the background noise in some 90ies trance songs

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Update: The following sample takes it even a step further. It now contains almost nothing else BUT only the noise I'm after. Almost everything else has been eliminated:
https://sndup.net/2g3q

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Let me post this here as well in case someone who's into sampled sounds knows something about this at all.

It's the noise they used back then which must be special types of noise as opposed to simply highpassed white noise. Whenever I try to recreate such noise in Serum I get the best results when I use special types of noises like the AirCan types e. g. in combination with finding the right pitch and highpassing it on top. But still, I'm never content and it's just never the same noise I want to get.

I'll give you 2 good examples now for the exact noise I'd like to recreate and I'd appreciate any help with this. They must have created it on some kind of hardware system back then.

I'd like to know how you would categorize this kind of noise and if there's any free samples or wavetables or presets for it that you know of.

The first example is from a song I'm currently interested in. It's the background noise
from a Snap song called "Eternity" and you can hear it best from 9-14 seconds in the background of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJver3tNKQw

I also isolated the noise from a more HQ sample using an EQ so you could hear it much more clearly here and the above video is only supposed to give you the context: :D

https://sndup.net/2g3q

I tried to get this kind of noise the other day using Serum. I got closest to it with a type of noise called "AirCan5" or "CymLoop" in combination with a HP filter 12db/oct with resonance, tried to pitch it up, tried some EQing... still not REALLY the sound!

Then I tried to search for special noise plugins or tutorials on noise online - no luck!
The second example is the background noise in the aaah sound from Binary Finary - the last thing that has remained a mystery while we were trying to recreate that sound. Here's that good old classic once again for your reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IVONhSEY0

Hear it best if you skip to around 1:05 min.

Noise in trance songs seems more difficult to reconstruct than the lead or pad sounds which came as a real surprise to me. There's obviously not just white and pink noise but it seems to be a complete topic of its own.
Last edited by juno987654321 on Sat May 08, 2021 9:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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I love the Bass in this and would love create this!

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I also love this pad stabs in binary finary and would love to recreate it..
One of the most epic rave songs of the time!

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We have such a similar taste in music Surreal! Good news: there may be a project on this Snap song coming up though this is not certain yet.

The bass sound is something I also found quite interesting in this song. I found 2 approaches to recreate it but I'm not yet sure which one is better. It's all still in the developing phase:
1. two heavily lowpassed saws on different octaves + some EQ (?). The 2nd harmonic is higher than usual. The easiest and most practical way would just be to set the osc2 one octave above and make its volume fit to highten the 2nd harmonic of the osc1 a bit.
I've set the LP24 cutoff to 173 HZ now and put some resonance on it for my patch 1...
2. two analogue sine waves with one being an octave above the other + maybe some sineshaping. This will sound somewhat darker, though look similar...
There's something special and mysterious about this bass. You can see in the spectrum analyser that the bass is not just a usual saw but the harmonics are pretty much the same as in a saw so it is definately based on something "sawish" as a starting point. And then there's some dynamic variation in it, too, I think. It varies in loudness over time...

You saw the thread on the "aaah" sound for Finary Binary, didn't you?

Anyways, I think the noise will be the most difficult part to all of this!
I'll try to work on that noise myself some further but I'm not sure if I will get that exact sound. I got some nice approximation already. Next I'll try to distort the noise a bit with the bitcrusher effects they used a lot back then but I'd still be happy for more suggestions on this very particular topic.

Where are all those DJs or producers nowadays? Don't they ever have a look at kvraudio in between things and join the community of young musicians giving them some tips any more?
Does anyone have any time for anything any more?...
Last edited by juno987654321 on Sat May 08, 2021 9:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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Snap is some heavy filtered hihat loop used a a riser, I suppose. Binary is hit a note and sweep a knob quickly, stuff like that. Wow I haven't heard Eternity for a long time.

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excuse me please wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:09 am Snap is some heavy filtered hihat loop used a a riser, I suppose.
You mean pitched up hihats? I don't know. Which ones? I tried that with some samples from drum machines but then it sounds more like Trap hihat sounds - much much different!
This here sounds more like a special type of noise if you listen very closely.
Hihats are more plucky, more stingy, more metallic and less sustained, even if you put reverb on them... I think this is more like noise but if you can show me how to change hihats into these sounds I'd be surpirised. Sometimes with the old 808s they also used noise to make hihat sounds, but then still noise would be the proper basis to start with.

I'll have to find the original sample sound they used. Maybe someone knows about the original sample noise sounds that you can hear?
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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open hats are often more sustained and full of noise than closed.

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@juno

I only listened to it one time. When I pauze the vid, jump back in it and push the play button again, I jump down to here at 'Quick Reply.'
However, I am into Eurodance as well, later on I will study the tracks more in depth. My tab speaker is not exactly fit for that :)

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The riser could still be an element to it: I now figured out what you mean by that. You mean that something like a bandpass filter maybe also opens up quickly on the special type of noise.

I have sampled the noise only. Don't listen to the sounds in the video. You can download the sample here and listen to the noise more clearly:
https://sndup.net/2g3q
Last edited by juno987654321 on Sat May 08, 2021 9:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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vurt wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:00 pm open hats are often more sustained and full of noise than closed.
True, but open hats to me also don't sound like in the sample. Have you listened to it?
I don't know if hihats are a good starting point to get this kind of noise.
Don't hihats sound much different from what you can hear in the above sample?
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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juno987654321 wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:46 pm
vurt wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 12:00 pm open hats are often more sustained and full of noise than closed.
True, but open hats to me also don't sound like in the sample. Have you listened to it?
I don't know if hihats are a good starting point to get this kind of noise.
Don't hihats sound much different from what you can hear in the above sample?
im only on my phone at the minute, so can't really hear anything id base an analysis on sorry.

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the cleaned up sample, does just sound like clicky hats though.
maybe a ride cymbal bell or itched up.
and some sort of resonance in the filtering.

as i say, on the phone, so there's probably additional highs at my end.

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Yes, on the phone it will sound like that. I only believe what I see or hear if it's actually been reconstructed and if it can be compared to the original, though. That's what I've been trying for some days now...
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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juno987654321 wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 8:46 am We have such a similar taste in music Surreal! Good news: there may be a project on this Snap song coming up though this is not certain yet.

The bass sound is something I also found quite interesting in this song. I found 2 approaches to recreate it but I'm not yet sure which one is better. It's all still in the developing phase:
1. two heavily lowpassed saws on different octaves + some EQ (?). The 2nd harmonic is higher than usual. The easiest and most practical way would just be to set the osc2 one octave above and make its volume fit to highten the 2nd harmonic of the osc1 a bit.
I've set the LP24 cutoff to 173 HZ now and put some resonance on it for my patch 1...
2. two analogue sine waves with one being an octave above the other + maybe some sineshaping. This will sound somewhat darker, though look similar...
There's something special and mysterious about this bass. You can see in the spectrum analyser that the bass is not just a usual saw but the harmonics are pretty much the same as in a saw so it is definately based on something "sawish" as a starting point. And then there's some dynamic variation in it, too, I think. It varies in loudness over time...

You saw the thread on the "aaah" sound for Finary Binary, didn't you?

Anyways, I think the noise will be the most difficult part to all of this!
I'll try to work on that noise myself some further but I'm not sure if I will get that exact sound. I got some nice approximation already. Next I'll try to distort the noise a bit with the bitcrusher effects they used a lot back then but I'd still be happy for more suggestions on this very particular topic.

Where are all those DJs or producers nowadays? Don't they ever have a look at kvraudio in between things and join the community of young musicians giving them some tips any more?
Does anyone have any time for anything any more?...
I just found the Binary Aah Thread, a very intresting read! There is so much of that Trance era music that I enjoyed and the earlier Rave Scene.. I also DJ and have done many trance an techno rave events in that time (I was and still proudly am a drug free DJ-Producer eventhough I enjoyed DJing the music I never got suckered into the drug cult of that scene)

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That's right Surreal!
I might still find my way into music as well one day as I get more and more into that. Just like you I prefer to keep my head free and live life without taking any "painkillers" that make you forget like so many others. I prefer to experience things very consciously and I've seen people who were really f'ed up after taking all kinds of drugs.
I would often have had the chance to take some but I never wanted to.
But apart from that there would have been a lot to discover otherwise. I often feel like I just wasted a lot of time studying (which never "paid out") missing out on life and being distracted from a lot of what I've always liked most, but it's the conditions around you that shape your life. You're only partly to be blamed as an individual if you're being conditioned like everybody else is and you only gradually start to see through all of this. If I had been born into a family that does music, things would have been completely different. Fortunately, it's just never too late to go new ways and learn from your past life experience. If we've at least reached some critical amount of freedom in our minds, noone could ever take that from us any more...
C'mon, there must be something that you do in your life besides sleeping or working? And then for the first time he was really thinking and what did he reply: I watch TV!

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