KVR Audio

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:33 pm

I have been for awhile trying to find a way to recreate the types of white noise sounds found on Nine Inch Nails' broken album ('Wish', etc). The type of noise (i think its white noise) sounds great to me and it even sounds like it's being pitch bended, which I can't seem to do unless I sample my noise sounds and pitch bend from within a sampler. I've tried creating white noise presets in Reason with the Subtractor and modulating it through the various filters (HP/BP) but nothing comes close. I've read that he made the white noise patches using the Nord Micro Modular. I'd go buy one just to get that sound if that was the case.

Does anyone know the sound I am talking about and what types of things can be done to reproduce it (hardware or software)?

Miro · Post by **Miro** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:40 pm

There's a section on the Computer Music forums called Synthesis and Sound Design, moderated by Scot Solida, which might be helpful if no-one can help you out here

Here's the link:
http://forum.midiaddict.com/

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:57 pm

not sure of the exac noise your talking about, but many synths do noise, including white noise, such as Cameleon5000, Albino2, and for a free one try the vurtbox from Krakli , its pretty mental

, and is very good for quickly creating very noise heavy sounds

tk421 · Post by **tk421** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:20 pm

I have noticed not all "white noise" can be pitch bent. It might be the type of noise. Maybe look for a synth like Crystal that has several types of noise, pink, white, etc. I really like the noise that QuadraSID makes. It maybe a bit to lo-fi for what you are looking for, but then it could be better.

cloudspine · Post by **cloudspine** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:43 pm

Digitaldoom, search these forums for "Nine Inch Nails" or "Warm Place," as there was a thread on a similar topic last year I think...

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 4:20 pm

They seems to use the same type of noise throughout almost every song on NIN - Broken. It can heard very clear in Wish. I've tried searching Google for posts, and thats when (after hours of searching) I found the link to some member of his crew stating that he used the Nord Modular to create alot of the white noise sounds.

Have you guys heard the above track? Do you know the type of noise sound that I talking about?

I am curious if anyone else has tried or would like to try to reproduce it? After all, I've seen many posts here in these forums about recreating many complex synthesis sounds so I figured recreating some noise from a NIN wouldn't be too hard

Do any of you guys know if the Nord Modular (or even Micro Modular) is capable of reproducing anything like it?

ToneDunce · Post by **ToneDunce** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:12 pm

Any chance you might post a little audio snippet of the exact sound you're going for?

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:23 pm

I had a listen to the song.

I assume you mean that sort of rising whoop sound during the verse parts where there are no vocals.

Just sounds to me like a noise run in to a resonant low pass filter with the filter's pitch set to rise maybe an octave or so.

You can do that in most subtractive synths AFAIK. Certainly any modular. Download Synthedit and try this:

Run noise into svfilter (pink or white won't matter, pink will come out sounding bassier). Set pitch to about 35% and resonance to about 90%. Run Lowpass filter out from svfilter to Audio out. Slide pitch slider from 35% to about 60%. Sounds awfully close.

It may not be exact, but we'd have to know the specifics of their setup to get that. Plus the sound isn't 100% clear since there are other instruments in there. What synth you use won't matter.

You could try a few other things. Run the noise source through a bitcrusher before it hits the filter. You could also try eq'ing after filter to get the exact timbre.

You could automate the pitch rise with a LFO, using a saw wave. Just set depth of LFO to 25-30%.

Cheers,
Steve

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:20 pm

tk421 wrote:I have noticed not all "white noise" can be pitch bent.

True white noise doesn't have a pitch, it's theoretically all audible frequencies at the same time.

A resonant filter will take care of that, though I suppose if you're using a sample of noise that loops, changing the pitch will have a somewhat similar effect to filtering.

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:34 pm

foosnark wrote:
True white noise doesn't have a pitch, it's theoretically all audible frequencies at the same time.

Thanks for the explanation of white noise, that's cool. It seems like if you loop (crossfade or whatever) noise frequencies as a wave they can take on new life in a sampler.

Like taking a high frequency sound and playing it several octaves lower, it sounds droney and weird... but nothing like it originally did.

SynthEdit seems like a free version of Reaktor

Anyhow, it's going to take some getting used to. Simple things like routing one module to another is something I will have to learn. I'm assuming I can use the Audio Out to _______. I dunno, are there any good tutorials out there on it?

As far as NIN's specific setup, I read it was a Nord Modular or Micro Modular (in which the routing seems to look a little like what SynthEdit or Reaktor could do).

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:51 pm

If you want I'll send you an example patch made in SynthEdit that does basically what the sound is.

You'll need the latest beta for http://synthedit.com/beta/beta.htm

There's a tutorial in the help file, and there are a lot of example patches on the Yahoo users group to get you started.

Without knowing the exact settings that NIN used, we won't be able to make the exact sound, but it's close enough.

Just PM me with your email address and I'll send you the patch.

Cheers,
Steve.

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 8:26 pm

Sounds very lo-fi. I can make similar patches in Reason.

Maybe I should just grab a Nord Modular and try it with that.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 8:48 pm

Well, noise is generally a pretty lo-fi affair. In the example I sent, you could try running it through a second filter to get a steeper cutoff.

You could try a Nord Modular out, but
borrow one first instead of buying, as they don't come cheap.

Cheers,
Steve

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:08 am

Man this looks cool!

http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~clark/nordmod ... noise.html

Getting a certain Noise Sound