Modernizing the famous Roland Pizzicato

[DJErmac]

Hello,

There’s something I’ve been trying to do for ages. I loved this famous, famous Roland XP/JV series pizz sound. And for creative purposes, I’d like to use this pizz, but not this pizz. A new one. Only one that mimics it, the way I’d love. So I need to start from the right one, and then slightly modify it.

Do you know a synth that succesfully recreated this sound using synthesis in a preset ? Do you think there’s a way to create a near 1:1 "emulation" ?

Lots of synths have "Faithless" or "Insomnia" presets, but they’re nowhere near the original pizz sample, that uses a real pizz layer + a harp one.

Of course in the end if it’s sample-based there’s no way to modify it in any really useful way. Granular or resynthesis could work, but I never got anything really convincing. I got the original pizz sounding weird.

Sound example of the original pizz :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QEPNVMfThg8
(hearable alone from 0’42... yes, even if you don’t know the name, you’ve heard this sound somewhere, it was EVERYWHERE and is still used sometimes)

If there’s nothing to do with synthesis, I’ll go layering...

[juno987654321]

Same here:
I posted a thread on this about a month ago.
I would just love to learn how to reconstruct this sound on a synth.
The sound is called "real pizz" - a layered sound consisting of 2 layers in the original version but it might also be possible to merge the layers into one on a synth.
Just sampling the sound won't help if you want to simply learn/know how it was created in the first place and how it could be recreated on a synth.

Here is, however, a good starting point to recreate this sound which I found out myself and I'm almost sure that this will be one possible way that may successfully lead to the sound:
use a pulse wave with a width of exactly 75 %, 3 voices of unison, a plucky amp envelope and put a LP18 on it. Use another, even shorter plucky envelope to then move this filter from higher to lower. Use your ear to determine the exact cutoff values and the modulation amount.
I also used a compressor and I gave the filter some drive and this altogether led me to the bulk of the tonal sound itself which I call the body of the sound,

...BUT the impulsive beginning (I call it the onset) will still remain very difficult to be shaped and, unfortunately, it is very characteristic of this sound. It is probably some percussive sound that needs to be added. I'm not sure yet. You already mentioned a harp (?) but it could also be something else.

Also, there may be a second osc necessary to shape the tonal body further. My guess is that there is a second pulse wave involved there, too, probably as a sub, one octave lower. I already got very good results when I tried that. The sub bass may have to be modulated in some ways, too. Now, there may even be a third osc necessary. I wouldn't be surprised...

I won't send what I have yet because it's still in the process and I would like to see what others may suggest first or what they can do with this information. Otherwise I might influence them too much and keep them from getting even better results. Maybe I took a wrong way at some point that others could avoid if they tried the fine tunings for themselves...

Let me know if - e. g. based on this information - you can find out something more. I'd be happy to know what other ideas you have for shaping this sound. It is definately a complex sound that consists of many aspects which need to come together but this may be a good starting point. I encourage everybody to try this at home.

[DJErmac]

You already mentioned a harp (?) but it could also be something else.

I have a XP-80. It IS a harp as a second layer.

[DJErmac]

Well, to start from, the original sound is a multisampled pizzicato + harp patch. I can edit it from my Roland XP-80. So it was NOT made using synthesis. For sure.
But can we ?

[DJErmac]

I know a very bad song that uses a (to my hear) copy of the pizz.
This one (right from the beginning) :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NcKAdFENqig
To me it’s not the original patch from Roland (the attack is much faster and doesn’t have this allpass filter sweeping sound) and it sounds damn close though.

And I’ve read that a hardware synth made a copy also (Novation ? don’t remember and never heard it...).

So it seems doable...

[bmanic]

Same here:
I posted a thread on this about a month ago.
I would just love to learn how to reconstruct this sound on a synth.
The sound is called "real pizz" - a layered sound consisting of 2 layers in the original version but it might also be possible to merge the layers into one on a synth.
Just sampling the sound won't help if you want to simply learn/know how it was created in the first place and how it could be recreated on a synth.

You are way over thinking it. That pizz sound isn't synthesized. It's a recording of a real string orchestra doing a pizzicato sound.

What makes it slightly synthetic feeling is the way the sample is cut very short and drenched in various effects on the different roland synthesizers (and with perhaps some filter modulation as well to emphasize the attack and give it some extra velocity sensitivity). I suspect it first appeared in the JV-800 series of synths and then later was used in 1080/2080 etc.

My point is: Don't try to recreate it with pure synthesis. You won't get anywhere near it. Though you may get some interesting synth takes on it though, so it's not wasted time.

[bmanic]

Pretty sure this song was the one that made the Pizzicato sound go mainstream back in 1995. They even insisted that it wasn't the roland pizz sound but something they "created themselves" but then later admitted it was just the roland pizz sound going ham through some external compression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8JEm4d6Wu4

The pizzicato sound appears first at 2:16.

[vurt]

You already mentioned a harp (?) but it could also be something else.

I have a XP-80. It IS a harp as a second layer.

use that and do some modern processing on it

[BertKoor]

It's a bit older than you think. Orinoco Flow by Enya is from 1988, they used a D-50 (1987) with preset 44 named pizzagogo.

http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/roland_d-50/ ... mples.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTrk4X9ACtw

[SeBaer]

It's a bit older than you think. Orinoco Flow by Enya is from 1988, they used a D-50 (1987) with preset 44 named pizzagogo.

But that's not that iconic sound, is it? At least it's not as heavily processed. But I also think, Faithless used it as the foundation for their sound. I imagine remembering, that the MC-505 had that Faithless-pizzicato sound as a preset.
Two years ago, I tried to give it a spin in Vital. No samples, just synthesis and a crap-ton of reverb. At that time, I thought it at least halfway convincing.

[DJErmac]

Well, yes, this sound has a long story.
First the Pizzagogo prototype from the D50, some say.
Then the JD800/900 final version, named Real Pizz I believe.
Then the XP50-80/JV1080/2080 same patch, named Bass Pizz.
You’re right SeBaer, it’s in the MC-505 for sure, I used one once. It’s not the original XP/JV exact patch.

The base preset on any Roland synth is waaaaaay more muffled than the sound you hear everywhere. It needs a lot of editing to make it sound as brilliant.

Indeed, Faithless made the song who popularized the sound and launched the overuse. They sued Sash! for using it if I remember well (and lost). And you can already find the sound in several songs way before "Insomnia", I remember a Emmanuel Top song for example.

[DJErmac]

You already mentioned a harp (?) but it could also be something else.

I have a XP-80. It IS a harp as a second layer.

use that and do some modern processing on it

Well, the problem is this. Every single artist who used this sound (and they were f*ck*#g millions) used a heavily processed home-made version of the patch.
If you pay attention, it never sounds exactly the same.
The reason is that the original patch is very bassy, without any high frequency content.
People are now used to hearing tons of different versions coming from the same base patch.
So if I’m trying to do the same, won’t I end with exactly like any other try that’s been made before ? Just another new version and nobody even notices it’s different ?...

In the end I’m looking for a way to reconstruct it, may it be layer per layer or frequency spectrum per frequency spectrum, so I can make a significative change that makes it NOT the same sound but it closely reminds you of it.

[BertKoor]

Hire a small violin ensemble and record your own samples?

[juno987654321]

It's a recording of a real string orchestra doing a pizzicato sound.

I think this is actually very possible but do you have further proof that it is or is it just a guess? You know that sometimes the companies call something a harp or a string pizz sound regardless of how it was made - i. e. originating either from real instruments or having been synthesized. Some of the samples in the Roland or other machines must have been synthesized, others clearly weren't and with some you never know, maybe a mixture of both... If you have further details on the origin of this sound I would be interested to know what instruments and how many made up the orchestra.

My point is: Don't try to recreate it with pure synthesis. You won't get anywhere near it. Though you may get some interesting synth takes on it though, so it's not wasted time.

Yes, but I challenge the "You won't get anywhere near it." because I think I already got somewhere near it though I'm still in the process. I'd like people to join in so we could compare results and approaches in the end. Harp sounds could also be synthesized, e. g. Of course, if it's an orchstral sound, then some of the real fine nuances of the real instruments will almost by necessity be lost but that should be OK. The sound could be approached better than one would think at first.
The challenge is to try and see if you can and I'll see how far I can get with this, too.
It's a sound designing challenge.

The sound from the song Insomnia is something quite different in my opinion. This sound is so much drenched in reverb that almost any sound could lead to the overall "Insomnia sound" if you just were to put the right reverb on whatever sound you were to start out with. You probably wouldn't need to start out with the real pizz sound to get this Insomnia sound, even though the group Faithless or rather "sister Bliss" did start out with it...

[juno987654321]

DJErmac, just keep going. I think your goal is pretty cool. You may also use the suggestions I tried to give you and keep working on what you already got. Sample as little as possible. We could compare results later, hopefully with a couple of more attempts from others, too. Our patchmaster will join in later, too, and add yet a further approach, as I expect. Anyways, there's not the ONE approach to a complex sound like that.