Van Gelis Sound.

[brok landers]

Thanks Yah the strings are CS-80

?? don't fool me!


these strings (the backing-pad i mean) sound pretty much like a stringmachine (vp330 or such)... is this really the cs80 with it's own chorus?
the original cs80 couldn't modulate in the way the ensemble-chorusses these days did, that's why i ask ...

[Boulotaur2024]

Yea, 'listening to the track again and I'm amazed at how brillantly they're reproduced. I was asking myself the same question you did Brok. They just might lack a bit of modulation/chorus to perfectly match the original sound, but buried in the mix it sounds very convincing. Filtering and EQing are perfect anyway (for these strings).

Good job anyway (and I may be totally wrong about drums placement, looks like I'm getting used to the song eventually).

edit : it's about time some developer considered about a vp-330 emulation (Eiosis ELS Vocoder maybe ?)

[payt69]

Thanks Yah the strings are CS-80

?? don't fool me!


these strings (the backing-pad i mean) sound pretty much like a stringmachine (vp330 or such)... is this really the cs80 with it's own chorus?
the original cs80 couldn't modulate in the way the ensemble-chorusses these days did, that's why i ask ...

Sadly, i don't have a VP330, even though i did find a plug that should be up to the task of emulating them pretty closely (http://www.algomusic.net/freeware.html -> stringsynth).

As for the CS80v strings, i did use some EQ and IR reverb, but i forgot the details since it's been almost 2 years since i made the track.

[payt69]

btw here's another tune with some CS-80 strings and stuff in it. The mix isn't optimal, but hey, we're all learning eh?

http://moonbase69.nl/mp3/Mischievous.mp3

[Boulotaur2024]

Seriously dude I like your music, nice melody in this one, great structure, and lots of care to details. I like the mood. Very clever chord change at 1:12. Good use of minor/major chords. You definitely have a good sense of melody.

Yea you may need to apply more panning and dynamic to the mix but I'm no expert in that area. Sounds great anyway I think I'll keep it on my desktop for a while.

[payt69]

Thanks a lot Boulotaur, my ego loves you

panning and dynamics and the way sounds sit in a mix have been a challenge to me for the longest time, and they still are occasionally, even though things seem to get better. I've never had any training, so i just have to trust my ears.. lol.

Personally, i think this tune is going in the right direction as far as the general layout of the sounds is concerned:

http://moonbase69.nl/mp3/FireFly%20RoseMarie.mp3

And this is one of my latest efforts, which needs vocals or something (any singers/lyricists in the house?). As it is now, it's just a backingtrack of sorts.

http://moonbase69.nl/mp3/Super%20Symmetry.mp3

[musicman]

can someone advise of a vst which has the ability to be close to the vp330 strings that vangelis used in his awesome Blade runner and other music.

I have the arturia cs80v vst and the blade runner lead patch that someone made and its bloody good !

heres a quick 5 minute test using the lead patch along with some synth1 strings,

http://www.box.net/shared/qayr1cz6t1

All thats missing now is the lush roland vp330 strings and ive yet to find anything thats close to that sound.

Can anyone recommend?

[brok landers]

i'd be interrested in that vsti as well ... there are some that can "somehow" sound like a stringmachine (i.e. hypersonic 2), but none of them can really nail the vp330 ...
for that i use samples, there is a sampling cd called "xxlarge stringmachines", there's a nice vp330 string in it ...

[omissis]

it's not about the synth strings themselves, they sound quite thin: low register saw is clipped in the positive phase while upper register has a regular saw; what to care for is the ensemble section: 4 delay lines, each one with its own modulator; each delay line grabs a clean signal and a counter-phase signal so the sound is widened.

[Sequent]

Yes, that's the thing that most people always forget when working with virtual synths... how the real ones were dealt with in the past. Which was to sometimes add all sorts of delays, choruses, etc. - whatever may have been necessary to help create the sound.

Nowadays of course, synths tend to have effects built in. But they are not necessarily always as flexible and lively as what may have been used at the time.

So, just saying... don't forget the effects (whether built in or whatever you use) as sometimes a part of the equation.

it's not about the synth strings themselves, they sound quite thin: low register saw is clipped in the positive phase while upper register has a regular saw; what to care for is the ensemble section: 4 delay lines, each one with its own modulator; each delay line grabs a clean signal and a counter-phase signal so the sound is widened.

[Boulotaur2024]

it's not about the synth strings themselves, they sound quite thin: low register saw is clipped in the positive phase while upper register has a regular saw; what to care for is the ensemble section: 4 delay lines, each one with its own modulator; each delay line grabs a clean signal and a counter-phase signal so the sound is widened.

I remember you already explained that to me omissis in that thread, but I still haven't found a VST that would "counter-phase" the signal in realtime, as you say.

I remember you said you had perfecty nailed a synth architecture in SE, don't remember which one though... Was it vp330 ?

If not, i'm pretty sure you could easily build a plug following the architecture you roughly explained here. Don't you think so ?

Please

[Howard]

I still haven't found a VST that would "counter-phase" the signal in realtime, as you say.

Ahem... Zebra2

[brok landers]

Yes, that's the thing that most people always forget when working with virtual synths... how the real ones were dealt with in the past. Which was to sometimes add all sorts of delays, choruses, etc. - whatever may have been necessary to help create the sound.
Nowadays of course, synths tend to have effects built in.

the vp330 had that effect buildt in, and not only that:
it had it buildt in for each voice seperately, that's why there were never phase-problems when grabing octaves ...
in case of vangelis:
whenever he used the vp330 strings, all he did was:
he eq'ed it, to make it fit into the song, and he used a _lot_ of modulated reverb on it (L224) ... no further tweakment mostly ...

it's not about the synth strings themselves, they sound quite thin: low register saw is clipped in the positive phase while upper register has a regular saw; what to care for is the ensemble section: 4 delay lines, each one with its own modulator; each delay line grabs a clean signal and a counter-phase signal so the sound is widened.

correct.
all of the old stringmachines had quite a similar ensemble-aproach buildt in, more or less ... sometimes 3 lfo's (solina, eminent 310u) or even 6 (iirc rs202) ...
but all of them were heavily tweaked to achieve this unnatural, lush, fast modulation ...

[brok landers]

I still haven't found a VST that would "counter-phase" the signal in realtime, as you say.

Ahem... Zebra2

howard, i'll try to nail a stringmachine sound in zebra, be sure .. i'll let you know if it works then ...
or did you already?
if so, lemme hear a short mp3 snipet, i'm very interrested how close you got!

[omissis]

it's not about the synth strings themselves, they sound quite thin: low register saw is clipped in the positive phase while upper register has a regular saw; what to care for is the ensemble section: 4 delay lines, each one with its own modulator; each delay line grabs a clean signal and a counter-phase signal so the sound is widened.

I remember you already explained that to me omissis in that thread, but I still haven't found a VST that would "counter-phase" the signal in realtime, as you say.

I remember you said you had perfecty nailed a synth architecture in SE, don't remember which one though... Was it vp330 ?

If not, i'm pretty sure you could easily build a plug following the architecture you roughly explained here. Don't you think so ?

Please

It's not that I couldn't do that, I'm still learning, anyway just using my ears led me to have a very convincing CS80 ringmodulator emulation, now I'm working on something that could replicate the chorus\tremolo. I can do that because I know each millimeter of a CS80 but know barely something about the VP330; I should know what's the delay time in each section, what's the frequency of each modulator, how to avoid aliasing or reduce it, and all in all a real VP330 sounds disappointing live playing-wise...it's a frequency divided keyboard so you can't do nothing but chords, no velocity, no aftertouch, nothing!