Making ACID Music???

[re*MD9@3!Tm^]

The Phoscyon has a nice and flexible randomizer which helps generating acid lines.

I tend to incorporate 303 sounds in almost all of my tracks (I love that sound since I was a kid), I use Phosycon, ABL and different acidy presets from Sylenth and Zebra (which are quite easy to make btw). On top some D16 effects or Runciter.

Still saving up for a X0xb0x...

A nice discovery lately:
http://electronicexplorations.org/?show=tm404

All Roland stuff, amazing sounds.

[kritikon]

Just a few random thoughts:

For the actual bassline (if you have one, because not all acid stuff had basslines as such) something that does 101/202 emulation is v. useful. 202s were used way more than some think. 303s lose their bass as soon as you turn up the res, and 202s put out more bass in a lot of cases. Personally I still have my 202, and it's the same as 303s in that the sequencer is a really important part of getting the right feel.

I didn't rate ABLPro much as a 303 emu, but I thought it was a great 202 (plus some nice extra bits). And there's the most recent 101 emu which is an obvious contender.

If you're serious about making acid, I'd get a 202 and a 303 (or rather an xoxbox). Not necessarily for the sound, as there are some quite good emus around. BUt you need the sequencers. Piano rolls don't cut it. And step sequencers in DAWs don't cut it either IMO.

As for drums - samples all the way. Yeah, there are Jomox thingies etc, but nobody really gives a crap about whether the drum sounds are original or sampled - they sound identical enough that no ****er can tell in a mix. I used to make acid with a 202, 303 and an Akai S950 sampler. Nobody knew or cared that I didn't have a 909 or an 808 (I actually had access to a 909 regularly, and still stuck with samples).

Decent reverb. Of course loads of acid was made with shitty multiFX boxes of the time, but the good tracks shine partly because a really good reverb makes the 303 lines, and even the 202 lines stand out. And acid mixes were often sparse enough for a decent reverb to stand out. The standard idea is that basses are dry, but listen hard to quite a few acid tracks, and when the 202s are doing their blippy thing, there are some sweet short reverbs. Listen in a club and that type of sound is superb.

Good pharmaceutical grade ecstacy. From what I remember of the warehouse raves ( ) there was a couple of years where it was seriously quality illegals that made the difference. The music was strongly attached to that. You can't make decent acid on the green stuff - wrong mood. Believe me, I tried.

But if you're going to use s/w, Antto's recent VB303 thing is great because it does the sequencer properly. You need those sequencers. Truly. It sounds silly, but those sequencers were/are integral to the feel of acid. They're possibly half of what makes 303/202 what they are.

[kritikon]

Follow on from the reverb thing - obviously a Lexicon helps, but there are some decent IRs out there. Run a blippy 202 line through something like the dark-ish rooms and they shine. My mind's just gone blank - what was that German h/w reverb that did superb rooms? EMT? No that was the plate jobbie - there was another one... I've got some IRs of that on the net, and they are ideal for acid lines. Plates can work too, but either dark plates, or Eq them down a bit. The UAD plate verb should work well. I occasionally run my 202 through a Lexicon either large room, or small chamber. Pure bliss. (Halls are too big. It needs to be smaller - max of 3 seconds tail, generally shorter). And just a little subtle predelay works too. Not enough to make it slapback.

[Sendy]

You can't make decent acid on the green stuff - wrong mood. Believe me, I tried.

Tell that to Luke Vibert

[Ch00rD]

[...] A 303 is as important to acid music as a guitar to rock .
You can make acid tracks without a 303 line , but as soon as you start using a plug in to replace the real thing ....
that's where it gets bad.

Pure Acid labels and DJs DO hear the difference and that's why they won't play or release most of those type of tracks.

Sure, rock music needs a guitar. But you make it sound like one needs an Fender Strat to play rock music, no other brand or model will do. And even the difference in sound between two Fender Strats is bigger than the difference between a TB-303 and a good software emulation. So I'll maintain that it is just a *bit* too strong of an advice. I do agree with your basic point - yes, acid music definitely needs a 303 - but I just think it's lacking some needed nuance.

Even if you would be completely right that "pure acid" labels and DJs can not be fooled easily by software (I would rather call that "purist" or "snob acid" myself, but I don't care much for strict genre definitions), I would still advise anyone using the real thing to *also* use a software emulation, for all the benefits software has over hardware. And since they're a lot cheaper, it makes sense to start out with software. If a label would consider releasing a track, but (only) has an issue with software emulations having been used on it, one can always just re-record it with a rented TB-303 (or better: book some time in a good studio where they have one, and likely some more gear and know-how that could be useful to get that track in better shape for a 'professional' release). As advice to someone with 'professional' ambitions in this genre, that seems to be a much more efficient way to spend cash.

I have had the luxury to choose between using TB-303s and a software emulation many, many times, and very often I choose to use a software emulation literally "to replace the real thing". I sure don't agree that "that's where it gets bad", or I wouldn't have done so. I owned a TB before there even was such software, and rejoiced when it became available, exactly because it was good enough to my ears. When using both hardware and software simultaneously, in the context of a mix (with some effects like overdrive, delay, reverb on each TB/emu), I often have to *look* at my setup to identify which track is played by software vs. hardware. But perhaps my ears have been messed up by listening to the real thing way too much.

[Davias]

But if you're going to use s/w, Antto's recent VB303 thing is great because it does the sequencer properly. You need those sequencers. Truly. It sounds silly, but those sequencers were/are integral to the feel of acid. They're possibly half of what makes 303/202 what they are.

I still don't understand why... Notes are notes, slides are slides (legato), and accents are accents (over a certain velocity threshold, u trigger accent)... So what is so different with the original sequencer ?

[Ch00rD]

i find the emulations to be ok for certain 303 type sounds but they aren't nearly as versatile as a real 303 or x0box or similar. i notice a lot of people use the distortion a lot on the ABL2 and it seems the only way they can make it sound believable but a real acid box can do way more and be smooth and bubble etc.

I couldn't disagree more. My advice would be the exact opposite: the single effective method to ensure that ABL2 does *not* sound like a "believable" TB-303 emulation, is to use its internal distortion effect. It simply does not do justice to the basic sound of the instrument at all.

i have ABL2 and use it from time to time for various things but i don't think it comes close to a real 303 or a good hardware clone. it doesn't have that bass thump and the filter is not even close. i think you'd have better luck getting good acid sounds from a good saw wave sample and using The Drop from cytomic or some other high end filter plug in that has oversampling and is more CPU intensive.. it won't sound like a 303 but it will sound acidy and i think overall will be more flexible. you'll have to program the notes to get the slides etc but w/some practice and experimentation it's totally do-able... [...]

Again, I disagree, and I have used ABL2 and TB-303s side-to-side quite a lot. Imho the filter is *very* close to the real thing, and software emulations are much more versatile than the original hardware. While "close to a real 303" may be something different than "good acid sounds", a saw wave sample plus a filter effect like The Drop is something *completely* different than a 303. Sure, pretty much any synth is more flexible than a TB-303. But I wish you good luck programming those accents.

[antto]

i'm someone who is too young, and too far away to know about how the "acid" music was born
but i'm trying to make such music right now, and using those old tracks that exist for inspiration
and i think i can identify some key components

my personal notes are:

1) keep it simple
2) record the stuff live, tweak those knobs
3) fun! it's all about enjoying the stuff, it shouldn't be a pain
4) experiment, don't be afraid to put some weird sounds in the mix for teh confusion ;]
5) don't spend too much time on polishing the sound

[Ch00rD]

You can't make decent acid on the green stuff - wrong mood. Believe me, I tried.

Tell that to Luke Vibert

The green vs. the other stuff remark would suggest that these are mutually exclusive. I respectfully disagree.

[kritikon]

I still don't understand why... Notes are notes, slides are slides (legato), and accents are accents (over a certain velocity threshold, u trigger accent)... So what is so different with the original sequencer ?

They slide differently to almost every s/w I've tried. They slide differently to all tho other h/w I've got too. I've also got a top-end Kenton converter for some analogues, and you can play around with all kinds of stuff with the portamento - mode, time, triggering etc. And it always sounds different on my 202. THe accents accent the filter as well as the env.

And even more than that it's the way you program them. They're stupid things to program. As I wrote in another thread recently - ask anyone who uses 202/303s and they'll tell you it's the randomness that gets the results. Whatever it is you plan to do, you will come out with something different. It makes you program odd and unusual sequences because of the way you have to program it. You come out with sequences that you wouldn't do on a piano roll or other step sequencer. Hard to explain, but you do not program 303s in the same way you do on anything else.

There are certain ideas that you know work (for example notes an octave apart, sliding together), but it never works as simple as that on a 303/202. You always end up with weird octaqve slides that just look stupid on a piano roll.

Sequencers are not just sequencers. Same with an analogue sequencer - completely and utterly different to anything s/w. Personally I'n happy with a few 303 emus, and definitely there are some even older 202/101 emus that work well enough for me, but nothing works as an emu 202/303 sequencer.

[antto]

But if you're going to use s/w, Antto's recent VB303 thing is great because it does the sequencer properly. You need those sequencers. Truly. It sounds silly, but those sequencers were/are integral to the feel of acid. They're possibly half of what makes 303/202 what they are.

I still don't understand why... Notes are notes, slides are slides (legato), and accents are accents (over a certain velocity threshold, u trigger accent)... So what is so different with the original sequencer ?

yes, using midi notes you can recreate a TB-303 pattern in your pianoroll
but:
1) it's harder
2) there are many ways to screw it up

it's like riding a bike, there are many ways, you can hold the steering wheel with your hands, or you could yell "look maa, no hands \o/"

in both cases you *can* transport your arse from point A to point B

not that i've been there but, i think most of the old acid tracks were made with the internal sequencer, and not via midi, the 303 has no midi btw

[antto]

Whatever it is you plan to do, you will come out with something different.

not quite true, that's only if you haven't read the f***in manual (and sure, many didn't)

It makes you program odd and unusual sequences because of the way you have to program it. You come out with sequences that you wouldn't do on a piano roll or other step sequencer.

yeah, i agree, it's very easy to accidentally make weird patterns which you wouldn't have done via the piano roll because it's really a pain there

[Ch00rD]

i'm someone who is too young, and too far away to know about how the "acid" music was born [...]

That doesn't really matter much, antto. Acid is not a place or time, but a state of mind, and people like yourself keep it alive. Most of us who were around for a longer time have probably been somewhat confused by urban myths as well. The earliest pioneers of the genre didn't even seem to have a clue about it themselves - check out this interview with Charanjit Singh ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charanjit_Singh_(musician) <-- copy/paste including part in parentheses ).

Btw, he's touring Europe now:

MAY 2013 EUROPEAN TOUR DATES

Thursday, May 9 - Aalst, Belgium: Netwerk
Friday, May 10 - Bordeaux, France: Cafe Pompier
Saturday, May 11 - Lyons, France: Nuits Sonore Festival
Sunday, May 12 - Paris, France: La Gaité Lyrique
Thursday, May 16 - Berlin, Germany: Berghain (w/ A Guy Called Gerald)
Friday, May 17 - Groningen, The Netherlands: Paradigm
Saturday, May 18 - Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Music Meeting Festival
Wednesday, May 22 - Charleroi, Belgium: Le Vecteur
Thursday, May 23 - Brussels, Belgium: Bonnefooi
Saturday, May 25 - London, England: Field Day Festival

All you 303 lovers out there: let's meet up at some of these gigs!

[Sendy]

I have a built in weirdness generator

[Davias]

Thanks for your replies Krikiton and Antto. As I usually uses a tracker DAW I don't see what looks weird on the piano roll since I have no piano roll then

And I usually play random notes and velocities (pseudo-random, I just hit the keyboard like a retarded ) and then correct the too weird parts/notes, so isn't it a little like the randomness that can happen while programming the sequencer ?

For the different slides times, I guess maybe every hardware can be slightly different. But a good emulation of such hardware should have quite close slide time I guess, for now I'm confident in the slide times of Antto's emulation

Sadly I don't use it as fast as I want coz I keep trying hard to use midi and not the sequencer shame on me !