One Synth Challenge #70: Ragnarök by Full Bucket and CrimsonWarlock (Photonic Wins!)

[rockingricky]

Hello everybody,

this is my first try at OSC. So I hope, i understand the rules and find the steps to place a little song here.

Although beeing 57 years old, I'm a rookie in "Internet-Handling" and writing posts in Forums. Btw my last english lesson I had about 40 years ago at a german School, so be patient with my language mistakes

...but now the Music:

I used:
Cubase LE4
8 instances
some free reverb, flanger, chorus plugins, Chopper (u-he), ARADAZAMP (IgniteAmps) and of course the "Ragnarok".
https://soundcloud.com/rockingricky/rock-the-ragna

to all a merry Christmas and greetings from Germany.

Erich aka Rockingricky

[Rcl]

Hey Guys,

I have made some changes to my tune based on the suggestions that were given. What is the process to resubmit?

[crimsonwarlock]

this is my first try at OSC. So I hope, i understand the rules and find the steps to place a little song here.

Very nice track, although there are a few issues:

First, the chord stabs and especially the lead line at the end are very loud compared to everything else in the mix. Doing a little more mixing might bring more points in the voting, and you have time until the end of the month to optimize your mix. Many contestants do small alterations after submitting, based on listener feedback

Secondly, if I'm not mistaking, you are not allowed to use distortion plugins other then slight saturation options like tape emulations, so you might have to change that to prevent disqualification

Other than that, I enjoyed the first listen to your track, I will comment on soundcloud when you have updated the track (you lose the comments on previous versions if you replace the track with a new version, unless you have a pro-account if I recall correctly).

EDIT: I took a quick look at the rules:

Any effect that transform the sounds to make them unrecognizable as being from the synth is not allowed.

Distortion can (and in most cases will) change the sound to be unrecognizable as being from the synth. So I guess it comes down to what you exactly did with AradazAmp. Maybe just post the settings and Ragnarök preset and someone (bjporter ?!) can decide if it is alowed or not.

As a sidenote, I like to run Ragnarök through an amp as well, so I totally dig you doing that, especially for the track you made

[kraftraum]

As i first seen the synth and play a bit with the sounds it will be clear: thats a nice synth for me to make a track

I expected that, as your style is very close to what I like, and obviously what drove me back then to build the hardware Ragnarök. Still, you got some really great sounds from it, as again I would expect from you going from your previous 'rotation' tracks. Great work

Hey, that's cool, thank you very much.
The synth sounds very nice after the first play so i get a fast idea what style to create .. and you are right: i have often shown here probably my style: fx, fx and fx ...

I am very excited about what's to come on other tracks here ..

Have a nice weekend

[doctorbob]

some free reverb, flanger, chorus plugins, Chopper (u-he)

Hello Erich and welcome to the OSC ... here you will find helpful people and great musicicans and sound designers. Don't forget to make comments (if you feel you want to of course) on other tracks - we all like feedback.

I suspect that using a chorus may be not in the rules unless it's part of the actual synth (which in this case it is not). You are going to modify the sound such that it doesn't sound like the synth in most cases unless you only apply a small amount of chorus. Maybe try doubling the sound track you are using the chorus on and then change the synth sound a little on one of them, maybe add in a little delay and you may get the sound you want or something like it.

Many people here rely on layering sounds for creating nice solid sounds - especially percussion - e.g. a kick may have at least 3 layers - one for the initial hit, another for the skin sound and another for the resonance in the drum itself (if you see what I mean).

Do stick around and you will get great comments and help.

Oh yes, nice track - the sort of thing I like.

Good luck,

dB

[z.prime]

some free reverb, flanger, chorus plugins, Chopper (u-he)

Hi and welcome to OSC!

Please be specific about the plugins, at least the name. Some good free reverbs are the TAL-Dubs, Freeverb 3, epicVerb. But please be specific.

As was noted, currently modulation plugins including chorus and flanger are not allowed, you can always double the track and pan hard left/right and very slightly detune one of the synths to achieve a similar result, usually.

Also, commercial plugins are not allowed. I'm not sure what u-he chopper even is, but it does not seem to be freely available right now, perhaps it was Oli Larkin's Chopper? A gater should be fine as it's just automating volume, which is perfectly allowable.

[Rcl]

Well I think I submitted my changes.........that process is quite mysterious. .....Please forgive me Mods if I completely screwed the pooch on this. Thanks to all the folks here for their advise. I believe it does sound better. If it is still not quite as LOUD as it should be, it is only because I really want to maintain the dynamic PUNCH. If need be, turn up the volume a little bit, you will be rewarded.

[bjporter]

Good points everyone. Distortion is difficult to gauge, but definitely use it lightly.

[doctorbob]

Good points everyone. Distortion is difficult to gauge, but definitely use it lightly.

We try!!

Happy Christmas/Holidays to all. See y'all in the New Year again with more Doctor Bob tracks to enjoy

dB

[bjporter]

Good points everyone. Distortion is difficult to gauge, but definitely use it lightly.

We try!!

Happy Christmas/Holidays to all. See y'all in the New Year again with more Doctor Bob tracks to enjoy

dB

You too doc, and everyone else

[Rcl]

I noticed my entry is posted twice......I do not believe that is what is supposed to happen. Sorry for the confusion. Any advise here would be greatly appreciated.

[bjporter]

I noticed my entry is posted twice......I do not believe that is what is supposed to happen. Sorry for the confusion. Any advise here would be greatly appreciated.

No probs, fixed

[Carl_saved]

Hello everyone!

Bjporter asked, if I could do a short tutorial on my snare sound this month.
Well, I think there are quite a few good sounds out there, for example the drum sounds of Criss Lee in his “SM Boogie”, or Fairplay's snare in “Warm Winter In the City of Tangram People”. I didn't think, my sound is worth a tutorial ...
But however, if anyone is interested in how I did mine, here it is.


Some theory
I like the snare to sound a bit acoustic. Of course, it is impossible, to get a proper real snare with a synthesizer. However, one can do a lot with that little synth Ragnarök, even though it has no pitch-envelope. I was surprised about that.
It is important for an acoustic snare, that the rattle after the snap is something else then pure white noise. Imagine a snare drum, when the noise element is lifted off the head of the drum. Once hit, the membrane would oscillate and sound rather like a tom.
But when the noise element touches the skin of the snare-drum, the noise element absorbs energy from the skin and turns it into noise. So the oscillation sounds much weaker and shorter than without the noise element. But as the oscillation of the drum is the energy source of the noise, the oscillation will always be audible, at least a bit.

This is why I don't start with the noise, but with the oscillation.

The tutorial

1. Start with a pulse wave of Ragnarök, and a highpass-filter that is adjusted so that the lowest frequency of the 8” pulse wave is still audible. I took the 18dB/oct filter. I played the synth at A#2. Why highpass? We will see in step 4.
2. I added the 16” and the 4” pulse waves for a fatter sound. I'm sure this is not always the right approach, but in this case it does well. Furthermore, I used the EQ of Ragnarök to turn the higher frequencies down and boost the low frequencies. This is, because we are using a highpass filter and cannot cut off the high frequencies by another mean. And I turned the Overdrive a bit more than the half way up … this is not really necessary.
3. Now turn the oscillation into something like an FM sound using the LFO. Thus, we need a pretty high frequency for the LFO. And then, of course, we need to raise the FM amplitude. It is important, that it is not the highest possible amplitude. I used a bit less than half way of the knob.
4. Turn up the filter resonance to half way. This gives the sound a “boom”, a boost at (almost) the bottom end of all audible frequencies. This is why I used a highpass-filter.
5. Introduce the filter-envelope. I go about two marks high for the amount. You can use an AD-Envelope with attack set to zero.
6. Adjust the filter-envelope. Basically set the decay to a decent amount. I took two marks long. That makes a bit of the snap.
7. Adjust the amplitude-envelope. Basically set the decay to a decent amount.
8. Add some noise until it sounds well.
9. To make the sound tighter, you can compress it decently. The effect of the compressor is, that it turns the amplitude of the sound down very quickly. Of course one can decrease the decay of the amplitude-envelope. But that makes the whole sound shorter. If you want a quick decrease of the amplitude, but want the sound to last long, you need to use a compressor. This is what I did.

Here's the link to the audio example:
https://soundcloud.com/carl_saved/snare-tutorial


I hope that helps some of you.

Carl

[crimsonwarlock]

Bjporter asked, if I could do a short tutorial on my snare sound this month.

Great step by step tutorial. Very impressive you got this without layering sounds but with only one patch and utilizing almost everything Ragnarök can do with a sound: highpass filter, stacked octave voices, using LFO to do FM, using the EQ as an additional lowpass filter. Great sound design

[Full Bucket]

[...]

Cool...

Cheers, Björn