what it's worth, Jarre used the EMS AKS/VCS3/Synthi almost exclusively for his special effects, so all those watery bubbely sounds and the other stuff that sounds like "falling stars" etc are made with those synths. However many of the sounds can be imitated with pretty much any synth that has a filter that allows self-oscillation and a LFO. Basically you just let the filter self-oscilate and then modulate the filter freq with i.e. a LFO. Then you modulate the rate of the LFO with i.e. an envelope or similar (getting the effect of either slowing down, or speeding up).

The secret with the EMS synths in particular is their special trapezoid generator which functions like a simple envelope or a LFO. You could route i.e. the joystick X axis to control the decay, which allowed Jarre to tweak it and thus control the speed of the modulation (i.e. fast to slow, or vice verse). You could also simultaneously route the joystick Y axis to control the filter frequency.

It seems to me that almost any emulative "analogue style" softsynth should have some sort of Jarre-esque patches in their "Special FX" folder. So pick a bunch and check their demos.

Lotuzia · Post by **Lotuzia** » Tue May 27, 2014 7:47 am

A VCS 3 is much more than that, but well everyone who can demo Xils3 or Xils 4 can find out this for himself.

For Synthex emulations the Syn'X ( Previously Synthix ) accurately emulates it. Including the complex and brilliant Chorus unit .

JMJ used all kinds of synths, litterally almost everything, including Akai samplers. Admitedly, he had some favs as well. Its not only the synths, its also the men/women behind them ...

Z1202 · Post by **Z1202** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:05 am

eXode wrote:For what it's worth, Jarre used the EMS AKS/VCS3/Synthi almost exclusively for his special effects, so all those watery bubbely sounds and the other stuff that sounds like "falling stars" etc are made with those synths. However many of the sounds can be imitated with pretty much any synth that has a filter that allows self-oscillation and a LFO. Basically you just let the filter self-oscilate and then modulate the filter freq with i.e. a LFO. Then you modulate the rate of the LFO with i.e. an envelope or similar (getting the effect of either slowing down, or speeding up).

You definitely get the same kind of sounds this way, but there is one "but". The selfoscillating filters (even though sharing similar qualities) sound significantly different to each other. The only one sounding fully convincing to me so far is the one of Monark. (Actually often you can take a sine oscillator instead of a self oscillating filter, but then again, the sound is somewhat different).

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:43 am

Another synth aside from Monark that you should get if you want a Jarre sound, is TimewARP2600. IF you get that, you almost don't need an EMS emu.

Jarre himself has used the WoW TimewARP.

yessongs · Post by **yessongs** » Tue May 27, 2014 9:48 pm

Synthmaster demos of JMJ sounds created by Nori. These are the best I have heard so far.

http://www.kvraudio.com/news/kv331-audi ... ster-20713

https://soundcloud.com/kv331synthmaster ... ubukata-11

Jean Michelle Jarre sounds