Modernizing the famous Roland Pizzicato

[DJErmac]

Hire a small violin ensemble and record your own samples?

I’m unable to do this in real life actually, but your idea still works in the end : I could use any sampled pizzicati ensemble and select the most close-sounding samples only. The original patch is far from being a note-per-note multisample. So I could indeed try to recreate the whole process, then by adding a harp layer.

Thanks a lot for this idea !

[bmanic]

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.

I guess you don't have much experience with orchestras? I'm 100% sure it's a real recorded sounded because I've recorded many orchestras in my life and that is exactly how a bunch of violins, violas and cellos doing a unison pizzicato sounds. Just record, chop a few parts, do a round robin, polish and compress. Done.

.. oh and I have a Roland XP-50 and a JP-2080 at the studio. I know those samples quite well as I've done quite a few of my own sounds using them. There's nothing synthetic about the samples at all.

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...

I disagree. I guess it all depends on your critical listening skills and how you define "close". Synthesizing a proper pizzicato sound is no walk in the park. You could get somewhat close possibly by analyzing a sample with some additive synthesis and manipulating that but doing it from scratch using just basic subtractive synthesis will not get you all that close, even if drenched in reverb. Even with something like Vital with wavetables, it'll be difficult without taking an actual recording and making a wavetable from that.

But hey, I'm looking forward to being proven wrong.

[juno987654321]

The aim: designing and shaping a sound so that it comes as close to the natural sound as is possible if you consider the means that subtractive synthesis provides you with. This to me is an art that needs some skills. Recording a sample, on the other hand, does not have much to do with sound design. Coming close to a targeted sound to me is always seen from this perspective. I never have the aim of merely imitating a real instrument sound. I can't compete with the real instruments and it would be absurd at times (depending on how complex the targeted sound is). That's what samples are best for but it's not interesting to me. Wavetables are almost samples so those belong to the same category as samples. The art, to me, lies in the ability of reducing complex sounds to more basic sounds and sound modulations that underlie the bulk of the targeted sound. For the fine tuning you need skills and ideas that will partly just come with experience. Some of the nuances will have to be sacrificed. How many: that depends on how high you set your aim but you must stay realistic so that a synthesizer could still DO IT. Otherwise you'll end up with a penchant against synthesizing sounds in general or in wide fields and then you won't learn how to synthesize sounds if you think it's not worth it or not powerful enough. If we open our minds to approaching sounds as closely as possible with the means of subtractive synthesis we can in the long run understand and shape sounds better and in a long process become more and more able to create our own sounds. Of course, this can be hard work and also difficult but it's something that the OP is aiming at and I sympathize with this completely. The real aim is to always try and do the best you can. This does not only apply to sound design but it's true for many things in life. It's a kind of mindset for those who want to stay young in their minds... --->

[BertKoor]

Your chances of succeeding for this sound are higher if you try FM instead of subtractive. It's still synthesys

[DJErmac]

Your chances of succeeding for this sound are higher if you try FM instead of subtractive. It's still synthesys

As far as I’m concerned, FM is the synthesis I know best.
FM7 was my first synth.
Thanks for your suggestion.

[vurt]

Your chances of succeeding for this sound are higher if you try FM instead of subtractive. It's still synthesys

As far as I’m concerned, FM is the synthesis I know best.
FM7 was my first synth.
Thanks for your suggestion.

samples will get you even closer

that aside, re the xp thing you have, can you not change the layers? ie take the pizz as is and change the harp for a piano (just an example)?
see if you can find anything in the machine itself first?

or when you say modernising, are you meaning bring it to a computer?
or is it more of a modernising the sound, not the technique or tech?
consider me interested.
also, i know you are head of something at sony, or something there anyway. after your unfounded complaint about me, you owe me big!!!
can you get me a part in the next spiderman.
doesnt have to be an avenger, ill gladly take villain

[juno987654321]

Your chances of succeeding for this sound are higher if you try FM instead of subtractive. It's still synthesys

As far as I’m concerned, FM is the synthesis I know best.
FM7 was my first synth.
Thanks for your suggestion.

Did you just say the FM word?

If you manage to create something of this kind, please do me one favor and explain step by step what the operators do and what their functions are or I already fear that I won't understand much of anything.

(image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/billrice/6714184009)

[DJErmac]

samples will get you even closer

that aside, re the xp thing you have, can you not change the layers? ie take the pizz as is and change the harp for a piano (just an example)?
see if you can find anything in the machine itself first?

or when you say modernising, are you meaning bring it to a computer?
or is it more of a modernising the sound, not the technique or tech?
consider me interested.
also, i know you are head of something at sony, or something there anyway. after your unfounded complaint about me, you owe me big!!!
can you get me a part in the next spiderman.
doesnt have to be an avenger, ill gladly take villain

No, this isn't the exact story. My music is signed to Sony BMG, that's all, nothing more. Sorry for Spiderman...

I'll try the samples edition anyway. I wanted to try to re-synthesize everything first to give a new feeling. But thanks !

[DJErmac]

OK, I got something. I tried using MeldaPowersynth for a couple of hours and got this. I'm pretty happy with it. I will work on it again. I could do much better using the noise osc for the attack.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ntLaFW ... share_link

Two oscillators. One is almost useless, only here as a sub.
No external processing. Pure synthesis, no wavetable used, only playing with harmonics from scratch.
FX in MPS : chorus, delay, reverb / comp, eq.

[DJErmac]

Even better with 3 instances of MPowersynth...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fN5Qz7 ... share_link

There are details I don't like at all, I'll work on it later.

[juno987654321]

Two oscillators. One is almost useless, only here as a sub.
No external processing. Pure synthesis, no wavetable used, only playing with harmonics from scratch.
FX in MPS : chorus, delay, reverb / comp, eq.

It already sounds good for the Insomnia sound.
Could you later send over something really informative / details (e. g. screenshots) about the waveshapes and the settings you tried, then?

Anyways, what we can hear there is the Insomnia sound rather than the raw pizzicato sound itself. Thought you were aiming at recreating the original pizzicato sound?

[N 4 LIFE]

I sprung for Roland cloud where there are many instances of that sound and all of them can be edited. you can then layer multiple instances on additional tracks and eq them until you get what you are looking for.