Haddaway - What is Love Intro Synth

[Joao275]

Hi, i'm making a cover of Haddaway's "What is Love" and i need some help trying to recreate that synth sound from the intro and chorus. I think there is some flanger in it but i'm not getting right the waveforms, envelopes and filter.

[astralprojection]

its a multi-saw, with a Comb filter. (or similar filter like formant or phaser type)
but its also highpassed to not have any low end. id say the HP comes first then the comb filter. and ofc with a bit of resonance then filter cutoff tweakage.
good synths to make it in would be Alchemy, it has a bunch of different comb filter types; sounds awesome theres a patch in there already sounding very similar. You could probably also get away with Serum or Vital.
Envelope sounds like your basic full sustain no release; with no special filter envelopes either. And just a LFO attached to the filter cutoff. And its 100% a multi-saw (several saw waves in unison aka supersaw; but not alot of detune)
its also in mono.

[Joao275]

its a multi-saw, with a Comb filter. (or similar filter like formant or phaser type)
but its also highpassed to not have any low end. id say the HP comes first then the comb filter. and ofc with a bit of resonance then filter cutoff tweakage.
good synths to make it in would be Alchemy, it has a bunch of different comb filter types; sounds awesome theres a patch in there already sounding very similar. You could probably also get away with Serum or Vital.
Envelope sounds like your basic full sustain no release; with no special filter envelopes either. And just a LFO attached to the filter cutoff. And its 100% a multi-saw (several saw waves in unison aka supersaw; but not alot of detune)
its also in mono.

thanks a lot! I'll try that and let you know the result and ask for some more help if needed.

[astralprojection]

heres an example of the alchemy preset that i thought sounded pretty close.
but you can get a better sound dialing it in yourself. the HP and comb filters are the key here.
http://sndup.net/gsj5

[Rastkovic]

Hi, i'm making a cover of Haddaway's "What is Love" and i need some help trying to recreate that synth sound from the intro and chorus. I think there is some flanger in it but i'm not getting right the waveforms, envelopes and filter.

It could be simply a pulse wave oscillator, with slow pulse width modulation (aka PWM)....

[CHOOS]

Using a phaser just didn't seem right so just moving the pulse seemed to do the trick.

https://rumble.com/vrd23n-haddaway-what ... synth.html

Midi+Preset

LD - What Is Love.zip

[Joao275]

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Using a phaser just didn't seem right so just moving the pulse seemed to do the trick.

https://rumble.com/vrd23n-haddaway-what ... synth.html (https://rumble.com/vrd23n-haddaway-what-is-love-synth.html)

Midi+Preset
LD - What Is Love.zip

That sounds so well and very accurate. My synth is a Korg Kronos. i'll try to use the same parameters you did and see if i can get there. Thanks a lot

[EvilDragon]

No comb filters, it's just PWM. Nick Batt approves.

[andymcbain]

Agree with all the PWM suggestions above - I'm sure comb filters existed in 1993 but I don't think it's as fancy as that I thought it could be the classic PWM Saw from the old Alpha Juno or Roland MKS-50, but listening to your examples above I think it's probably just straight square wave PWM.

Here's my take on it using Serum - https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wzabjp9jrool ... w.wav?dl=0

If you have Serum, here's the patch -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9fm24pig4qwuc ... w.fxp?dl=0

Otherwise, check out an Alpha Juno emulation such as Audiorealism ReDominator.

Have fun! One of my favourite tunes of all time!

[andymcbain]

Using a phaser just didn't seem right so just moving the pulse seemed to do the trick.

https://rumble.com/vrd23n-haddaway-what ... synth.html

Midi+Preset
LD - What Is Love.zip

Nice!

[andymcbain]

delete

[astralprojection]

yeah you guys are right the osc is a pwm square, not a unison saw with a hp+comb filter. although the latter can sound very similar.

[FathomSynth]

I just stumbled into this thread and thought I'd resurrect it since I'd always wondered the same thing myself. What synth did he use? There are several iconic sounds in this track including the air chords, scratchy bass and weezy lead.

The only people who would really know are Dee Dee Halligan and Karin Hartmann Eisenblätter the German music producers who wrote the song before selecting Haddaway to sing it when he was signed to their label Coconut Records in 1993.

The track is notoriously difficult to simulate using software since the sonic complexity of the iconic chords are probably from real hardware electronics not just noise added to a soft synth. I've tried it many times myself with several different soft synths by adding noise and it just doesn't sound right. I strongly suspect they used a hardware synth for both these chords and the sharp bass, one of the most famous bass sounds of 90's eurodance.

I recently added spectral distortion to Fathom so I thought it might be a good time to take another swing at those chords to see if I could get closer to the real Haddaway sound, here's the result.

https://static.kvraudio.com/files/3302/ ... s_love.mp3

[excuse me please]

Not bad, but I think it's a softer sound. Going to listen now.

[excuse me please]

PS Sound is too high and it's more like a plucky sound with a gentle attack. Some filter movements going on, think that causes the "phaser" sound.