Hi!
Anybody aware of ways of making old things sound new / plastic?
So far the Ableton Vocoder does it nicely for me, but was wondering if maybe there are other ways.
Thanks!
Ways of making old things sound new / plastic
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- KVRian
- 1156 posts since 9 Apr, 2012
Some new spectral resynthesis stuff came up lately like Meldas MTransformer, Triktiks Moodal, xoxos Caprice and another one I can't remember right now which I have seen somewhere.
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul
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- KVRAF
- 16136 posts since 13 Nov, 2012
Why is new - plastic...
or , why not old plastic?
or , why not old plastic?
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- KVRian
- 554 posts since 28 Jul, 2011 from USA
I would describe plastic as smooth, crisp, detailed and punchy, or in one word polished.
I'll go through the signal chain.
With synths if you can start at the oscillator choice, this will help a lot and will also give you more insight and sensitivity to what you are looking for from your samples. This is an area where wavetable synths shine because you often have a lot of options to play with. Some waveforms are just much easier to shape and polish than others. Something good to practice with (without a filter engaged) is playing with the different sine waveforms you have available to you, and then slowly applying some drive to them. That drive might come from phase distortion (Blend and PWM are generally good), filter drive, or a wave shaper. As you very slowly apply some drive, listen to how the new harmonics effect the tone. What you want to hear is a smooth gradient. You don't want a rough or chaotic sounding texture on the shape of the tone. You are taking a perfectly round sound and slowly applying a harmonic sheen to it. If that sound doesn't have the qualities you consider plastic, then stop right there and try a different waveform. The earlier in the signal path you can get it right the better.
Next is your filter choice. Again, listen to the gradient sheen on your tone as you apply the filter. Doesn't sound right? Try a different slope. Still not right? Try a different filter type if available. Now you want to listen to how well your waveform reacts to filter resonance. Hopefully it will continue to sound polished as you turn the knob gradually getting smoother and more intense. Now dial back to the desired level of polish.
Okay, so you don't get to make your sound. You've got a vintage sample. Since it is vintage the high frequencies likely don't go as high as you would like, but still, you may need to use a low pass filter to shave a little chaos off the top and polish that edge. Do the same with a high pass on the low end making plenty of room for your bass and kick.
If the sustain on your sound is a mess you can try a transient designer to shape the trailing edge of the sound. Plastic music tends to be tighter anyway.
Probably one of the best shaping/polishing/plastic making tools is a multi-band compressor used as an EQ on individual tracks. To practice with this, set up a 3 band compressor with your crossovers initially at 250Hz and 2kHz. Now only applying compression to the mid band, slowly engage the threshold and listen how this effects the tone. It is a beautiful thing that you can't get with an EQ. Having said that, multi-band compressors probably take more skill to use than any other plugin you have. You are simultaneously adjusting tone and groove, and while adjusting one knob you need to be able to imagine what you can do with the other knobs to compliment and compensate for what is happening so that ultimately you can get the plastic tone, shape, and groove you are going for. You have to develop familiarity and a workflow over time.
+1 to arkmabat's suggestion of rhythmic gating/ sidechain comp. You are simultaneously smoothing and tightening things up. Check out Xfer Records LFO Tool.
Get a plastic friendly reverb. I highly recommend UVI's SparkVerb.
For the most part I would avoid impulse response reverbs. They tend to have a graphite quality to them. They just sound like a decade ago to me in general. Great for hip hop though.
On the 2 bus you want plastic friendly compression. Two things I would recommend here. Get the Sknote Cuttertone and use the dynamics knob (conservatively) to bring your tracks together. That knob is magical. Then try the free Klanghelm MJUCjr compressor (fast setting) after that. I haven't got around to purchasing the premium MJUC, but I imagine it is wonderful, and definitely will be picking it up soon. Due to the limited features of the free MJUCjr you don't have a lot of control over adjusting the groove of your mix so if you try it out, definitely mix into it. For another variety of polish, and one I feels takes more skill, check out the Brainworx Vertigo VSC-2. If you want to emphasize the smooth quality of plastic, go MJUC. If you want to emphasize the detailed and precise quality of plastic then Vertigo might be more suitable. I feel like most 2 bus compressors I've tried are working against you in some way if you are trying to get plastic.
On the master bus FabFilter's Pro-L is without a doubt the limiter you want to try. You want to choose the style option as early in your mixing process as possible, and ideally mix into it the whole time. Changing modes will alter the harmonic contours on all your sounds. You may have all these wonderful, polished low end to high end gradients, then change modes, and find all those gradients are now out of whack. All those layers of polish just went poof. Though it might not ultimately be your favorite setting, or what works best for a particular song, I would start with Transparent. Transparent is flat. It isn't going to effect the contours of your sounds as much as a the other settings and will let you develop some sensitivity before moving on to one of the other styles. Probably over generalizing, but Dynamic probably sounds the most natural to me, Punchy the most plastic, and Allround, that setting I don't get. The other three settings have obvious pros and cons, incredibly subtle, yet still obvious enough. Allround just causes me confusion. I don't sonically get it.
Well, hope there is something useful above.
I'll go through the signal chain.
With synths if you can start at the oscillator choice, this will help a lot and will also give you more insight and sensitivity to what you are looking for from your samples. This is an area where wavetable synths shine because you often have a lot of options to play with. Some waveforms are just much easier to shape and polish than others. Something good to practice with (without a filter engaged) is playing with the different sine waveforms you have available to you, and then slowly applying some drive to them. That drive might come from phase distortion (Blend and PWM are generally good), filter drive, or a wave shaper. As you very slowly apply some drive, listen to how the new harmonics effect the tone. What you want to hear is a smooth gradient. You don't want a rough or chaotic sounding texture on the shape of the tone. You are taking a perfectly round sound and slowly applying a harmonic sheen to it. If that sound doesn't have the qualities you consider plastic, then stop right there and try a different waveform. The earlier in the signal path you can get it right the better.
Next is your filter choice. Again, listen to the gradient sheen on your tone as you apply the filter. Doesn't sound right? Try a different slope. Still not right? Try a different filter type if available. Now you want to listen to how well your waveform reacts to filter resonance. Hopefully it will continue to sound polished as you turn the knob gradually getting smoother and more intense. Now dial back to the desired level of polish.
Okay, so you don't get to make your sound. You've got a vintage sample. Since it is vintage the high frequencies likely don't go as high as you would like, but still, you may need to use a low pass filter to shave a little chaos off the top and polish that edge. Do the same with a high pass on the low end making plenty of room for your bass and kick.
If the sustain on your sound is a mess you can try a transient designer to shape the trailing edge of the sound. Plastic music tends to be tighter anyway.
Probably one of the best shaping/polishing/plastic making tools is a multi-band compressor used as an EQ on individual tracks. To practice with this, set up a 3 band compressor with your crossovers initially at 250Hz and 2kHz. Now only applying compression to the mid band, slowly engage the threshold and listen how this effects the tone. It is a beautiful thing that you can't get with an EQ. Having said that, multi-band compressors probably take more skill to use than any other plugin you have. You are simultaneously adjusting tone and groove, and while adjusting one knob you need to be able to imagine what you can do with the other knobs to compliment and compensate for what is happening so that ultimately you can get the plastic tone, shape, and groove you are going for. You have to develop familiarity and a workflow over time.
+1 to arkmabat's suggestion of rhythmic gating/ sidechain comp. You are simultaneously smoothing and tightening things up. Check out Xfer Records LFO Tool.
Get a plastic friendly reverb. I highly recommend UVI's SparkVerb.
For the most part I would avoid impulse response reverbs. They tend to have a graphite quality to them. They just sound like a decade ago to me in general. Great for hip hop though.
On the 2 bus you want plastic friendly compression. Two things I would recommend here. Get the Sknote Cuttertone and use the dynamics knob (conservatively) to bring your tracks together. That knob is magical. Then try the free Klanghelm MJUCjr compressor (fast setting) after that. I haven't got around to purchasing the premium MJUC, but I imagine it is wonderful, and definitely will be picking it up soon. Due to the limited features of the free MJUCjr you don't have a lot of control over adjusting the groove of your mix so if you try it out, definitely mix into it. For another variety of polish, and one I feels takes more skill, check out the Brainworx Vertigo VSC-2. If you want to emphasize the smooth quality of plastic, go MJUC. If you want to emphasize the detailed and precise quality of plastic then Vertigo might be more suitable. I feel like most 2 bus compressors I've tried are working against you in some way if you are trying to get plastic.
On the master bus FabFilter's Pro-L is without a doubt the limiter you want to try. You want to choose the style option as early in your mixing process as possible, and ideally mix into it the whole time. Changing modes will alter the harmonic contours on all your sounds. You may have all these wonderful, polished low end to high end gradients, then change modes, and find all those gradients are now out of whack. All those layers of polish just went poof. Though it might not ultimately be your favorite setting, or what works best for a particular song, I would start with Transparent. Transparent is flat. It isn't going to effect the contours of your sounds as much as a the other settings and will let you develop some sensitivity before moving on to one of the other styles. Probably over generalizing, but Dynamic probably sounds the most natural to me, Punchy the most plastic, and Allround, that setting I don't get. The other three settings have obvious pros and cons, incredibly subtle, yet still obvious enough. Allround just causes me confusion. I don't sonically get it.
Well, hope there is something useful above.
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- KVRian
- 1125 posts since 29 Sep, 2013
I wonder if I can get the cadmium-plated copper billet sound using some of those ideas. 
Kidding. It is always good and often a source of inspiration to read others ideas, imho. I just got a kick out of plastic not really being fully defined, but the ideas just flowed right out.
Kidding. It is always good and often a source of inspiration to read others ideas, imho. I just got a kick out of plastic not really being fully defined, but the ideas just flowed right out.
In rotation here: Helios- Eingya
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- KVRian
- 554 posts since 28 Jul, 2011 from USA
Plastic really isn't that vague a concept. Like vintage it has general connotations, but none-the-less I prefaced my reply with a basic description of what plastic means to me so the OP could decide if we are on the same page or not. Another way I would describe plastic which I think is common to the general notion folks have for it is artificially perfect or pristine.rustman wrote:I just got a kick out of plastic not really being fully defined, but the ideas just flowed right out.
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- KVRian
- 1125 posts since 29 Sep, 2013
True. Just so you know, my reply was good-natured and not an attack. I think you're right. I immediately had an idea of what I consider plastic sounding when I saw the thread. Regardless, your suggestions were worth reading.Greg Houston wrote:Plastic really isn't that vague a concept. Like vintage it has general connotations, but none-the-less I prefaced my reply with a basic description of what plastic means to me so the OP could decide if we are on the same page or not. Another way I would describe plastic which I think is common to the general notion folks have for it is artificially perfect or pristine.rustman wrote:I just got a kick out of plastic not really being fully defined, but the ideas just flowed right out.
In rotation here: Helios- Eingya
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- KVRAF
- 7540 posts since 7 Aug, 2003 from San Francisco Bay Area
When I think of plastic, the TB-303 is the first thing that comes to mind. Pretty much the ultimate in plastic sound, and it certainly isn't new!
FM synthesis also sounds plastic to me in that fake, thin, sharp, percussive way. I'm mostly thinking about the DX7 and it's ilk. Also not exactly new.
Otherwise, I think that if modern production has a plastic sound to it, that is partly due to reliance on virtual instruments, but mostly down to a particular popular aesthetic and less about the tools.
FM synthesis also sounds plastic to me in that fake, thin, sharp, percussive way. I'm mostly thinking about the DX7 and it's ilk. Also not exactly new.
Otherwise, I think that if modern production has a plastic sound to it, that is partly due to reliance on virtual instruments, but mostly down to a particular popular aesthetic and less about the tools.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.
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- KVRist
- 91 posts since 1 Aug, 2011
Whenever someone makes the effort to summarize information in as much detail, I am pleased.arkmabat wrote:Good info. I don't mind mega-posts. We should be grateful.
I like such mega posts with good information.
these are the rare treasures of a forum
there are unfortunately far too rare.
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- KVRian
- 1125 posts since 29 Sep, 2013
I tend to think of acid type lead sounds as plastic, then other times, more of the whole piece in general, like say, some songs by Kraftwerk. My feel for the meaning varies I suppose.
In rotation here: Helios- Eingya