List of your favourite sounds/presets (give examples)

[juno987654321]

Choos, where are you?

[juno987654321]

I can't listen to anything but Münchener Freiheit any more. I've been listening to them for days now. I think I'm in love.
Let's go Choos: I brought you one of the best German bands of all times! They could sing! They could play real instruments! They could arrange music and compose! They could make synthy sounds on top! They could work together as a band for decades and stay together! They could... (Am I done yet?)

[CHOOS]

I'l have a look tomorrow bud
Didn't see your post till now

[juno987654321]

Be careful. If you listen to Münchener Freiheit you might become addicted. Michael Jackson and Elvis are nothing compared to the good old 80ies German super stars!

... D'oh!

[juno987654321]

The lead saw that starts at 21 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnT58cIJSpw

This is something I already managed to recreate in Serum today. I'm content with the sound I reached at but really not with the way in which I reached at it. My patch is probably not the most straightforward one so when I finally got the sound I thought: hmmn, distortion, a 2nd filter AND EQing in the FX section (besides reverb). I wonder if Choos would have done it in a more straightforward way?

I'd like to compare with how you would create this one. It's good practice to me.

******
What about the other sound from my favorite German band above? Is it a difficult one?
It's not just a usual saw they used here, is it? You wanted to have a look at it today.

[CHOOS]

So Heiß Chords sound
https://vimeo.com/567718885
I would even narrow the detune a bit more and shorten the attack of envelope 2 to get that vibrato effect a little sooner
The preset

LD - Old School Chords.zip

[CHOOS]

Corona - The Rhythm of the Night ARP
I ramble on a bit in the video
https://vimeo.com/567808231

[juno987654321]

Thanks! You chose chorus instead of unison for the last one. I never apply chorus because it sounds so crappy in Serum. The chorus in Serum is the one thing that's completely useless in my opinion. I'll try this with external plugin effects. I'm sure they used chorus a lot back then and I wasn't sure about the 4 narrow voices of unison I took.
The fine tuning is overall a bit difficult on this one. That's what caused me some issues, too. It's really helpful to be able to compare with your version so I can tweak it some more!

[CHOOS]

A good trick is to use 2 oscillators and use unison & detune on one of them but lower the volume so that it acts as the chorus.

TAL chorus and Blue Cat are pretty good.

A handy trick is if it's possible to use wet only (Blue Cat) to use it as a send and then you can eq out some of the highs where the transients are because that's what makes chorus sound bad a lot of the time, where you hear a quick delay type of sound of the attack of the instrument

[bluesawsq]

So Heiß Chords sound
https://vimeo.com/567718885
I would even narrow the detune a bit more and shorten the attack of envelope 2 to get that vibrato effect a little sooner
The preset
LD - Old School Chords.zip

Your Vital preset is a good starting point but the brass character is missing.
The original So Heiß brass lead sounds like it could be from Yamaha DX7, maybe DX7 IID with two layers panned left and right.
Here is the sound recreated in FM8:
https://soundcloud.com/user-533108332-4 ... rds-in-fm8
For chorus effect I used NI Choral in Dimension mode, and there is a bit of reverb from NI RC 48.

[CHOOS]

I agree it's a bit less brassy in Vital. I think the FM8 goes a hint too far in the sharp brass direction.
Did you make it with saws?
I think if a pulse was used perhaps with some finetuning it could get pretty close

[bluesawsq]

I agree it's a bit less brassy in Vital. I think the FM8 goes a hint too far in the sharp brass direction.
Did you make it with saws?
I think if a pulse was used perhaps with some finetuning it could get pretty close

Yes, the FM8 version could be a bit too sharp/bright. Could be finetuned easily by lowering the modulating operator levels, or by EQing. However, the brass sound is mixed at relatively low volume, kind of in the background. So, it needs to be quite bright to make it still cut through in the mix. When the brass chord part is played solo, at higher volume, it will sound brighter than in the mix.

The FM8 patch was based on a 'BRASS 2' preset from a DX7ii sysex bank by Hedge 777.
A link to download can be found in his Youtube video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ91cUM6PZo
I made only some minor tweak to that 'Brass 2' preset. I think you should be able to import the sysex bank also to Dexed.
It's a traditional FM patch using only sine operators without any filters. However, with the FM algorithm doing all the phase modulations, the resulting waveform is quite close to saw, in the sustain part. The attack part is more like a sine. The resulting waveform is also changing shape with different velocities.

[juno987654321]

This guy is taking us to another dimension again! The realm of FM!
When I tried this sound in the first place I intuitively used some FM in Serum, too, but I wasn't sure. There was something metallic in the sound I thought.

Now I tried the following to make the patch in subtractive synths more brassy:
- LP 18 filter (with res 13) opens from 1,2K to almost fully up in 80 ms (added a brassy wah effect)
- I FM modulated the saw with a medium pulse that has some unison, in Serum around 40-50 % FM modulation (to get brassy higher harmonics)

??? Could that be the right direction? If you try the same does it sound right or would you choose different settings? ???

[juno987654321]

...

OK, so I made a patch in Serum now as well and I tried my best to make it sound like the sound in the song. What's your verdict? Can it be improved? How?

[juno987654321]

Choos and Blue Saws, what's your opinion on my Serum patch?

****

I've got another sound, an impressive one, best audible at 45 sec. but actually throughout the title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v3YtaIuFqw

the "whamm / bam / tsang" sound