Xhip vs Analog Hardware

[DuX]

One thing I discovered pretty early on is that VST distortions suck banana's arse. Since I'm producing heavily distorted music, it is still best to buy outboard hardware for distortion. It's not that flexible, but it works so much better. VST distortions just sound so brittle and annoying no matter which one you use. Distortion FX are the hardest to get right ITB. Just my subjective opinion, of course... I can bet a lot of people are just fine with Amplitube or whatever they use. It doesn't work for me and I'm not even using guitars that much.

[chk071]

One thing I discovered pretty early on is that VST distortions suck banana's arse.

True. I recently wrote that in another thread too. Seems like a very difficult thing to model analog distortion.

[DuX]

Therefore, I'm trying to avoid any onboard VSTi FX regarding overdrive, saturation, or distortion. It might sound appealing in the beginning, but in the long run it just sticks out, in a really bad way.

[bmanic]

I don't think the distortion itself is the problem.. it's all the aliasing and stuff that makes it so nasty. It makes it virtually impossible to cascade distortion plugins after one another unless you run at ridiculous oversampling rates (in the gigahertz) or have some other solutions available. Even if aliasing is down in the -120dBFS range it's not nearly low enough in a serial chain of heavy distortion effects.

So yeah, wholeheartedly agree. For proper nice "soft" non-annoying mush and sever fizz the only way to go is hardware.

[Mutant]

Had some fun with a MEAN Xhip bass and that Herbie Hancock song.
Not intended to sound exactly like that Minimoog or whatever it was.
With the orchestra:
https://soundcloud.com/user-714319381/chame1
And solo:
https://soundcloud.com/user-714319381/chame1s

Of course both with effects.

[aciddose]

Sounds a little bit too interesting though I think the main surrealism of the original sound is how simple it is: single ramp wave into a filter with 60% or 70% res (enough to get ringing out past 1/2 of the cycle) with tons of distortion on top, plus some basic compressor + EQ probably right in the console, mostly just a hefty (more than +6 dB?) bass-boost.

Looking into info about the synth(s) used, it looks like I was wrong to think it was an ARP2600 (not sure where I heard that many years ago) although I haven't found any reliable information and while there are plenty of claims it was an oddessy, absolutely none of the attempts at recreating the sound provide much that convinces me of that.

I think though that it certainly is possible an oddessy was used with the first filter: a 12 dB filter very similar in timbre to the KORG-35 except without such distortion on the feedback path. It does share the clipping in the signal path with the KORG-35 though, so that would give the "overdrive pedal" timbre of the sound without needing additional pedals on top.

With the addition of some compression and EQ this could very easily create a similar effect with one major flaw: it doesn't seem possible to get identical reduced levels of resonance relative to the ramp wave on the oddessy. It is probably possible that the particular unit used had the oscillator levels "just right" (6 dB louder than max?) so that if you sync both oscillators with ramp waveforms it pushed the filter hard enough to get the effect you hear in the original track.



That said I'm not convinced: it's still possible there is something more complicated like an overdrive pedal in the signal path that provides that effect rather than a much more complicated "factory defect" combined with syncing both oscs with the same waveform. I'd have to perfectly recreate the circuit + result on the bench to be fully convinced

That said it's an interesting example of a Tow-Thomas filter with signal-path diode clipping on the output (2nd stage) amplifier which would certainly sound "unique" and be hard to reproduce with anything except an identical circuit.

edit: fixed (removed) accidental strikeout formatting

[aciddose]

Here is my quick attempt, Xhip preset:

Hurried Hancock.zip

http://xhip.net/temp/xhip_hancock_bass.mp3

Not perfect but this leads me to believe an overdrive pedal was definitely used. The timbre is so close this way that it would be barely much difference if you applied the clipping in the filter or afterward like I've done.

Working from this preset, adjusting the waveshaper depth + asymmetry, increasing mixer level for the osc (+3 dB, +6 dB), applying a little bit of filter "fmod" (5%?) and tweaking the resonance amount for the main filter + waveshaper filter (used as bass boost) you can get closer on some notes. It's difficult to get everything exactly perfect so the low and high notes have identical levels of distortion, which might be attributable to the clipping happening inside the filter rather than afterward.

Another major problem is that although the filter saturation in Xhip's KHN filter produces a damn near perfect effect in terms of brightness, it doesn't have the same feedback saturation that the analog filter does which is probably what leads to the higher notes sounding more muffled in the real thing while they're equally as bright in Xhip. It's possible some key tracking could be used to improve that, but I find it isn't generally worthwhile to try to "polish a turd", you'd have an identical sound if you used the identical hardware while it might just not be possible with Xhip

Close enough already though! At least to get the general timbre.

[Mutant]

Yep. Close.

[fluffy_little_something]

Actually, it is a somewhat ugly bass sound, but back then in 1973 it sounded wild and unusual, which was all that mattered as Fusion artists were often rather progressive, looking for new sounds.

Any nasty bass sound would have sufficed, with or without distortion/saturation. So, if someone has a good song, there is no need to worry about whether or not the plugin's distortion/saturation sounds like hardware.

I really like the filter drive in Sylenth1, at smaller doses it adds some sizzle and intensity without sounding dirty. I can even use it with pad chords, where the new Repro sounds ugly in my view. In Sylenth1 it sounds almost like a tube.

[yul]

I am trying to achieve filter tracking above 100% I am not sure if it can be done I tried using the routing section but it's not working.. Any suggestions?

Also, wondering if LFO rate can be modulated in the future?

Sounds like I am asking for a mod matrix..maybe outside the scope..

Not a big deal just thought I'd ask XHIP is fantastic at this point anyways.

Cheers!

[Mutant]

I am trying to achieve filter tracking above 100% I am not sure if it can be done I tried using the routing section but it's not working..

Use more than 1 slot for:
Key + Filter Frequency + amount

[yul]

I am trying to achieve filter tracking above 100% I am not sure if it can be done I tried using the routing section but it's not working..

Use more than 1 slot for:
Key + Filter Frequency + amount

YikesI will try that!! Thanks!

[aciddose]

The cutoff input from the "route" page is not limited, so you should be able to get as much key tracking as you need. The one difference is that the route page only has "key", while filter KBT input is taken from the glide when it is enabled.

Internally it uses a "mod matrix" (that's a misnomer: the proper term should be "routing table"):

Code: Select all

		// cutoff
		matrix_int += et_int(&src.key, &state.f.kbt, &dest.cutoff);
		matrix_int += et_int(&src.env[0], &depth.f_frequency.env_a, &dest.cutoff);
		matrix_int += et_int(&src.env[1], &depth.f_frequency.env_b, &dest.cutoff);
		matrix_int += et_int(&src.lfo[0], &depth.f_frequency.lfo_a, &dest.cutoff);
		matrix_int += et_int(&src.lfo[1], &depth.f_frequency.lfo_b, &dest.cutoff);

In this case state.f.kbt = 1.0 and can't get any higher, so the solution would be to multiply it by a fraction like 1/8 and multiply src.key by 8, then the maximum would be 800%. That sort of stuff will possibly get improved during optimization attempts in the future, but the integer math makes it very difficult to allow arbitrary ranges.

9000% keytracking is actually quite unusual though and since the cutoff input from the route page isn't limited you should be able to get most of the effect you're looking for that way.

You need:
- additive from key to filter cutoff (100% depth), multiple rows to get more depth.

One thing the route page needs is the ability to type in inputs like 90.0 or similar. That's very difficult to manage with the limited space available on the GUI. I haven't been motivated to mess with it much.

https://i.imgur.com/dk7uMD6.jpg

[Mutant]

Site offline ?
Wanted to recommend Notelogic to someone on another forum.

[jbuonacc]

One thing I discovered pretty early on is that VST distortions suck banana's arse. Since I'm producing heavily distorted music, it is still best to buy outboard hardware for distortion. It's not that flexible, but it works so much better. VST distortions just sound so brittle and annoying no matter which one you use. Distortion FX are the hardest to get right ITB. Just my subjective opinion, of course...

just saw this now. i realized after the fact that i had a pretty steep HPF on the loop to begin with (so most all of the bass/weight of it is from the "distortion" plugin itself), but overall does this sound "brittle and annoying" to you? maybe so, just curious. please scan through, it changes up quite a bit:

https://soundcloud.com/jbuonacc/itb-distortion